Language-Culture Incommensurability in Science in Non-Asian Indigenous Peoples

Michael Michie
Centre for Science and  Technology Education Research
University of Waikato, New Zealand

One of the definitions of the term Indigenous Peoples is that they are the traditional inhabitants of their lands prior to colonisation by foreigners (Burger, 1990). A number of other terms are used to describe them, including First Nations Peoples, Aborigines and ethnic groups. There are some common attributes amongst the indigenous groups, of which their connection to the land is paramount. Some of these groups of peoples live in regions which were colonised by European colonisers since 1500 and which are now recognised as developed countries. In this paper I will confine myself to four of these countries: Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, the USA and Canada. The Indigenous Peoples identified from each country are listed below.

• Australia: Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders (more than 350 language groups [sometimes described as tribes]; considered to have lived in Australia for at least 40 thousand years)
• Aotearoa New Zealand: Maori (a number of iwi [tribes] which trace their identity to the waka [canoes] that originally brought them to Aotearoa; many Maori express affinity to more than one iwi; one language with a number of dialects; Maori represent 15% of the population)
• USA: Native Americans (American Indians), Alaskan Inuit (Eskimo), Native Hawaiians
• Canada: First Nations People, Inuit

A number of these groups are also related. Maori and Native Hawaiians are Polynesian groups, as are the inhabitants of many of the islands of the Pacific, and their languages have common elements. Inuit from Canada, Alaska and Russia have a common origin and similar indigenous languages. Native Americans and Canadian First Nations people share a common ancestry; however they disagree with the scientific determinates for their origins (i.e. that they migrated from Asia during the last ice age, 12-18 thousand years ago).

Indigenous Peoples also live in other countries (e.g. Dyaks in Borneo [both in Malaysia and Indonesia]; Saami in Sweden, Ainu in Japan) but usually no allowance is made for cultural difference in the science curriculum. Burger (1990) listed 20 groups of Indigenous Peoples in the South East Asia region but this list may be incomplete. Some displaced indigenous people have been resettled in the First World countries (e.g. many Hmong, a hill tribe from Laos, were resettled in the USA as a result of the Vietnam war).

Legal criteria for identification of indigenous peoples vary between countries. The Australian legal system has defined an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person as someone who satisfies the following three criteria:

• be of Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent;
• identify as an Australian Aborigine or Torres Strait Islander; and 
• be accepted as an Australian Aborigine or Torres Strait Islander in the community in which she or he lives, or has lived.

The science curriculum

Australia: In Australia, the national curriculum, A statement on science for Australian schools; (AEC, 1994a) is outcomes-based. There are 5 strands (4 conceptual strands and one process strand called Working scientifically). The conceptual strands are Life and living, Planet earth and beyond, Energy and change, and Natural and processed materials. A national profile, Science-a curriculum profile for Australian schools, was developed for each of the strands, each divided into sub-strands, at eight levels between years 1 and 10, although it was considered that most students would reach level 6 by the end of year 10 (AEC, 1994b).

However the state and territory education authorities (8 separate authorities) are not obliged to use the national curriculum although all of them have used it to some degree. Some states and territories have developed curriculum frameworks – i.e. outcomes linked to year levels.

There is no special provision for indigenous students. Some authorities have developed resource materials for indigenous students and for teachers. Most instruction of indigenous students is in English; use of local languages for teaching science would be restricted to some bilingual primary schools, mainly for aspects of cultural knowledge.

New Zealand: A national curriculum, Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, has been developed and taught over the past ten years (NZ Ministry for Education, 1993). It has achievement objectives in six learning strands at 8 levels of achievement over years 1-13. The learning strands are divided into two groups:

• The integrating strands: Making sense of the nature of science and its relationship to technology; developing scientific skills and attitudes
• The conceptual strands: Making sense of the living world; Making sense of the physical world; Making sense of the material world; Making sense of planet earth and beyond.

All students are instructed in English; this includes the majority of Maori students who attend western-style primary and secondary schools.

The Maori version of the national curriculum (Putaiao i roto i te Matutanga o Aotearoa, 1996) is basically a translation into te reo Maori (Maori language) with some reorganisation of the English language document (Barker, 1999; Bell, 2005; McKinley, 1996); other Maori-language curriculum documents have been developed in mathematics and technology. Putaiao doesn’t contain any specifically Maori knowledge or nature of science unless related to the mainstream curriculum. Putaiao is only used in Maori language medium schools which cater for a minority of Maori students.

As part of writing the curriculum in te reo Maori the writers consulted with the Maori Language Commission regarding the use of technical terms. The Commission’s guidelines for developing new terms were that the word must be short, transparent and not a loan from English. Thus it appears that the Maori language is avoiding using an international terminology for scientific and technical language which other countries are adopting (McKinley, 1996).

United States: National standards were developed by the National Science Foundation and have been incorporated into all states’ science curriculum documents; there is regular and rigorous testing related to standards.

There is no special provision for indigenous people; locally-produced materials usually show links to the standards. There has been some development of culturally responsive science curriculum handbooks (e.g. Nelson-Barber & Estrin, 1995) and resources which integrate traditional knowledge and science (e.g. Smith, 2000). Some organisations have developed cultural standards for students, educators, schools and curriculum (e.g. ANKN, 1998).

Canada: The Common framework of science learning outcomes, K to 12 was published in 1997 by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) and they have informed the development of science curriculum by the Canadian provincial and territory educational authorities. Canadian is officially bicultural in English and French, so there is a French version of the Common framework.

There is no specifically First Nations science curriculum but there has been development of resource materials, some by indigenous groups and others in collaborations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples (e.g. Rekindling traditions, Aikenhead, 2001). These often focus on explaining the western science behind an indigenous object or practice. Most teaching of indigenous students takes place in one of the two national languages, English or French. However, in some areas (e.g. the territory of Nunavut) there are bilingual programs so that teaching in some of the primary schools could be in indigenous languages.

The philosophical and cosmological outlooks of the indigenous groups in Australia

Indigenous peoples are generally considered to have holistic philosophical outlooks, much similar to those of Asians. For most of them there is no God-being or beings but rather the people have a spirituality which is derived from the closeness of their relationship with nature. Figure 1 looks at the difference in worldviews between Western and Indigenous peoples; again the position of Asians would be considered to be towards the indigenous end of each spectra.

Figure 1. A comparison of western and indigenous worldviews (from NTDE, 1999)

It is possible to see that there are areas of common ground between western science and traditional native knowledge (Figure 2). Similar diagrams can be drawn at the topic level, to compare western scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge, for example, on crocodiles. Western knowledge may include lots of detail on reproductive knowledge; common knowledge may relate to their reproduction from eggs and where they build nests; indigenous knowledge would be about the totemic relationships. The Venn diagram, another western model, tends to oversimplify our understanding. What westerners see as important is the knowledge aspect, whereas indigenous peoples (and Asians) would see the relationships as being more important.

Figure 2. Fields of knowledge involving traditional native knowledge and western science, including common ideas (from Stephens, 2000)

The cosmological beliefs of Australia’s indigenous groups – creation myths and origin of the universe.

Everything under creation is represented in the soil and in the stars. Everything has two witnesses, one on earth and one in the sky. … Everything is represented in the ground and in the sky. (Mowaljarlai & Malnic, 1993, p.5)

In Australia, all indigenous groups believe in Creation Beings which are responsible for the creation of the world, the landscape and all creatures in it. However the creation stories differ between language groups. The creation time is referred to as the Dreaming or Dreamtime. Some creation beings still exist and are either active within the landscape (such as the rainbow serpent which causes rivers to flow and rain to fall), or live in sacred places. Disturbance of some sacred places may cause the creation beings to awaken and cause damage. Indigenous people see themselves as caretakers of the land and of its sacred places, and they need to follow particular rites to ensure the well-being of the land. Some sacred places (e.g. Uluru [Ayres Rock]) are considered sacred by indigenous people from a number of language groups surrounding the area.

Just as there are numerous Australian indigenous languages, there are numerous cosmologies. However according to Johnson (1998) there are a few basic tenets that underpin a general understanding of Aboriginal cosmology.

• Nature and society were formed at the same time by creative spirits who wandered the earth during an eternal time and which still exist (this time is called the Dreaming)
• The ancestral spirits still exist but are no longer visible, having withdrawn from human view
• The earth and life itself were in existence when the creative powers began their business.
• The task of humans is to maintain the ecological balance, being ultimately responsible for the ongoing harmony between natural and cultural systems.

Some universal or widespread themes have been identified (Johnson, 1998). Most Aboriginal people held a common view of the earth as a flat disk surrounded by the boundless ocean. Above the earth was a solid vault or canopy, and above this the sky world which was supported by props of one sort or another.

As the quote from Mowaljarlai & Malnic (1993) above suggests, Aboriginal cosmologies are reflected in the lives of the people. Figure 3 indicates how the cosmology of Yolngu people encompasses many aspects of their lives.

Figure 3. A conceptualisation of the elements of the Yolngu cosmology (the Yolngu are the traditional owners of the lands of Northeast Arnhemland; from Kepert, 1991)

Language-culture incommensurability in science in Australia

All Australian Indigenous languages would be considered incommensurable with English. In the same way as Kawasaki (1996, 2002, 2005) suggests that Japanese linguistic articulation is independent of the Standard Average European (SAE) and the Japanese worldview shows linguistic or cultural incommensurability with the western scientific worldview, Australian Indigenous languages also developed independently of SAE and the worldviews are thus also incommensurable. All Australian Indigenous languages are oral languages with small numbers of speakers. Many of them have been translated into English at some time, although there are some which have become extinct and others which are in danger of becoming extinct and have not been translated.

Aboriginal students live in a range of settings with a large proportion of Aboriginal students living in urban areas and attending the same schools as other Australians. For most of these students their first language is probably Aboriginal English, a variant of Australian English which is more common in regional centres and cities; however instruction in schools is in Australian English and this can be the cause of some tension. Some students may be users of an indigenous language, depending on how recently their family moved to the urban areas, but for many their knowledge of an indigenous language will be limited and incorporated into Aboriginal English. Ideas of world view are confused in settings such as this; traditional stories may be passed on in Aboriginal English but most inputs for students through school and the media are in Australian English.

Aboriginal students in communities away from the cities and towns usually speak at least one indigenous language as their first language and possibly dialects of that language, and are usually English as a second language speakers. Some students are taught in bilingual schools, where their early learning is in their mother tongue but is replaced by English as they progress through school. More frequently the indigenous languages are used informally between students, indigenous assistant teachers and indigenous teachers (who are a minority of teachers). Mostly teaching is in English as there are not many Indigenous teachers and few western teachers have sufficient language skills to teach in language. In some communities students may speak Aboriginal Kriol [Creole] or Aboriginal English which are variants of Australian English; this is more common in regional centres and cities.

Analysis of incommensurabilities underlying the meaning of key terms in science

Because of the incommensurabilities between English and Australian Indigenous languages, some of the common scientific terms such as nature, observe and practice don’t translate simply to Indigenous concepts. The following is an account of a conversation I had with an Aboriginal woman.

Watson-Verran and Turnbull (1995) provide a similar understanding of the Yolngu word gurrutu in its basic translation, meaning ‘relationships’ (see Figure 3), but actually “an infinite recursion of a base set of names patterned on family relations enabling everything to be named and related” (p.132). Using gurrutu together with djalkiri – stories of the travels and activities of the Creation beings in creating the landscape – Yolngu have been able to assimilate western knowledge. Thus Yolngu knowledge does not see nature-society-knowledge as constituted of distinct and different sorts of things, unlike western science.

Language and indigenous science education

A major issue regarding language with indigenous peoples is the maintenance of their own cultures, languages and knowledges (Battiste & Henderson, 2000; McKinley, 2005), rather than language-culture incommensurability.

However, the following points made by Sutherland and Dennick (2002, pp.4-5) regarding language problems for Canadian First Nations students are comparable for indigenous students elsewhere:

• Cross-linguistic research shows that different meanings in different languages account for many common misconceptions, and there are some suggestions on how language influences science learning. For example, within any language, everyday and scientific usage may be in conflict.
• The means by which students for whom English is a second language convey scientific explanations is influenced by the conventions of discourse in their mother tongue (Lee, Fradd & Sutman, 1995).
• Indigenous languages have a tendency to reinforce the use of analogy or metaphor; thus many objects are referred to through action-based phrases.
• The syntactic order from language to language also differs and may influence the way students provide explanations for various concepts.
• In many Aboriginal languages abstract concepts are specified in relation to actual objects and relationships. ‘The abstractions do not occur as words, as subjects for discussion, or as explicit considerations in perception’. (Leavitt 1995: 132).
• The literature supports the view that teaching science in English to some non-Western groups of students does not provide them with equal access to information (e.g. McKinley, McPherson-Waiti & Bell, 1992).

McKinley (2005) indicated that learning science in Maori language in Aotearoa New Zealand runs counter to trends in the other countries. Kura Kaupapa Maori (Maori immersion schools) teach in the Maori language so that students learn the language as they learn the subject area, but they have trouble recruiting Maori teachers fluent in the language, with good cultural knowledge and competence in teaching science. She also pointed out that wider scientific community in New Zealand was also turning its interest towards Maori issues, so it is becoming important for science education to help facilitate Maori aspirations for and with the community.

Recommendations to overcome LCI in science for indigenous students

The diversity of situations with science education and indigenous populations makes it difficult to provide any recommendations. In the four countries considered there have been programs undertaken to provide indigenous students with a science education and some research has been undertaken. There has been limited consideration of the language-culture incommensurability in any of these countries. The Aotearoa New Zealand example demonstrates that there is limited enthusiasm in educational authorities for indigenous-based curriculum and pedagogy despite government policies or rhetoric regarding self-determination and sovereignty. Although the consequences of low numbers of indigenous students succeeding in science subjects at secondary and tertiary levels has been of concern, there is also a major concern regarding the maintenance of culture, language and knowledge.

Secondly, indigenous students in these four countries are also found in a diversity of locations varying from urban centres to isolated communities. Often they have lifestyles which parallel western lifestyles although they identify themselves as indigenous; they speak a variety of English (or French) rather than an indigenous language and probably have a worldview which incorporates elements of their indigenous heritage and the pervasive western worldviews. Others live in communities where they speak their indigenous language but are probably taught in English (or French), where they are exposed to their culture but also to the western world through the media. There have been no studies which indicate particularly how worldview has been modified by such interactions.

It should be acknowledged that there are indigenous peoples found throughout South East Asia who may have limited or no influence on the policies of the nation state pertaining to the education of their children.

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(Michael Michie lives in Darwin, Australia, and is undertaking a PhD at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. He wishes to acknowledge the Larrakia as the traditional people of the Darwin area and the assistance of Didamain Uibo in discussing the terms nature, observe and practice for this paper.)