Pedagogic principles in negotiating cultural conflict: A Melanesian example

This paper draws on the personal experiences of three researchers: an “outsider” (or western‐oriented) science teacher, a science teacher educator who has lived in Melanesian countries for almost a decade, and a national researcher who was born and educated in Melanesia. During a recent interpretative research study of the problematic relationship between the traditional world‐views of Melanesian villagers and the official school science views of young Melanesian people, Bruce became increasingly aware of the importance of conducting culture‐sensitive interpretative research. Bruce and Joe describe three people with different experiences and approaches to education. Mindful of the important role of the outside teacher researchers in providing essential information for the local contextualisation of school science curricula, we propose a number of culture‐sensitive practices when working in Melanesian cross‐cultural contexts.