TRANSCENDING

CULTURAL BORDERS:
O.J.Jegede and
G.S.Aikenhead
Maybelle P. de la Gente
M.Ed Guidance I
UP Visayas
 MASTER of ALL MASTERS
A girl once went to the fair to hire
herself for servant. At last a
funny-looking old gentleman
engaged her, and took her home
to his house. When she got
there, he told her that he had
something to teach her, for that
in his house he had his own
names for things.
He said to her: “What will you call me?”
“Master or mister, or whatever you please
sir,” says she.
He said: “You must call me ’master of all
masters.’ And what would you call this?”
pointing to his bed.
“Bed or couch, or whatever you please, sir.”
“No, that’s my ’barnacle.’ 
And what do you call these?” said he pointing to
his pantaloons.
“Breeches or trousers, or whatever you please,
sir.”
“You must call them ’squibs and crackers.’ And
what would you call her?” pointing to the cat.
“Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir.”
“You must call her ’white-faced simminy.’
And this now,” showing the fire, “what would you call
this?”
“Fire or flame, or whatever you please, sir.”
“You must call it ’hot cockalorum,’ and what this?” he
went on, pointing to the water.
“Water or wet, or whatever you please, sir.”
“No, ’pondalorum’ is its name. And what do you call all
this?” asked he, as he pointed to the house.
“House or cottage, or whatever you please, sir.”
“You must call it ’high topper mountain.’”
That very night the servant woke her master up
in a fright and said: “Master of all masters, get
out of your barnacle and put on your squibs
and crackers. For white-faced simminy has got
a spark of hot cockalorum on its tail, and
unless you get some pondalorum high topper
mountain will be all on hot cockalorum.” ....
That’s all.

http://www.authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-
45.html
Review
 Assimilation

The term 'assimilation' again is in general use, being

applied most often to the process whereby large numbers of
migrants from Europe were absorbed into the American
population during the 19th and the early part of the 20th
century. The assimilation of immigrants was a dramatic and
highly visible set of events and illustrates the process well. 

http://www.sociologyguide.com/
basic-
concepts/Assimilation.php
 There are aspects of the assimilation of
European migrants that might be put in
propositional form:

 First, assimilation is a two-way process.

 Second, assimilation of groups as well as
individuals takes place.
 Third some assimilation probably occurs in all
lasting interpersonal situations.
 Fourth, assimilation is often incomplete and
creates adjustment problems for individuals.
 And, fifth, assimilation does not proceed
equally rapidly and equally effectively in all
inter-group situations.
 Cultural Assimilation / Acculturation

Involves changes in behaviors, beliefs, values and

attitudes among minority groups to approximate
more closely to the dominant societal group

 Structural Assimilation

 Involves gradual acceptance and admittance of

minority group members into secondary, and later
primary relationships to dominant societal group
 Marital/ Physical Assimilation

 Amalgamation
 Large-scale intermarriage and biological
reproduction across majority-minority group
lines, resulting to the gradual decline of
distinctive physical features

Bryjak, George and Soroka,

Michael.1997.Sociology
Which is which?
 When slavery was abolished in Brazil toward the end
of the nineteenth century, the population increased
and changed in composition with the influx of more
than a million Italians, thousands of Polish and
German settlers, and many Portuguese, Spanish, and
Syrian immigrants.
 . Most of those entering the middle sectors of the
economy have been of European origin; but mestizos,
mulattoes, and Negroes in substantial numbers also
have found opportunities to improve their status.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Assimilation.aspx 
Chinese Mestizos
 On the chinese side, since the children of a mixed
marriage do not usually contribute to the
continuity of ancestral line, and since the
permanent home is in China, he generally cares
little about the loss of his mestizo children to
Filipino culture.
 Gowing and Scott. 1971. Acculturation in the
Philippines.
Cross-cultural science
teaching:Praxis (Glen Aikenhead)
 The goal of conventional science teaching
has been to transmit to student’s the
knowledge, skills, and values of the scientific
community
 This content conveys a Western worldview
due to the fact that science is a subculture of
Western Culture (Pickering, 1992)
 Thus student’s with a much different
worldview, such as many Aboriginal (Native
American) students, can experience a
cross-cultural event whenever they study
Western Science.
 In Africa, people’s traditional
cosmologies conflict with the norms,
values, beliefs, expectations, and
conventional actions of Western Science
community. (Jegede and Okebukola,
1991)
“How can these students master and critique
a Western scientific way of knowing without
losing something valuable from their own
cultural way of knowing?”

http:www.uask.ca/education/people/aikenhead/nar
st01.htm
TERMS
Cultural Border Crossing
 The idea of cultural border crossing emerged from
Giroux’s 1992 book Border Crossings: Cultural
Workers and Politics of Education.

 MODERNISM describes borders and locates people

within those borders along with the social and
political power in that location
 POSTMODERNISM encourages people to have
multiple identities by living in a world of border
crossings, and living with multple narratives that
define reality.
 Whenever pupils enter the world of school
science, it soon becomes evident that science
too, is another culture with which s/he has to
interact, bringing with him/her the baggage/s of
cultures s/he already carries.

 PUPIL’S MOVEMENT between the WORLDS

(Sub-cultures) of families, peer groups, school
and classrooms (Phelan et. al)

“ Many adolescents are left to navigate

transitions without direct assistance from
persons in any of their contexts, most notably
in school. Further, young people’s success in
managing these transitions varies widely”
CULTURE BROKER

 Teachers assume a role of ‘culture broker’ in the

classroom.

 Used by Stairs (1995) to analyse a teacher’s role

in reolving cultural conflicts in cross-cultural
education

 Coordinator, facilitator, and resource person

(Atwater, 1996)

 Social Mediator (Kelly and Green)

 Tour-guide culture brokers

Costa (1995) categorization scheme on
ease of navigating the cultural border into
school science
4 categories:
 Potent Scientists
 Smooth transition, culture of family & science are
congruent

 Other Smart Kids

-transition is manageable, two cultures somewhat different

 “I Don’t Know Students

-transitions tend to be hazardous, two cultures are diverse
 Outsiders

-transitions are virtually impossible because the cultures

are highly discordant
CULTURAL VIOLENCE

 ‘Symbolic violence,’ Bourdieu (1992)

 When a language or conventional actions of
a group have little or no meaning to a person
who happens to be immersed in that group
and who needs to accomplish some action.
For example: JAPAN
 SOLOMON ISLANDS
 City of Honoira pupils went to
rural villages to encounter ‘magic’
endemic to Solomon islands
culture

 For pupils who grew up in a village, find the transition into

rural life, automatic, smooth and natural.
 But for those born and raised in Honoira, cultural border

crossing is difficult and hazardous

 Indeed the call appears now to be for
culture sensitive science education
which probes in the minds and the
hearts of learners when they are being
taught science (Hewson, 1998;
Solomon, 1987).
 IMPLICATIONS for TEACHING
SCIENCE/ ROLES of a teacher:
1. Make border crossings explicit for pupils

2. Facilitate these border crossings

3. Promote discourse:
 Talking in their own cultural interpretive
framework as well in the framework of
western science without cultural violence
 Immersed in either the pupil’s indigenous life-world
culture or the culture of science
 Cognizant about what culture they are talking at any
given time

4. Substantiate and build on the validity of pupils’

personally and culturally constructed ways of knowing

5.Teach the canonical content of Western science and

technology in the context of science societal roles, for
instance, science’s social, political, military, colonial and
economic roles
 CROSS CULTURAL SCIENCE
EDUCATION
 Pomeroy (1994) found nine different
research agendas. Her work frames
several decades of research and
development in multicultural and cross-
cultural science education
 9 agendas:

1. Systems or Programs to Support Under-

Represented Groups
2. Situate the Science curriculum in the
context of pupil’s lives
3. Culturally effective Instruction strategies
4. Inclusion of scientific contributions made
by Historically non-western scholars
5. Demystifying Stereotype images of
Science

6. Science for language minority pupils

7. Indigenous knowledge and Technologies

for Science to explain
8. Compare and Bridge the worldview of
science and worldview of pupils

9. Explore the content and Epistemology of

both scentific and Indigenous knowledge
systems