Abstract

This thesis study investigates the integration of traditional indigenous knowledge into an elementary school curriculum in the Amharic speaking regions of Ethiopia. The main question it addresses is whether science education in this developing country builds on the learners' schemas, culture and environment, to learning leading to eventual marginalisation. My study is in two phases. The first is a content analysis of a Grade 2 Science textbook used in the Amharic-speaking areas around Addis Ababa. The second is a classroom observation, which I conducted in four schools in September 2001, comparing the findings of the content analysis to actual teacher language and behaviour at the point of delivery. The overall findings suggest that the inclusion of indigenous content taught via Amharic can be an effective bridge between students' local understandings of phenomena in their home culture and "Western" scientific ways of looking and knowing.