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Culture, Identity and Science in African Education

The Relevance of Local Cultural Resource Knowledge

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Contemporary Issues in African Sciences and Science Education

Abstract

In many ways this paper is taking an unconventional approach to understanding science and science education. The essay is about subverting ‘scientism’ as a framework for and of knowledge production. It engages science not as methodological tool, but rather, as a frame of cultural reference, a way to raise broader existential questions about self, group, culture, history and identity and how we make sense of the connections of people to their social and natural worlds. It argues that local cultural knowledge systems have embedded ways of thinking that regulate people’s everyday interactions, social relations and political actions guided by rich intellectual traditions of history, culture, polity and sociality.

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Authors
  1. George J. Sefa. Dei
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Education, Winneba, Ghana

    Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw

  2. University of Toronto, Canada

    George J. Sefa Dei

  3. University of Education, Winneba, Ghana

    Kolawole Raheem

  4. University of Education, Winneba, Ghana

    Jophus Anamuah-Mensah

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© 2012 Sense Publishers

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Dei, G.J.S. (2012). Culture, Identity and Science in African Education. In: Asabere-Ameyaw, A., Dei, G.J.S., Raheem, K., Anamuah-Mensah, J. (eds) Contemporary Issues in African Sciences and Science Education. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-702-8_9

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