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The discussion on how to integrate African indigenous knowledge (IK) into mainstream Science and Technology schooling prevails. Nigeria's colonised school curriculum is antithetical to its rich IK heritage. Guided by postcolonial theory, and the need for a culturally relevant and decolonised curriculum, this paper sought to explore seven basic 7-9 Science and Technology teachers' conceptions of IK in Imo State, Nigeria, and ways they reportedly integrate IK in their classes. A qualitative approach was used to generate data from the teachers via narratives and focus group discussions. The teachers held five significant conceptions of IK: Informal Knowledge, Relational Knowledge, Traditional Knowledge, Technological Knowledge that is scientifically based and Lost Knowledge. However, only the conceptions of IK as Relational Knowledge and as scientifically based Technological Knowledge were enacted in their classroom. We advance the rationale that teachers with these conceptions and consequent classroom enactment are ideally situated to serve as cultural brokers of IK.

This article critiques the role of the ESKOM Expo for Young Scientists as a particularly salient node in the constitution of young learners' identity as prospective participants in the field of science and technology. The ESKOM Expo is seen as a particularly exciting means of providing access to the niche area of science and technology. Yet this attraction camouflages a number of pitfalls that learners have to negotiate. Looked at as a vehicle of accommodation of the scientific and technological aspirations of the young people involved in this research, the ESKOM Expo reveals itself to be problematic in various ways. Positioning itself within a postcritical ethnographic framework, this article considers these issues at two levels: a) the disjuncture between the bureaucratic institution of the expositions and the intuitiveness and spontaneity evident in the learners' preparation for the exposition; b) issues of language and representation that tend to marginalise learners from working class backgrounds. It is argued that the institution of the ESKOM Expo, while undoubtedly useful as a means of opening up young learners' horizons of science and technology, is still not sufficiently flexible, both at a conceptual and an organisational level, for it to be the vehicle of technological empowerment it is intended to be.