Cultural and Religious Barriers to Learning Science in South Africa

Abstract

An investigation of student learning difficulties in a first year astronomy course in a South African university found that most black students in the course experienced spiritual and epistemological challenges in relation to the content. This threatened their chances for academic success because some of the theories, notably the Big Bang and Solar Nebular theories, were experienced as fundamentally undermining of both their cultural and religious belief systems. The epistemic violence that has long been associated with conflicts between science and Christianity has also featured prominently in South Africa, particularly in relation to evolution. However, the recent calls for the decolonization of the curriculum have extended the notion of epistemic violence across the curriculum as a whole, positioning it as a product of colonialism and thus an arena of ongoing epistemological domination associated with Eurocentric power. The findings of this study showed that careful consideration needs to be paid by lecturers in this context to their understanding of the nature and purpose of an education in science, and how to position their pedagogic practice to create bridges rather than barriers to learning.