ABSTRACT
This chapter uses basic and dialectical critical realism to examine and review prevailing dispositions on indigenous and institutional knowledge (Western science) in environmental education processes. It examines some of the macro social processes that have inscribed assumptions of incommensurable differences between the two kinds of knowledge. It notes that whereas a previous hegemony of positivism would have resulted in the dismissal of much indigenous knowledge as mere superstition, contemporary intellectual perspectives (poststructural and hermeneutical) have shaped a proliferation of worldview modelling that has resulted in a macro-level exemplifying of indigenous knowledge as different and opposing Western science. Here, the lack of adequate mediating tools has given rise to a problematic inscription of assumed difference between the knowledge of indigenous peoples and that of scientific institutions. Furthermore, despite an overt emancipatory intention in worldview discourses, the marginalization of indigenous peoples and knowledge remains. Moving from this macro perspective, the chapter examines a micro arena of teacher education and learning interactions in the South African science curriculum. It explores some patterns of exclusion in relation to the manner in which students are able to gain access to the knowledge of scientific institutions. The study suggests that a critical engagement with both indigenous knowledge and Western science can reveal integrative synergies. The chapter concludes that diverse knowledge can be reality congruent in socio-cultural context, despite differences, and that using critical realist tools in education as a process of the dialecticization of ontology can enable a more integrative approach to work with indigenous and scientific knowledge in school curriculum settings.
