Shared Horizons
a dialogue between Indigenous and Western science
Education in Nunavut, still being largely based on EuroCanadian knowledge and
Western teachings, is a negative experience for many Nunavut youth – the result
of cultural inappropriateness. The mismatch is one between an appropriate
learning experience and the character, values, and traditions of Nunavut – and is
especially pronounced in math and science education. In addressing this
mismatch, I propose, in this paper decolonizing both practice and (myself as)
practitioner, using the movie camera’s lens, in the first instance, to lend voice to
Inuit’s youth’s perspectives on science and, in the second instance, turn the lens
inward to address my own worldview and how it impacts upon the education I
deliver.
Schooling in Nunavut is still largely based on EuroCanadian knowledge and
Western teaching, and is still largely a negative experience for Nunavut youth
communities. The locus of the problem is not one of achievement but rather one of
cultural inappropriateness (Aylward, 2007; Barnhardt and Kawagley, 2008; Battiste,
2005; Mason, 2006) – the mismatch is one between an appropriate learning experience
and the character, values, and traditions of Nunavut (Cajete, 1994; Mason, 2006; Peat,
2002). Currently, one of the most obvious mismatches is between Inuit
Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ), “all aspects of traditional Inuit culture including values, worldview, language, social organization, knowledge, life skills, perceptions and expectations”
(Nunavut Social Development Council, 1998) and science education. However, I will
argue that Western science and IQ do not have to be mutually exclusive: there are many
scientific concepts from both worldviews that resonate with one another (Peat, 2002).
Using video as an ethnographic partner (Goldmann-Segall, 1998), a language of
cultural rejuvenation (Riecken et al., 2006), the research (about to be conducted) intends
to help students find these resonant nodes. This research intends to help Inuit youth learn
to see what they already know (Tompkins, 2002) (through video exploration and
creation):Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and Western science are both valuable, yet different,
paths to knowledge that both can be walked upon, simultaneously.
Objectives
This research, in addressing the need for a science education that is meaningful,
respectful and effectively culturally responsive, aims to:
(1) Explore new means of delivering culturally responsive science curriculum that
acknowledges, respects and cherishes multiple worldviews and perspectives,
(2) Examine how Inuit youth define, document, and determine what science is as
enacted in their communities through their own video-voice,
(3) Critically analyze respectful roles that non-Indigenous educators can take in
delivering culturally responsive science curriculum.
Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Science, and how we define it, are “de facto gate-keeping device” (Coburn &
Loving, 2001, p. 52) into the “world of science”. Science education has been, and
continues to be, delivered in a one-size-fits-all manner that reflects dominant norms and
values – neglecting, erasing the values, beliefs and traditions of the other, an important
part of who they are.
To not acknowledge a student’s culture, as an educator, is to perpetuate the notion
of education as a “poison” (Weil, 1972); an education that disrespects the ways of
knowing and ways of being of a people is an education that is oppressive (Barnhardt &
Kawagley, 2008; Kanu, 2003, Meyer, 2002). This sense of oppression is especially
pronounced for Indigenous peoples (Cajete, 1986, 1999; Christie, 1991; Fleer, 1997;
Harris, 1978; Linkson, 1998; McKinley, McPherson Waiti, & Bell, 1992; Snively, 1990;
Sutherland, 1998). Practices that do not account for, or fail to recognize, the students’
culture were, and continue to be, assimilative, colonial and damaging (Battiste, 2000;
Churchill, 1999; Hodson, 1998; MacIvor, 1995; McTaggert, 1991; Roberts & Wills,
1998).
In science education, addressing this may involve defining science as “a rational
perceiving of reality” (Ogawa, 1995, p. 588), a definition which respects the notion that
there are many valid bodies of science. It is important to note that there are many ways
in which the world, reality can be perceived – and that these worldviews, and their
ontological constructions, have much to do with how we learn. As such, in order for
science education to be sensitive, respectful and responsive to the cultural needs of all
students, I suggest re-examining the ‘nature of science’ as a component of a postcolonial curriculum.
Rudolph’s (2000) Reconsidering the ‘nature of science’ as a curriculum
component proposes such a re-examination, and that this re-examination is integrated into
the curriculum to help youth see “not what science is, but what it includes” (p. 417). In
involving the youth within the process, they may become able to see, and perhaps shape,
what science can be – an intercultural dialogue.
Such a curriculum “becomes the site where educational/curricular assumptions
and norms are called into question in the struggle for more democratic social relations”
(Kanu, 2006, p. 8). As youth engage in the reconsidering of what the nature of science
could be, the curriculum might become one that is “consisting of overlays of multiple
discourses, and plural assumptions…[that addresses the] incessant dispersal of
self”(Kanu, 2003, p. 79) that the colonized, the Inuit, has known. In engaging in a crosscultural dialogue that redefines the relations, the curriculum becomes postcolonial.
The youth in Iqaluit, Nunavut, the intended location of this research, are well
situated for such an intercultural dialogue. Iqaluit is both, as Nunavut’s capital, rich in
Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, and, as research hub of the north, rich in Western scientific
knowledge. These bodies of knowledge do have a pre-existing dialogical relationship in
Iqaluit – this research aims to further facilitate this dialogue and involve the youth as
participant-observers. It is through this process that this research intends to aid the youth
in the creation of a postcolonial, intercultural, holistic scientific 'third space' (Bhabha,
1990) that respects and draws from multiple worldviews.
Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
In the aim of not perpetrating past, and present, colonial research legacies, the
research presented strives to be, first and foremost, relationally accountable by always
keeping in mind the three R’s of Indigenous research as defined by Weber-Pillwax
(1999): Respect, Reciprocity and Relationality. This research aims, well before the
“greater good”, to be for the well-being of the community in which the research is being
delivered.
The data-collection for this research is spread across two research phases. In the
first research phase (decolonizing the practice), the first two objectives, are strived for,
to:
(1) Explore new means of delivering culturally responsive science curriculum that
acknowledges, respects and cherishes multiple worldviews and perspectives,
(2) Examine how Inuit youth define, document, and determine what science is as
enacted in their communities through their own video-voice,
In this research phase, the youth participants will become videographers; during
this process, they will, through interviewing the many voices of community members that
they will record using video-cameras, and the video editing process that follows,
represent their own video-voice on the nature of science.
In the second phase of the research (decolonizing the practitioner), I strive to meet
the third objective, to:
(3) Critically analyze respectful roles that non-Indigenous educators can take in
delivering culturally responsive science curriculum.
To meet this goal, I, as primary researcher, will be critically assessing the role that
I play in this research, and how my actions, in both the context of this research and out,
are affected by my worldview, through means of a video-auto-ethnography.
Primary phase
Through video, a language of cultural rejuvenation (Riecken et al., 2006), youth
participants will interview Elders, Western scientists and other members of their
community to explore what science, its nature and implications, mean to them while
navigating through both traditional knowledge as well as Western science in order to
create a holistic, intercultural science knowledge space, where the contribution of both
worldviews is respected and acknowledged – a scientific “third space” (Bhabha, 1990).
To achieve this, youth could, for example, interview Elders to explore orally-transmitted
traditional knowledge (e.g., throat singing), and interview (Western) scientists to explore
connected Western scientific concepts (e.g., wave theory) in order to explore specific yet
culturally relevant scientific notions (e.g., sound).
Once interviews are over, the youth begin the video editing process. It is at this
point that they root through their interview footage in order to decide which parts to use,
how to chronologically lay them, and many other things – in order for the digital video
design process to represent their voice through the voice of others. “By producing media
texts themselves, students learn that there is an alternative to resisting interpellation
through mainstream media, or critical reading alone. They can appropriate the means of
production to produce new sorts of meanings” (Goldfarb, 2002, p. 69)
Secondary phase
“[Indigenous people] are the most researched people in the world” (Smith, 1999,
p.3). As such, I will, using “video as my ethnographic partner” (Goldmann-Segall,
1998), first turn the lens inwards, at myself, to create a “self-narrative that critiques the
situatedness of self with others in social contexts” (Spry, 2001, p. 710): a critical videoauto-ethnography.
Through this process of turning one’s lens inward, I will, as Lather (2007) would
say, “get lost” by adopting a “naked methodology”. This approach to research which is
grounded in not knowing, is not meant to look for the naked truth but the naked self, the
researcher who is vulnerable, human, discomforted, exposed – in order to further push the
boundaries of knowledge.
I remain cognizant of my own Eurocentric background, and the legacies it carries,
as well as the notion that “research is probably one of the dirtiest words in the
Indigenous world’s vocabulary” (Smith, 1999, p. 1, emphasis added). I search for
respectful roles that I can enact so that I may facilitate educational experiences that are
meaningful, engaging, and respectful – these are the boundaries I wish to push through
my own reflexive work as I ask (myself) questions pertaining to the following:
(1) The nature of science, what it is, what it is perceived as and what it can be,
(2) Respectful roles in the cross-cultural setting,
(3) My worldview, my sense of self (in all spheres) and how these impact the above.
Data sources, evidence, objects or materials
The primary research data will be, the videos that the Inuit youth participating
create in order to voice their perspectives on what science is, and can be. As it stands, I
am expecting roughly 4 to 6 videos, ranging in length from 5 to 15 minutes.
These videos will be partnered with video of an auto-ethnographical nature, a
video log whose goal is to address my own worldview and how it interplays with the
youth with whom I am working. This, when preformed pre, post and during research,
should result in 200-300 minutes of video-as-(self-reflexive)-data similar to free-form
field notes.
This data will be triangulated with additional audio/video footage of the following
contextual factors: local scenery, classroom environments. These are intended to further
contextualize this research, as well as increase its transparency.
Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
As I write this, the data-collection for this research has yet to be conducted.
Nonetheless, this research has been approved for ethics by both the Lakehead University
Research Ethics Board and the Nunavut Research Institute. As such, data-collection is
scheduled for late July.
Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
This research is, first and foremost, intended to be respectful, reciprocal research.
I will, through my actions, ensure that the youth participating are not only respected,
but also benefit from participation, be it the technical skills acquired in the process, the
opportunity to engage in a dialogue which concerns them but from which they are
usually excluded, or other means.
While there is an increasing body of literature around the subject of Indigenous
science education, there is very little about Inuit’s, Canada’s northern Indigenous
peoples, science education. Furthermore, within the body of Indigenous science
education, it is rare to see methods such as video-voice in us. Lastly, there is little
science education literature addressing the decolonization of the Eurocentric educators
who, unfortunately, compose the majority of science educators working with Indigenous
youth. I hope, through this research, to contribute to the literature in these areas.
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