“Teacher as culture broker” in indigenous science education: Work in progress

1. “Teacher as culture broker” in indigenous science education: Work in progress Michael Michie Centre for Science and Technology Education Research University of Waikato mmichie@ozemail.com.au In the spirit of reconciliation I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands around Darwin (the Larrakia) and Armidale (the Nganyaywana).

2. Abstract · the variety of roles suggested in the literature for teachers in cross-cultural education · the results of an investigation of enactivism as an alternative theory for teaching indigenous students · some indications from the data collection through interviews with practitioners and autobiographical assessment.

3. Defining culture broking (Jezewski, 1989) • the act of bridging, linking or mediating between groups or persons of differing cultural backgrounds for the purpose of reducing conflict or producing change • background in anthropology but not defined • examined attributes from anthropology and health (12), as well as brokering in business (6) • produced a culture-brokering model

4. Jezewski’s model of culture broking (1995)

5. Jezewski’s strategies for intervention • mediating • negotiating • advocating • networking • intervening • sensitizing • innovating

6. Culture brokers in education • Wyatt (1978-79), Canadian First Nations • Gentemann & Whitehead (1983), African American students • Gay (1993), African-American students • Stairs (1991/95), Native schools in Canada • Aikenhead (1995ff), science education • Bassey (1996), Multicultural education • Páez & McCarty (1997), ESL • Cooper, Denner & Lopez (1999), Mexican-American students • Gorman (1999), Canadian Native students • Harris (1999), Multicultural education • Haynes (2000), ESL

7. Role of culture brokers in education • gained some credence in education in recent times but not established as praxis in indigenous education • original definition: a mediating or facilitating role between two people, often with a commercial bias • in teaching the emphasis has been on the teacher becoming the culture broker between themselves and their students at a personal level, but also as facilitating between cultures

8. Conflicting views of teacher as culture broker • the role is better filled by someone from the Other and that teachers are better off searching for the best person to fill the role • a teacher needs to develop a set of skills to become more proficient in their cross-cultural classroom, with the implication that upon attaining them they would have achieved the role of culture broker. (Michie, 2003) • brokerage commodifies knowledge simply as content, turning it into something which could be bought or sold (Christie, p.c.) • assumption that western science teachers only need to learn how to deal with pedagogical aspects of cross-cultural differences • if white teachers can learn to become culture brokers, then seemingly there may be no role for indigenous people (McKinley, 2001) • non-Western students compelled to accommodate Western science (Carter, 2004)

9. Role of cultural brokers in contemporary society • Peace (1998) and Palmer (2000) identified cultural brokers as a power elite whose association with the media makes them “part of an occupational group specializing in the production and dissemination of symbolic goods and commodities” (Palmer, 2000, p.366). • Peace (1998) concluded that the power exerted by this new class of cultural intermediaries should be the focus of further examination: “Cultural brokers should become a prime target for those who wish to contribute to the ethnography of postmodernity” (p.283).

10. Teachers in multicultural classrooms • cultural organisers who facilitate strategic ways of accomplishing tasks so that the learning process involves varied ways of knowing, experiencing, thinking and behaving; • cultural mediators who create opportunities for critical dialogue and behaving; • orchestrators of social contexts who provide several learning configurations including interpersonal and intrapersonal opportunities for seeking, accessing, and evaluating knowledge ( Diamond & Moore, 1995; Gay, 2000) • maybe all three make a culture broker (Geneva Gay, 1993)

11. Teachers as cultural negotiators (Stairs, 1996) • “Understanding culture is dramatically different to knowing culture …” (p. 232) • “… move students beyond the initial multicultural what of culture … to construct a cultural negotiation model, the how of contextualization and the why of intention and meaning…”

12. Role of the teacher in an enactivist setting (Fenwick, 2000) • a communicator assisting in naming and renaming and making use of “appropriate” language • a story maker tracing and recording the interactions between the learner and the learned • an interpreter helping learners make sense of the emerging patterns and understanding their involvement. • educators must be aware of “their own entanglement and interests in the emerging systems of thought and action” • reference to the teacher as an interpreter becomes intriguing in a discussion of teachers as culture brokers

13. Enactivism: first impressions (Michie, 2004)Refer to http://www.ozemail.com.au/~mmichie/teacher_cb.htm • associated with ecological theory, deep ecology and learners-in-their-environment (Jane, 2003) • reminded of some of the characteristics of traditional indigenous knowledge such as holistic, connective and participatory • terms such as experiential learning (Fenwick, 2000), constructivism (Begg, 2000), ethnomathematics (Begg, 2001a) and worldview (Gunn, 2003) • understanding that the mind cannot be separated from the body • Begg (2000): In enactivism, instead of seeing learning as “coming to know”, one envisages the learner and the learned, the knower and the known, the self and the other, as co-evolving and being co-implicated. • contrasted enactivism with constructivism by emphasising knowing rather than knowledge

14. Potential challenges to enactivism (Fenwick, 2000) • constructivist viewpoint, “the lack of full recognition accorded to individual meaning-making and identity-constructing processes” • ethical issues of justice and right action • critical cultural perspective, perspectives such as enactivism do not address inevitable power relationships circulating in human cultural systems. The influences on a systems perspective of categories such as gender, race, sexuality, class and religion may be indiscernible.

15. Concluding remarks on enactivism • enactivism may have parallels with traditional ways of teaching and learning but most indigenous students in developed countries have started to move away from traditional life styles and many of them are far removed from them • what an enactivist-based science pedagogy would look like is a matter of conjecture, as research in the area is limited • as it would be considered acultural it must also be applicable to a large population of non-indigenous students

16. Research methodology • The basic plan is use narrative inquiry to create a series of stories with people who have engaged in cross-cultural experiences, then to use those stories to understand the roles which they or others have taken to facilitate the experience. The context of their stories will explain the relationship with culture brokers and indigenous science education. • The selection of research participants has been to give a range of experiences, many of which are within the area of indigenous science education but some of them have experience outside of science education or outside of education. • “Narrative is the best way of representing and understanding experience” (Clandidin & Connelly, 2000, p.18) • Focus on complexity rather than reductionism

17. The primary methods of gathering field texts (data) for this research are • face-to-face interviews wherever possible (“conversation”) • participants’ research writings • comments made subsequently (“chat”) • create a collaborative research story, at least for a core group of participants. • Chats with other participants may help clarify positions of other participants.

18. The stories are structured as chronologies; they start with participants’ early experiences (from the interview), look at the developing ideas in their writings and focus on their current thinking. Whether this will remain the case after further collaboration on the stories remains to be seen. • Part of this is initiated through the interview questions, although the questions do not necessarily direct the interview or structure the story. Rather, they provide awareness of the research agenda.

19. The researcher-as-participant through autobiographical writing • “Instead we need to acknowledge our participatory connectedness with the other research participants and promote a means of knowing in a way that denies distance and separation and promotes commitment and engagement.” (Bishop, 1996, p.23). • “Narrative inquiry characteristically begins with the researcher’s autobiographically oriented narrative associated with the research puzzle …” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p.41)

20. Progress to date • 2 interviews with core participants completed and transcripts returned • 1.5 narratives completed, none returned to participants • some autobiographical writing undertaken, needs editing • couple of interviews scheduled for next few months • reassessment of methodology • How much of an interview can you use? How do you structure the narrative?