The Feature Focus article to be selected from Volume 2 Issue 2 is Multicultural education, pragmatism, and the goals of science teaching.

*Note For ease of access, the feature focus article and forum are available in the same PDF download. Click on title of article to access PDF.

ABSTRACT In this paper, we offer an intermediate position in the multiculturalism/universalism debate, drawing upon Cobern and Loving’s epistemological pluralism, pragmatist philosophies, Southerland’s defense of instructional multicultural science education, and the conceptual profile model. An important element in this position is the proposal that understanding is the proper goal of science education. Our commitment to this proposal is explained in terms of a defense of an ethics of coexistence for dealing with cultural differences, according to which social argumentative processes—including those in science education—should be marked by dialogue and confrontation of arguments in the search of possible solutions, and an effort to (co-)live with differences if a negotiated solution is not reached. To understand the discourses at stake is, in our view, a key requirement for the coexistence of arguments and discourses, and the science classroom is the privileged space for promoting an understanding of the scientific discourse in particular. We argue for “inclusion” of students’ culturally grounded ideas in science education, but in a sense that avoids curricular multicultural science education, and, thus, any attempt to broaden the definition of “science” so that ideas from other ways of knowing might be simply treated as science contents. We expect this paper can contribute to the elaboration of an instructional multicultural science education approach that eliminates the forced choice between the goals of promoting students’ understanding of scientific ideas and of empowering students through education.

Charbel Nin˜o El-Hani is Professor of History, Philosophy, and Biology Teaching at the Institute of Biology, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil, and Researcher of the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development). He is affiliated with the Graduate Studies Programs in History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching (Universidade Federal da Bahia and Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana) and in Ecology and Biomonitoring (Universidade Federal da Bahia). His research interests are in science education research, philosophy of biology, biosemiotics, and animal behavior.

Eduardo F. Mortimer is Professor of Education at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil and Researcher of the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development). He is a former high school chemistry teacher. His research interests focus on science learning, classroom discourse and professional development of science teachers. He is President of the Brazilian Science Education Research Association (2005–2009), editor of ‘‘Educac¸a˜o em Revista’’, a Brazilian journal of educational research, and member of editorial boards of Brazilian and international journals in education and science education.