Models of living and non-living beings among indigenous community children

LETICIA GALLEGOS-CÁZARES, BEATRIZ GARCÍA-RIVERA, FERNANDO FLORES-CAMACHO, ELENA CALDERÓN-CANALES

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the way indigenous Nahua children classify entities as living/non-living and justify their classification and to determine whether there is a biological thinking related to their particular cultural background. Thirty-three children from a public elementary school located in the Sierra Norte of Puebla were interviewed within and outside an academic context. From the analysis, we identified three main models: an intuitive model, a school biology model and a cultural model. The data suggest that the three models can coexist in children’s explanations. The use of both the intuitive model and school biology model increase with education, but the cultural model is not abandoned.

Keywords

Indigenous education, biology education, models, living beings classification

Full Text:

PDF

References

Aikenhead, G. (2001). Integrating western and aboriginal sciences: cross-cultural science teaching. Research in Science Education, 31(3), 337-355.

Anggoro, F. K., Waxman, S. R., & Medin, D. L. (2008). Naming practices and the acquisition of key biological concepts: evidence from English and Indonesian. Psychological Science, 19, 314-319.

Argueta V. A. (2008). Los saberes P’urhépecha: los animales y el diálogo con la naturaleza. México: UNAM/Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Universidad Intercultural Indígena de Michoacán, Casa Juan Pablos, Gobierno del Estado de Michoacán, Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente.

Atran, S., & Medin, D. (2008). The native mind and the cultural construction of nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Backscheider, A. G., Shatz, M., & Gelman, S. A. (1993). Preschoolers’ ability to distinguish living kinds as a function of regrowth. Child Development, 64, 1242-1257.

Bang, M., & Medin, D. (2010). Cultural processes in science education: supporting the navigation of multiple epistemologies. Science Education, 94(6), 1008-1026.

Báez, L. (2004). El espacio sagrado de los nahuas de la sierra norte de Puebla. Perspectivas Latinoamericanas, 1. Retrieved from: http://www.ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp/LATIN/kanko/PL/ 2004PDF/3lourdesbaez.pdf.

Brulé, L., Labrel, F., Megalakaki, O., Fouquet, N., & Caillies, S. (2014). Children´s justifications of plants as living things between 5 and 7 years of age. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 11(5), 532-545.

Candela, A., Sánchez, A., & Alvarado, C. (2012). Las ciencias naturales en las reformas curriculares. In F. Flores (Coord.), La enseñanza de las ciencias en la educación básica en México (pp. 33-56). México: INEE.

Carey, S., & Spelke, E. (2002) Conocimiento dominio-específico y cambio conceptual. In L. Hirschfeld & S. Gelman (Eds), Cartografía de la mente. La especificidad de dominio en la cognición y en la cultura (pp. 243-284). Barcelona: Gedisa.

Cober, W., & Loving, C. (2001). Defining science in a multicultural world: implications for science education. Science Education, 85(1), 50-67.

Dolgin, G. K., & Behrend, A. D. (1984). Children´s knowledge about animates and inanimates. Child Development, 55(4), 1646-1650.

Gallegos-Cázares, L., Flores-Camacho, F., Calderón-Canales, E., Perrusquía-Máximo, E., & García-Rivera, B. (2014). Children's models about colours in Nahuatl-Speaking communities. Research in Science Education, 4(5), 699-725.

Gelman, S. A., & Gottfried, G. (1996). Children´s causal explanations of animate and inanimate motion. Child Development, 67, 1970-1987.

Gelman, S. A., & Opfer, J. (2002). Development of the animate-inanimate distinction. In U. Goswami (Ed.), Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development (pp. 151-166). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Gómez, A., Sanmarti, N., & Pujol, R. M. (2007). Fundamentación teórica y diseño de una unidad didáctica para la enseñanza del modelo de ser vivo en la escuela primaria. Enseñanza de las Ciencias, 25(3), 325-340.

Harding, S. (1994). Is science multicultural? Challenges, resources, opportunities, uncertainties. Configurations, 2(2), 301-330.

Harris, P. L. (2011). Conflicting thoughts about death. Human Development, 54, 160-168.

Hatano, G., Siegler, S. R., Richards, D. D., Inagaki, K., Stavy, R., & Wax, N. (1993). The development of biological knowledge: a multi-national study. Cognitive Development, 8, 47-62.

Hirschfeld, L. A., & Gelman, S. A. (1994). Toward a topography of mind: an introduction to domain specificity. In L. A. Hirschfeld & S. A. Gelman (Eds), Mapping the mind: domain specificity in cognition and culture (pp. 1-36). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Hong, Y. Y., Morris, M., Chiu, C. Y., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: a dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55, 709-720.

Inagaki, K., & Hatano, G. (1987). Young children´s spontaneous personification as analogy. Child Development, 58, 1013-1020.

Inagaki, K., & Hatano, G. (1996). Young children´s recognition of commonalities between animals and plants. Child Development, 67, 2823-2840.

Inagaki, K., & Hatano, G. (2002). Young children’s naive thinking about the biological world. New York: Psychology Press.

Inagaki, C., & Hatano, G. (2006). Young children´s conception of the biological world. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(4), 177-181.

INEE (2007). La educación para poblaciones en contextos vulnerables. Capítulo 2: El caso de las primarias indígenas (pp. 41-68). México: INEE.

INEGI (2010). Censo de población y vivienda (Population and dwelling census). Retrieved from: http://www.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/mexicocifras/default.aspx?src=487andent=21.

Jiménez-Naranjo, Y. (2011). Los ‘enunciados’ de la escuela intercultural en el ámbito de los pueblos indígenas de México. Desacatos. Revista de Antropología Social, 35, 149-162.

Kelemen, D. (1999). Function, goals and intention: children´s reasoning about objects. Trends in Cognitive Science, 3(12), 461-468.

Lee, H., Yen, C. F., & Aikenhead, G. (2012) Indigenous elementary students’ Science instruction in Taiwan: indigenous knowledge and western Science. Research in Science Education, 42(6), 1183-1199.

Legare, H. C., Evans, M. E., Rosengren, S. K., & Harris, L. P. (2012). The coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations across cultures and development. Child Development, 83, 779-793.

Lorente, D. (2011). Tempestades de vida y muerte entre los nahuas. In P. Pitrou, M. C. Valverde & J. Neurath (Eds), La noción de vida en Mesoamérica (pp. 259-287). México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos.

Lupo, A. (2001). La cosmovisión de los nahuas de la Sierra de Puebla. In J. Broda & F. Báez-Jorge F. O. (Eds), Cosmovisión, ritual e identidad de los pueblos indígenas de México (pp. 335-390). México: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Massey, C. M., & Gelman, R. (1988). Preschooler’s ability to decide whether a photographed unfamiliar object can move itself. Developmental Psychology, 24, 307-317.

Matos, M. E. (2010). La muerte entre los mexicas. México: Tusquets Editores.

Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 949-971.

Ogawa, M. (1995). Science Education in a multiscience perspective. Science Education, 79(5), 583-593.

Opfer, E. J. (2002). Identifying living and sentient kinds from dynamic information: the case of goal-directed versus aimless autonomous movement in conceptual change. Cognition, 86, 97-122.

Opfer, E. J., & Siegler, S. R. (2004). Revisiting preschoolers´ living things concept: a microgenetic analysis of conceptual change in basic biology. Cognitive Psychology, 49, 301-332.

Piaget, J. (1929/1975). La representación del mundo en el niño. Madrid: Morata.

Pitrou, P. (2011). El papel de “Aquel que hace vivir” en las prácticas sacrificiales de la sierra mixe de Oaxaca. In P. Pitrou, M. C. Valverde & J. Neurath (Eds), La noción de vida en Mesoamérica (pp. 119-154). México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México y Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos.

Ross, N., Medin, D., Coley, D. J., & Atran, S. (2003). Cultural and experiential differences in the development of folk biological induction. Cognitive Development, 18, 25-47.

Salleh, R., Venville, G. J., & Treagust, D. F. (2007). When a bilingual child describes living things: an analysis of conceptual understandings from a language perspective. Research in Science Education, 37, 297-312.

Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP) (2011a). Plan de Estudios 2011. Educación Básica. México: SEP.

Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP) (2011b). Programa de Estudios 2011. Guía para el Maestro, Primaria, Primer, Segundo, Tercero, Cuarto, Quinto y Sexto grados. Educación Básica. México: SEP.

Stromberg, I. C. (2003). La participación diferenciada de los pueblos indígenas y el derecho internacional ambiental y humana. Retrieved from: http://www2.inecc.gob.mx/ publicaciones/consultaPublicacion.html?id_pub=398.

Taber, K. (2000). Multiple frameworks?: evidence of manifold conceptions in individual cognitive structure. International Journal of Science Education, 22(4), 399-417.

Taller de Tradición Oral CEPEC & Beaucage P. (1987) Catégories pratiques et taxonomie: des notes sur la classification et les pratiques botaniques nahuats de Sierra Norte de Puebla. Recherches Amériendiennes au Quebec, 17(4), 17-36.

Waxman, S. R., Medin, D. L., & Ross, N. (2007). Folkbiological reasoning from a cross-cultural developmental perspective: early essentialist notions are shaped by cultural beliefs. Developmental Psychology, 43(2), 294-308.

Winter, K. (2015). Innovate qualitative research methods with children aged 4-7 years. In O. N. Saracho (Ed.), Handbook of Research Methods in Early Childhood Education. Review of Research Methodologies Volume I. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc.

Zogza, V., & Papamichael, Y. (2000). The development of the concept of alive by preschoolers through a cognitive conflict teaching intervention. European Journal of Psychology Education, XV(2), 191-205.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.26220/rev.2710

View Counter: Abstract | 363 | times, and PDF | 196 | times



Re S M ICT E | ISSN: 1792-3999 (electronic), 1791-261X (print) | Laboratory of Didactics of Sciences, Mathematics and ICT, Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education - University of Patras.

Pasithee | Library & Information Center | University of Patras