Representations of indigenous knowledges in secondary school science textbooks in Australia and Canada

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing recognition that presenting principally western perspectives in science texts is a form of ethnocentrism, racism or cultural imperialism. In order to address this problem, a number of science texts have appeared which attempt to incorporate greater diversity of knowledge types. This paper employs discourse analysis techniques to examine the approach taken to minority group knowledges in two recently published sets of junior secondary science texts, one used in Australia and the other in Canada, with a specific focus on the incorporation of indigenous knowledges into the texts. An evaluation is provided on the kinds of indigenous knowledges incorporated in the texts and the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches used.