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Doctoral Degrees (Science and Technology Education)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10413/7147

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Science and Technology Education) by Author "James, Angela Antoinette."

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    An exploration of the Akans’ (Ghana) and Zulus’ (South Africa) culturally-specific environmental ethics: implications for culturally-specific senior high school biology/life sciences[s] curriculum development and teaching.
    (2018) Opoku, Maxwell.; James, Angela Antoinette.
    Indigenous and local communities are repositories of the world’s genetic resources and biodiversity is interwoven with the well-being of indigenous people who have utilized it throughout millennia. This constant interaction by indigenous people with biological components of the environment has brought about various innovative ways of knowing and practices which include both science and indigenous knowledge. Many indigenous practices have been found to foster and enrich biodiversity at the local level, as well as help sustain salubrious ecosystems. This study explored the Akans of Ghana and the Zulus of South Africa Culturally-Specific Environmental Ethics (CSEE), how these CSEE could be taught in senior high schools’ biology/Life Sciencess curriculum, and the implications (prospects and challenges) for such teaching. The main purpose of the study was to explore the participants’ (indigenous knowledge holders of the Akan and Zulu cultural groups’) understandings, perceptions, practices and communication regarding their cultural groups’ peculiar environmental ethics, referred to as CSEE in this study. The study sought the views of both the indigenous knowledge-holders of the respective cultures and their senior high school biology/Life Sciences teachers. The research employed a multi-site ethnographic, naturalistic research style situated within the interpretivist paradigm to explore the phenomena under study. In-depth conversational interviews were used to collect qualitative data from the purposively selected participants using the snowball technique. The data generation process involved the production of a narrative analysis for each participant. The study found that there are diverse understandings, perceptions, practices and modes of communication among the Akan and Zulu cultural groups used to help value and care for their natural resources, as well as utilizing them sustainably. The understandings, perceptions, practices and communication for their CSEE are interwoven together and inform one another. A model for how to teach CSEE and other indigenous knowledge related topics in senior high schools’ science classrooms in Ghana and South Africa was developed from the research findings. The study found that in-spite of the many prospects for teaching CSEE in senior high schools, its effective teaching and resilience might be threatened by political, religious, socio-cultural and economic issues; and that the demand for proof and experimentation for many of the CSEE perceptions and practices, coupled with various forms of stigmatization are key challenges anticipated.
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    Exploring science educators’ reproduction and subversion of gender stereotyping in a College of Education in Nigeria.
    (2021) Allu, Daniel Asilika.; Govender, Nadaraj.; James, Angela Antoinette.
    The cultural production and reproduction of discriminatory gender practices in education and in society has been a global and local concern, thus attracting attention in current debates. Therefore, knowledge theorization aims at questioning and interrogating the socio-historical and patriarchal gender practices in the 21st century. A global transformation of gender may be one of the vital paths to empowering woman and the marginalized in education. In this study, gender equity, which is a process of attaining equality, is obstructed by socio-cultural relations of power, linked to discrimination, domination and entrenched stereotyping in society and is particularly now a focus too in science and science education. Science has been considered a male domain; a liberal feminist analysis views the space of women in science and science education as emanating from a long history of oppression of females in a patriarchal society. Therefore, orientations related to patriarchy, sexuality and culture currently dictate classroom engagements in science education, which impacts on student’s intellectual and career progress. However, an exposure to the impact of gender stereotype and inequality in science education is a possibility towards the intellectual, political, and economic transformation of females. This study explores six Nigerian science educators’ reproduction and subversion of gender stereotyping in physical and life sciences classes and is located within the critical interpretive paradigm. The research methodology comprised qualitative methods using questionnaire, interviews, classroom observations, reflective journals, and collective reflections. A qualitative case study research design was used for the study. Then, I used purposive and convenience sampling techniques to select six experienced science educators with heightened gender awareness in a college situated in North Central Nigeria where the study was conducted. The narrative method employed captures the selection and experiences of science educators and allowed for a nuanced understanding of educators’ views about gender stereotype reproduction and subversion. The data were analyzed for themes using gender lens of Critical Theory (CT), Critical Feminist Reproduction Theory (CFRT) and Critical Consciousness Theory (CCT) regarding cultural production and reproduction and gender transformation. The findings reveal that the construct ‘gender’ is indeed social construction, repeated acts linked to identity construction of male and female science educators. In this study, educators in physical and life sciences classes are shown to implicitly and/or explicitly reproduce gender stereotypes, but sometimes to subvert discrimination, consciously and unconsciously. Furthermore, educators, especially the male pre-service teachers, collude to stereotype female pre-service teachers. Also, female pre-service teachers are equally complicit in their own oppression. It appears the science educators, male and female pre-service teachers are not explicitly aware of their complicit gender stereotyping roles in science education during teaching and learning engagements. It was observed that female pre-service teachers are often overtly deterred from participating in the science education space. The unconscious and conscious actions of stereotyping by educators towards their female pre-service teachers are likely to reinforce multiple oppressions in their charges that will impact their future teaching and gendered roles in class. A pedagogic transformative gender model of enabling a contradictory, transformative and political college space for science educators and pre-service teachers to negotiate power differentials for a new social gender order is then proposed for collective action.