Who's Asking? ─ Native Science, Western Science, and Science Education

The answers to scientific questions depend on who's asking, because the questionsasked and the answers sought reflect the cultural values and orientations of the questioner. Thesevalues and orientations are most often those of Western science. In Who'sAsking?, Douglas Medin and Megan Bang argue that despite the widely held view that scienceis objective, value-neutral, and acultural, scientists do not shed their cultures at the laboratoryor classroom door; their practices reflect their values, belief systems, and worldviews. Medin andBang argue further that scientist diversity -- the participation of researchers and educators withdifferent cultural orientations -- provides new perspectives and leads to more effective science andbetter science education. Medin and Bang compare Native American and European American orientationstoward the natural world and apply these findings to science education. The European American model,they find, sees humans as separated from nature; the Native American model sees humans as part of anatural ecosystem. Medin and Bang then report on the development of ecologically oriented andcommunity-based science education programs on the Menominee reservation in Wisconsin and at theAmerican Indian Center of Chicago. Medin and Bang's novel argument for scientist diversity also hasimportant implications for questions of minority underrepresentation in science.

Douglas L. Medin is Louis W. Menk Professor of Psychology and Professor of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. He is the coauthor of The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature and coeditor of Folkbiology, both published by the MIT Press. Megan Bang is Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the College of Education at the University of Washington.