Cultural Diversity and Evolution: Looking for a Dialogical Teaching Perspective

Abstract

Evolution education has not sufficiently explored the cultural and contextual aspects related to learning. In this chapter, we discuss the possibilities of teaching evolution using an intercultural dialogic approach. We worked with indigenous students in the Mayan Highlands in Mexico exploring their current knowledge about domestication of maize (a process of artificial selection) and reflect on how knowledge about domestication of maize could be relevant for learning evolution. Indigenous people in Mexico managed to domesticate maize’s wild ancestor (teosinte) to produce an enormous diversity of maize, and this process is still performed in Mexico. Bringing this knowledge to the fore in the classroom generates opportunities to discuss the relevance of indigenous/traditional knowledge, as well as to find ways to make evolution more relevant for students. We present results from an exploratory study that illustrate the complexities of the task and shed light on issues that should be considered in order to teach evolution considering contextual and cultural diversity.