Page 54 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

30 M.L. Bentley

virtue of being embedded in a specific cultural (and thus symbolic/language)
system.” Note that the authors do not deny that science is the best process yet worked
out by humankind for “knowing” – the authors only claim that we can never know
everything via scientific processes. And I fully agree.
Taking this stance of epistemological pluralism, Martusewicz, Lupinacci, and
Schnakenberg call on science educators to respect indigenous knowledges. Further,
they recognize the great loss that occurs in the loss of a language or when a tradi-
tional society disappears. They also recognize that first-world science has played
its part over the years in cultural imperialism and that, as a result, other species and
cultural groups have suffered or gone extinct. Michael Mueller and I have written
about these very matters (Mueller and Bentley 2009).
Martusewicz, Lupinacci, and Schnakenberg also base their argument on the
premise that we all live embedded in ecosystems and are fully dependent on natural
services for survival. Absolutely true, but regularly taken for granted. From these
premises, the authors introduce three major goals of an ecojustice framework, goals
which involve deconstructing the dominating beliefs and behaviors of the first
world societies, advocating a new epistemic stance, and revitalizing the cultural and
ecological commons as the basis for sustainable societies.
To address the education of science teachers, Martusewicz, Lupinacci, and
Schnakenberg recommend that teachers think about their roles and responsibilities
using a deconstruction approach they identify as a cultural-ecological analysis. In
explaining this approach they draw on the work of Chet Bowers, a pioneer in
identifying “root metaphors” that shape our thinking and behaviors. Through
cultural–ecological analysis, teachers will come to understand how, “The words
we use on a day-to-day basis help to maintain and recreate ‘master narratives’ that
structure complex hierarchized systems of thought, identity, value, and material
realities that create and recreate violent, destructive relationships and practices as
if they are ‘normal’ or ‘natural.’” Recognizing value in non-western sciences, and
through this process of cultural–ecological analysis, students gain a deeper per-
spective: “[E]xploring traditional science enables us to step outside our own cul-
tural belief systems and more freely examine our hidden, capricious, and
sometimes troublesome assumptions” (Corsiglia and Snively 1995). Martusewicz,
Lupinacci, and Schnakenberg go on to give examples of how this western way of
thinking is connected to the human-damaged environment in which we find
ourselves living.

Wisdom as a Goal of Schooling

The reference to Gregory Bateson’s work in Martusewicz, Lupinacci, and Schnakenberg
warmed my heart, as his work was formative for me when I discovered it in the late
1970s and, later, that of his colleagues, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela.
Bateson extended the concept of intelligence-Mind to outside the human sphere and