Using the iterative process of action research, we identify six portals of understanding, called threshold concepts, which can be used as curricular guideposts to disrupt the socially constituted separation, and hierarchy, between humans and the more-than-human. The threshold concepts identified in this study provide focal points for a curriculum…

We recently attended a conference at which a non-Maori presenter, drawing on a particular metaphor already established by Maori writers, related Maori natural world features to a research method. The presentation was useful because it highlighted several issues that call for our concern as Maori philosophers. In this article, we outline these…

Policy for young children in South Africa is now receiving high-level government support through the ANC's renewed commitment to redress poverty and inequity and creating "a better life for all" as promised before the 1994 election. In this article, I explore the power relations, knowledge hierarchies and discourses of childhood, family…

This article explores prospects for community-based water resources management in Tlokoeng Valley, in the northern district of Lesotho. A qualitative survey was conducted to establish the pre-knowledge of the valley community. This provided a basis for a community education programme on wetlands conservation. Fifteen focus group interviews (FGIs)…

In pursuance of one of the goals of the new South African curriculum to integrate science with Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), this study, which forms part of a larger study, is concerned with determining teachers' and learners' conceptions of a number of familiar natural phenomena. Several recent studies have indicated that: (1) learners do…