Page 36 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

12 R.A. Martusewicz et al.

We offer a framework for thinking about science education that takes these
problems seriously. How do we accept the sacred, what is fundamentally “unknow-
able,” while we teach about the systems we care so deeply about? While the aims of
scientific investigation – validity, replicability, predictability, measurability, for
example – lead to important insights into specific phenomena, they are incomplete
ways of knowing by virtue of being embedded in a specific cultural (and thus sym-
bolic/language) system. These ways of knowing have a history linked to particular
interests and power structures that may be unrecognized by those who take them for
granted. They can thus take on a life of their own, and are clearly influencing what
we define as a strong education. In this chapter, we introduce an analytic framework
for considering the effects of some of these issues, especially for teachers entering the
field of science education. Below, we introduce the major strands of an ecojustice
framework and then move to provide examples of how K-12 teachers in a variety of
settings are beginning to use this framework in their classrooms and communities.

Introduction to the EcoJustice Framework

The first important piece of this framework entails a definition of “ecology” that
goes beyond the limited view established in the late nineteenth century that positioned
“science” as the primary framework to be used in “protecting” and managing the
environment as a separate object of study. This view or position disregards the
etymology of the word ecology, which when traced back to the Greek “oikos,”
means home or household. Thus, rather than asserting a view that positions the
environment as outside of or separate from human communities, we begin from the
understanding that all human communities are nested and participate in complex
communities of life – ecosystems – that we depend upon for our very lives. So, how
is it that we come to think and behave in ways that disregard this essential embed-
deness, and even interfere with this critical interdependence?
In this essay, we introduce three major goals of an ecojustice framework: (1) to
engage an analysis of the linguistically rooted patterns of belief and behavior in
western industrial cultures that have led to a logic of domination leading to social
violence and ecological degradation; (2) to offer an alternative way of knowing that
recognizes humans as just one part of a vast system of communication among all
life forms that creates wisdom, beauty, and the sacred; and (3) to identify and revi-
talize the existing cultural and ecological “commons” that offer ways of living more
sustainably in our own culture, as well as in diverse cultures across the world.
Emphasizing “ecology” to mean the complex network of diverse living relation-
ships creating the community within which we live, ecojustice perspectives under-
stand issues pertaining to social justice to be inseparable from and even embedded
in questions regarding ecological well-being. This perspective also recognizes the
essential relationship among biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity. As Daniel
Nettle and Suzanne Romaine (2000) point out, there still exists across the planet at
least 5,000 different languages that correspond to different cultural systems and
also to specific bioregions where they originated. Thus, there is an important