Page 210 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

1 The Need for Confluence: Why a “River” Runs Through It 3

The Relevance of EcoJustice in Science and Environmental
Education

Worldwide, dominant educational models in recent years have linked economic
development to educational practices through an emphasis on standards that mar-
ginalize cultural and environmental ways of knowing. Yet, there has been a trend to
preserve cultures that has persisted in the attempt to ensure that memories survive
the legacies of colonialism and genocide. A delicate balance exists with some
indigenous cultures vulnerable in terms of their very survival and others actively
reaffirming the vitality and usefulness of their traditional ecological knowledge in
seeking solutions to contemporary societal issues. At the same time, with the
emerging green movement, there is a trend to protect the environment as individuals
and groups wrestle with such complex issues as agricultural sustainability, biodi-
versity conservation, environmental management, and intellectual property rights.
A newer trend, one which aims to protect culture and environment together, is
emerging with the interest in ecojustice in science and environmental education.
The relevance of ecojustice in science education is inextricably linked to the recog-
nition that ethics and morals have been and should always be a part of the choices
made about science education research decisions and reform agendas, both locally
and throughout the world.
In contrast to western science and its quest for universal relevance, ecojustice,
when woven together with a sense of place and indigenous environmental knowl-
edge systems, is local and highly contextualized. In both an ideological and material
sense, the confluence of these three currents provides a different way of reading the
world – one that acknowledges the responsibility humans have to nature as well as
to each other. In bringing together these three currents of thought, we are deeply
aware of the need to avoid some form of hyperconfluence leading to only one frame
of reference. It is, in fact, the diversity of ideas and the variation in research contexts
that each author in this book has to offer that makes the idea of an emerging eco-
sociocultural theory infinitely more powerful and relevant.

The Promise of Ecosociocultural Theory

Interestingly, the opening of a book that many people have read and seeing it with a
new light is exactly what happens when we read the promise of an emerging idea such
as ecosociocultural. This theory is premised on the presupposition that we cannot
separate ourselves from the larger ecosociocultural world, and we should not try
to separate schooling from the larger ecology. However, the larger ecological world
has messages writ large for us, not only interpreted but reinterpreted from our per-
spectives, and interpreted from seeing them in a new light. The idea is that as we learn
more about ourselves in relation to other human beings and the larger animal–plant–
physical world, we begin to see things again and should revisit our prior ideals.