INTERACTION OF INDIGENOUS AFRICAN CULTURE WITH SCIENCE: THE AGIKUYU CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING KINETIC THEORY OF MATTER

Abstract

Science as a culture has been conceived as different from the culture of ordinary people especially in Africa. An orientation to indigenous culture has often been viewed to have an inverse relationship with the nature of science. Many of students’ alternative conceptions about natural phenomena have been attributed to their cultural beliefs. Therefore, the trend in science education in African schools has been to alienate the learners’ cultural knowledge and depict Western science as the only real description and explanation of reality. Yet, a relevant curriculum must be one that is adapted to the learner’s context and that addresses the issues and challenges of the local society. The first step towards development of such curriculum should be to identify and examine how aspects of indigenous knowledge interact with the accepted science before they are integrated into the curriculum. This paper investigates the Agikuyu cultural knowledge concerning kinetic theory of matter. In particular, the paper examines how students of the Kikuyu ethnic community living in Nyandarua County interpret various situations with respect to their conceptions about heat. Results show existence of a particular metaphor concerning heat. The metaphor indicates an existing indigenous knowledge that interacts in a manner consistent with the accepted scientific view of kinetic theory of matter. From the results, it is concluded that there are scientifically rich cultural contexts within the indigenous knowledge of African societies. The paper recommends that there is need for education policy makers and curriculum developers to integrate aspects of indigenous knowledge that are consistent with the accepted science into the curricular of teaching science in schools.