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Chinese Teachers’ Views of Teaching Culturally Related Knowledge in School Science

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Abstract

This chapter reports a study of a group of Chinese secondary school science teachers’ views of how one should deal with Chinese Native Knowledge (CNK) in Chinese school science curricula. It begins with an introduction to the history of CNK in school science curricula and its current status, and the current cultural situation of Chinese science education more broadly. After some methodological concerns are addressed, teachers’ views of how to deal with CNK in their teaching are presented. This is followed by discussions of the interplay of teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and their pedagogical practice. It is argued that the current marginalisation of CNK in science may be at the expense of both Chinese cultural reproduction in science education and a deeper understanding about the nature of science itself. Some implications for developing pedagogical strategies for teaching pluralistic views in science classroom are also discussed, and issues of the relationships between expertise and CNK are considered.

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Correspondence to Hongming Ma .

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Ma, H. (2011). Chinese Teachers’ Views of Teaching Culturally Related Knowledge in School Science. In: Corrigan, D., Dillon, J., Gunstone, R. (eds) The Professional Knowledge Base of Science Teaching. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3927-9_9

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