Cultural justice in STEAM Teacher professional development in Nepal

• In Event: Cultural Connections and Global Perspectives in Teacher Training

Proposal

Introduction: The STEAM education community has been advocating for science teaching and learning that bridges science contents, skills, values, and ideas to the local cultural contexts of students (Barksdale et al., 2021; Gallard Martinez, 2020). These studies continuously show that science taught through culturally sustaining/relevant pedagogy tends to be personally and collectively more satisfying to students, bringing success to learning. Yet, teachers in the Global South countries like Nepal lack pedagogical tools and critical perspectives in how local cultural heritage and practices could be integral part of Nepali science curricula, textbooks, teacher education programs, and many ongoing teacher professional education initiatives (Author et al., 2023). We utilize qualitative methodology approach to explore how a local cultural heritage called “Rato Machindranath Jatra” could be a context for building teacher capacity to enhance pedagogical skills for a more culturally just STEAM instruction.
The Newar ethnic group comes together to build a 20-meter tall wooden chariot. Once the chariot is complete, it is pulled through several communities over a month-long celebration. This jatra (fesitval) is called “बुंगध्यः जात्रा” (Buṅga Dyaḥ Jātrā) in the Newari language and has been celebrated since 879 AD (Kerr, 1973). The processes of building a wooden chariot, pulling it through different communities, and culminating in an open field where people can perform the final respect to the rain god connects many aspects of STEAM teaching and learning as well as engaging students in cultural justice.
Culture in science education:
Culture is “a social domain that emphasizes the practices, discourses, and material expressions, which, over time, express the continuities and discontinuities of the social meaning of a life held in common” (James, 2015, p. 53).
Goodson and Lindblad’s study of seven Western European countries showed that pedagogy and culture is a product of local culture and sociopolitical demands in which teachers are constantly mediating these external forces in their pedagogical decisions (Goodson & Lindblad, 2011). In culturally incongruent STEAM classrooms, students and teachers can experience very unsettling emotions which impedes better teaching and learning (Ladson- Billings, 2014; McCarty & Lee, 2014)
A troubling trend in science curriculum textbooks and pedagogies across the Global South nations is that they are inattentive to the knowledge from cultural heritage in everyday teaching (Koirala, 2021), textbooks, and curriculum. Therefore, raising the question of cultural justice in STEAM teaching and learning. We draw from the idea of cultural justice, from Nancy Fraser’s (1995) definition:
[Cultural justice] is rooted in social patterns of representation, interpretation, and communication. Examples include cultural domination (being subjected to patterns of interpretation and communication that are associated with another culture and are alien and/or hostile to one’s own); nonrecognition (being rendered invisible via the authoritative representational, communicative, and interpretative practices of one’s culture); and disrespect (being routinely maligned or disparaged in stereotypic public cultural representations and/or in everyday life interactions). (p.14)
Thus, “What concerns and possibilities do teachers experience in STEAM teaching for cultural justice?”
Brief Context: The data for the paper comes from a six-week-long collaborative partnership between a high school in Nepal and the authors.
Methods: We used Qualitative methodology (Miles et al., 2014) to collect data utilizing interviews, observation, teachers’ presentation during “Rato Machindranath Jatra” PD.



Findings: Chariot Model: Connecting cultural heritage with STEAM
Chariot building is based on local traditional technologies. Yet, teachers saw students utilizing technological resources like AI or design tools to model a chariot. They could use AI models to build spaghetti-marshmellow chariot. Use of AI or modeling technology could replace local knowledge and likely eroding “local community’s values and beliefs about chariot building” [schoolteachers].
Each group (five groups), leveraged contributions from various content areas to make the chariot with cultural relevancy. During the sharing of model chariots, some commented: “we can see how math and science link measurements, stability [center-of-mass], biology [woods], and chemistry…” [math-science teachers]; “I recognize … students can describe in scientific language” [elementary-teacher]; “I can teach connections between community well-being and science/math” [Nepali language teacher]; “parents and students will like this and help in science/maths [than] struggling” [assistant-principal].
Cultural justice through cultural heritage: Teachers saw value in learning Western science from standard textbooks. Yet, they were very frustrated and, at times, overwhelmed by a sense of loss of the local knowledge, which the science textbooks did not include. The researchers heard from the teachers both the value of culture in STEAM teaching and cultural justice issues such as disrespect and exclusion of local knowledge and culture from textbooks. For example, during the workshop, one teacher (math) said, “I know this is helpful, but the textbooks don’t give…example of Machindranath, chariot building and other cultural events, disappearance of festivals is a big fear”. An elementary teacher said, “I see the value...for deeper social issues, and we can’t lose the culture/skills”. The vice principal articulated an important point about cultural justice and STEAM;
In our science books this kind of cultural heritage is rendered mere[ly] an example rather than giving it a prominent space for activities and learning tools and opportunities…Rato Machindranth Jatra was a good context to engage in STEM fields by building a chariot using noodles [spaghetti] and marshmallows but then it also made us think about well-being of community with abundance of harvest…I liked how you all connected to water molecules
..into chemistry…this gave justice to our cultural heritage.
Discussions/Implications: This paper shows that STEAM teachers in Nepal are receptive to local cultural heritage in STEAM teaching (Kelly, 2013). Teachers felt cultural connections between science/STEAM teaching. They brought issues of cultural justice in textbooks and opportunities for collaborative teaching. The implications to the Global South and Indigenous Schools is that they focus on cultural heritage and STEAM connections in science textbooks, curriculum, and pedagogies to provide opportunities for STEAM teachers for a culturally just teaching. Questions arise, what is the place of technology such as AI in STEAM pedagogy where cultural values, knowledge, beliefs are paramount for cultural justice. How could professional development and teacher education programs bring in technologies that work side-by-side with local cultural values and knowledge?

Authors

• Bhaskar Upadhyay, University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, MN (06940)

• Lindsey Smaka, University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, MN (06940)

• Samantha Barragan, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities