Page 438 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

34 Responding to Glocalisation and Foundationalism in Science and Math 413

a eurowestern approach by using the term “glocalisation” to make it more palatable
to scholars within the academy.
Dawn, I would agree with you on your realisation of exclusion of other perspectives
in Luitel and Taylor’s ideas regarding the kind of impact a non-critical presentation
of global (really eurowestern) education has on non-eurowestern education. This
perspective is in fact counter to what the SAGE conference participants and
Aboriginal science educators believe constitutes positive educational outcomes – a
strong foundation in cultural teaching grounded in language. According to these
educators, a grounding in land-based experiential learning approaches that make
learning real and a part of the everyday lifeways of Aboriginal learners is vital to
principles of Indigenous learning. Students need to know who they are and that
their identity is something to be proud of and recognized as important by educators
in order to participate in a lifelong learning process. In fact your statement that
“students can then examine more global ideas with an ability to evaluate “foreign”
ideas from their own Indigenous worldview,” encapsulates the findings from the
SAGE conference.
Regardless of how I have interpreted the writing of Luitel and Taylor, it is my
hope that the implementation of their approach provides learners with a positive
mathematics educational experience. As always, by embracing the local as having
its own value to the education of the local learners, learners can then critically
evaluate the eurowestern foundations they will ultimately encounter.
In closing, I am always hopeful when researchers move away from the
eurowestern approaches of foundationalism to that of a community-based, recipro-
cal and land-based approach that creates a living–learning environment for science
and mathematics education. Perhaps including the voices and ideas of local
community and teachers in the creation of inclusive and contextualised science and
mathematics curricula will further the ideas of Luitel and Taylor.
Warmest regards,
Denise

References

Sutherland, D. L., & Henning, D. (2009). Ininiwi-Kiskanītamowin: A framework for long-term
science education. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 9,
173–190.
Waziyatawin, A. W., & Yellow Bird, M. (2005). For indigenous eyes only. Santa Fe: School of
American Research Press.