Horwood, Bert (1995). The Ceremonial Elements of Non-Native Cultures. Pathways: The Ontario Journal of Outdoor Education, v8 n3 p7-11 May. Non-Natives (or immigrants) wrongly adopt aspects of Native ceremonies out of ignorance and misunderstanding, a tendency to romanticize Native culture, and a desire to connect with the land. Non-Native outdoor educators should examine their own cultural traditions, develop new ceremonies, and learn from Native elders those Native cultural aspects that are suitable for teaching. (LP)…

Breitborde, Lawrence B. (1993). Multiculturalism and Cultural Relativism after the Commemoration. Social Education, v57 n3 p104-08 Mar. Discussed multiculturalism and culturalism in light of the 1992 quincentennial of the Columbian voyages. Argues that historical accuracy and multiculturalism are not incompatible. Concludes that cultural relativism is necessary to prepare students to live in contemporary U.S. society. (CFR)…

Smith, Douglas (1999). Educating Inner-City Aboriginal Students: The Significance of Culturally Appropriate Instruction and Parental Support. McGill Journal of Education, v34 n2 p155-71 Spr. Presents a case study that describes how poverty affects inner-city Aboriginal youth in a Canadian elementary school. Describes the school and shows how culturally appropriate instruction and parental involvement are used to educate Aboriginal children. Discusses the findings in detail. Calls for government support in combating poverty. (CMK)…

Chigisheva, Oksana, Ed.; Ermenc, Klara Skubic, Ed.; Hilton, Gillian, Ed; Ogunleye, James, Ed.; Popov, Nikolay, Ed.; Wolhuter, Charl, Ed. (2014). Education's Role in Preparing Globally Competent Citizens. BCES Conference Books, Volume 12. Bulgarian Comparative Education Society This volume contains papers submitted to the 12th Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), held in Sofia and Nessebar, Bulgaria, in June 2014, and papers submitted to the 2nd International Partner Conference, organized by the International Research Centre 'Scientific Cooperation,' Rostov-on-Don, Russia. The volume also includes papers submitted to the International Symposium on Comparative Sciences, organized by the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society in Sofia, in October 2013. The 12th BCES Conference theme is "Education's Role in Preparing Globally Competent Citizens." The 2nd Partner Conference theme is "Contemporary Science and Education: New Challenges — New Decisions." The book consists of 103 papers, written by 167 authors and co-authors, and grouped into 7 parts. Parts 1-4 comprise papers submitted to the 12th BCES Conference, and Parts 5-7 comprise papers submitted to the 2nd Partner Conference. The 103… [PDF]

Foster, Scott, Ed. (1989). Respecting Differences: The Hope for a Global Community. Annual Bilingual Multicultural Education Conference (15th, Anchorage, Alaska, January 30-February 3, 1989). This booklet lists the organizers and describes the agenda of a conference on the theme of respect for, and understanding of, cultural differences as the basis of global community. Workshop sessions are described and three keynote speeches are reprinted, together with four student essays that best captured the conference's theme. The keynote speeches generally promoted bicultural and bilingual education as means of opening up students' understanding of the world. Ted Mala (director of the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska, Anchorage) emphasized the value of programs which allow Native Alaskans to communicate with their circumpolar counterparts in the Soviet Union across the Bering Straits. Howard Rainier (assistant director of the American Indian Studies Program at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah) stressed the value of multicultural education as nurturing a sense of Native pride. Janie Leaske (member of the Alaska State Board of Education and… [PDF]

Bergen, John J. (1987). Current Issues in Canadian Education. Based on interviews with 150 persons in departments of education and in national, provincial, and territorial education organizations in Canada's major capital cities, this paper discusses seven vital issues in Canadian education and briefly states seven others. The seven major issues needing resolution concern: (1) the appropriate balance between central and local control of education; (2) the amendment of provincial school legislation according to the principles outlined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; (3) the appropriateness of official language policies for any or all of the provinces; (4) native people's control of their children's education; (5) the amount of provincial resources directed to developing and maintaining multicultural programs in schools; (6) the manner of provincial funding for education; and (7) the justification of private educational alternatives. Other issues include curriculum relevancy and enrichment, school responsibiltiy for controversial…

Nyland, Berenice (2002). Language, Literacy and Participation Rights: Factors Influencing Educational Outcomes for Australian Boys. This paper is concerned with the present position of boys in Australian early childhood programs, especially the early years of school. The argument is made that schools are not resourced to deal adequately with the problems many children face in their daily lives. It argues that teachers are restricted in their practice through curriculum frameworks and a narrow concept of literacy that fails to acknowledge different cultural and social backgrounds, or styles of learning. As the gap between the haves and the have-nots grows increasingly wider, the paper argues that the ideological climate does not allow for the confrontation of issues, such as poverty, that influence the "life chances" of so many young children. The paper discusses circumstances influencing the educational outcomes of children in relation to gender differences, as well as economic, cultural and language factors. Contains 31 references. (Author/RS)… [PDF]

Nahmad, Salomon (1981). Mexican Colonialism?. Society, v19 n1 p51-58 Nov-Dec. Reviews early and recent policies and programs of the Mexican government to provide for the educational needs of the Indian minorities, with emphasis on bilingual education. Recommends further measures that will give Indians equal status in Mexican society. (MJL)…

Cheney, Jim (2002). The Moral Epistemology of First Nations Stories. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, v7 n2 p88-100. Proposes that one way to view storytelling in First Nations cultures is to look at the epistemology that informs it. Recommends that storytelling be central to environmental education, ethics, and practice. (Contains 19 references.) (DDR)… [PDF]

Irwin, Rita L. (1998). Roots/Routes as Arterial Connections for Art Educators: Advocating for Aboriginal Cultures. Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, n18 p29-43. Argues that classroom art experiences that recognize the roots, and routes, of individual identities help form pathways for understanding ourselves and others' experiences. Talks about a trip to a Paiwan aboriginal community in southern Taiwan and the lessons learned about the integration of art with cultural life and identity. (DSK)…

Bairu, Wunesh Woldeselassie; Ezirim, Mgbechikwere; Gamurorwa, Anne; Ntsonyane, Phaello; Phiri, Mary; Sagnia, Jenieri; Salakana, Leoncia; Schafer, Jessica (2004). Exploring and Promoting the Value of Indigenous Knowledge in Early Childhood Development in Africa. International Journal of Educational Policy, Research, and Practice: Reconceptualizing Childhood Studies, v5 n3 p61-80 Fall. There is currently a renaissance of interest in indigenous knowledges, after a long period of neglect and disdain by Western scientific and academic establishments. However, educational institutions have not made some of the more fundamental changes required to successfully integrate indigenous knowledges. Interventions and programs in ECD similarly tend to be based on an accepted body of knowledge built on Western experience and practice. The ECDVU takes a very different approach to capacity building. Its curriculum is built around the idea of co-construction of knowledge, requiring the participation of all in the creation and dissemination of content. The initial results of this process of generating curriculum within concrete cultural contexts are encouraging. The participants in the ECDVU program recognize the value of indigenous knowledges and are actively pursuing the documentation and incorporation of these knowledges into their research and program activities in the field of… [PDF] [Direct]

Nabhan, Gary; Rosenberg, Janice (1997). Where Ancient Stories Guide Children Home. Natural History, v106 n9 p54-61 Oct. The Seri people, of Sonora state (Mexico), have traditionally fished and hunted turtles in the Gulf of California and gathered plants in the Sonoran Desert. Intergenerational transmission of the intricate environmental knowledge needed for these activities was accomplished through storytelling and observational learning, but is now threatened by outside influences. Community and school efforts at cultural maintenance are described. (SV)…

Pewewardy, Cornel (2002). American Indian and White Students Talking about Ethnic Identity in Teacher Education Programs: Helping Teacher Education Students Know Themselves as Cultural Beings. Action in Teacher Education, v24 n2 p22-33 Sum. Describes a classroom assignment designed to help teacher educators contrast how American Indian and white European American students develop their ethnic identities in teacher education programs. The paper discusses the context and ideas that generated this self-study, offering student excerpts to illustrate the processes these students travel in their identity development, moving from a state of unawareness to varying degrees of self-awareness. (Contains references.) (SM)…

McCarty, T. L. (1989). Inquiry-Based Curriculum Development in a Navajo School. Educational Leadership, v46 n5 p66-71 Feb. At Rough Rock Demonstration School in Arizona, a bilingual, bicultural curriculum helps Navajo students discover the power and validity of their own lives as tools for learning. (Author/TE)…

(1996). Indigenous Affairs = Asuntos Indigenas, 1996. Indigenous Affairs, n1-4. This document contains the four 1996 English-language issues of Indigenous Affairs and the four corresponding issues in Spanish. These newsletters provide a resource on the history, current conditions, and struggles for self-determination and human rights of indigenous peoples around the world. Articles on the United States and Canada (1) discuss efforts of the Blackfeet Indians to preserve their sacred lands, language (Pikuni), and culture; (2) describe North Slope Borough (Alaska) home rule government and its role in maintaining subsistence whaling for Alaska Natives and promoting school programs in Inupiat history, language, and culture; and (3) present the statement at the United Nations of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs concerning differences between Canadian and traditional First Nations' economic structures and resulting difficulties in extricating Aboriginal peoples from the welfare state. Other articles concern the indigenous peoples of countries in Central and South…

Maretzki, Audrey; Semali, Ladislaus (2004). Valuing Indigenous Knowledges: Strategies for Engaging Communities and Transforming the Academy. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, v10 n1 p91-106. This article presents steps taken by Penn State's Interinstitutional Consortium for Indigenous Knowledge (ICIK) to engage communities and transform the academy. ICIK provides opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to network with others who share a vision of the academy as a place where multiple ways of knowing are valued and respected. Three questions have dominated the transformation agenda: (a) How do communities negotiate and connect various knowledge systems in order to address local/global concerns? (b) What can the global community and academic institutions learn from indigenous knowledge innovations? (c) How do we integrate and internalize a local knowledge orientation within academic institutions? Institutionalization of knowledge production, validation, and distribution in universities and research laboratories characterizes the academy. This academic way of knowing contrasts with indigenous knowledge that resides in a particular locality, is derived from many years… [PDF]

Alexander, Frank D. (1968). Evaluation of Family Service Program, Home Economics Division of Cooperative Extension, Essex County, New York: Extension Study No. 19. An evaluation study of the Family Service Program of the Essex County (New York) Division of Home Economics is focused on the third series of lessons; the purposes of the study were to describe the socioeconomic characteristics of the indigenous program aides and the participants and to show the influence of training for teaching this series of lessons. It was found that aides had higher income, participation scores, and educational levels than participants, but both groups were low in comparison to the country's total population in level of husband's occupation, net family income, and years of school completed. Both aides and participants made significant gains from the pre- to posttest while aides showed slightly higher scores in both testing situations. Participants listed problems of cooking and planning meals, housekeeping, and money management, while aides identified participant problems of care and discipline of children, and health. Among implications are that indigenous… [PDF]

Veaco, Lelia (1973). The Effect of Paraprofessional Assistance on the Academic Achievement of Migrant Children. The study investigated the effect of guided paraprofessional assistance on the academic achievement of lower achieving intermediate grade migrant children. It examined one possible means of overcoming some of the overwhelming handicaps experienced by migrant children by using indigenous paraprofessionals as a humanizing, tutorial factor. Eighty migrant students, in both the 5th and 6th grades, were chosen for this study when they were residing in the San Joaquin Valley (California) during the 1971-72 school year. The 35 paraprofessionals used were mostly Spanish speaking. The amount of assistance received by each migrant child was recorded by resource teachers in the 34 school sites surveyed. The research indicated that: (1) lower achieving intermediate students who received paraprofessional assistance showed greater achievement than children who received no such help; (2) paraprofessional assistance in reading was somehow especially beneficial to 6th grade boys; (3) there were no… [PDF]

Misko, Josie (2004). The Role of Community Development Employment Projects in Rural and Remote Communities. National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) The Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme provides funds to help Indigenous communities in rural and remote Australia provide employment, skills development, and various essential and desirable municipal services. However, there is room to improve the range and quality of employment and community development activities available. There is also room for increasing the number of participants who engage in and complete courses leading to trade and other formal qualifications. (Contains 5 tables and 4 footnotes.) [For "The Role of Community Development Employment Projects in Rural and Remote Communities. Support Document," see ED495143.]… [PDF]

Traore, Samba (2001). La Pedagogie Convergente: Son Experimentation au Mali et son Impact sur le Systeme Educatif. Monographies Innodata (The Convergent Pedagogy: Its Experimentation in Mali and Its Impact on the Educational System. Innodata Monographs). In this monograph, convergent pedagogy, which is a foreign language education approach to develop functional bilingualism in students, is described as a new approach to teaching language in bi- or multilingual contexts. Convergent pedagogy was introduced to the Mali educational system as a language education experiment in 1987. This monograph is a complete report of the long-term, internationally funded project, its background, finances, implementation and outcomes. The approach was developed in Belgium and was introduced to the educational system in Mali as a method to facilitate the acquisition of French, while still upholding the educational and cultural values of mother tongues. Using this approach in Mali, mother tongues are taught alongside French; however, mother tongues are employed in the formal classroom to convey the most important elements of communication, expression, and instruction. Sections of the monograph include the following: (1) Background information on the… [PDF]

Ghere, David L.; Spreeman, Jan F. (2000). U.S. Indian Policy, 1815-1860: Removal to Reservations. A Unit of Study for Grades 8-12. The cultural interaction between Euro-Americans and the original inhabitants of this country constitute one of the most compelling and defining conundrums in U.S. history. This unit explores 19th-century ideology as manifested in public attitudes, justifications for action, and the formation of government policy. The unit is based on primary source documents, such as newspapers, photographs, private correspondence, and artifacts. It presents specific issues and dramatic episodes in U.S. history from which teachers and students can explore the deeper meanings of these landmark events and their wider context in the historical narrative. The unit's premise is that by studying crucial turning points in history the student develops an awareness that choices had to be made by real human beings. The unit includes: "Introduction" (Approach and Rationale, Content and Organization); "Teacher Background Materials" (Unit Overview, Unit Context, Correlation to the National…

Harslett, Mort (1996). The Concept of Giftedness from an Aboriginal Cultural Perspective. Gifted Education International, v11 n2 p100-06. Australian Aboriginal adults (n=74) and children (n=103) were interviewed regarding their perspectives on giftedness. Aboriginal culture was found to view giftedness as a consequence of individual ability, commitment, and environmental factors. Research is reported on the specific talents valued by the Aboriginal culture. Suggestions are given for more culturally relevant ability identification constructs. (Author/PB)…

Farrell, Lesley; And Others (1995). Critical Literacy: Cultural Action and Textual Practices. Open Letter, v6 n1 p1-4. Discusses Australian approaches to critical literacy. The editorial notes that conditions in Australia for curriculum development and implementation are in transition, with different approaches and priorities advanced in the second half of the 90s. Suggests that to teach critical literacy is to help students identify how the ways of focusing on texts serve cultural, economic and political interests. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education) (CK)…

Jim, Rex Lee, Ed.; And Others (1996). Becoming Hataalii. Journal of Navajo Education, v13 n3 p11-14 Spr. Four hataalii (Navajo medicine men) discuss why they chose and how they studied their profession, how ceremonies correct spiritual imbalance, why ceremonies cannot be done for non-Indians (differences in Navajo and non-Navajo belief systems), and how the Native American Church was founded to allow legal use of peyote and was commercialized by insertion of Christianity. (TD)…

Stroud, Christopher (2003). Postmodernist Perspectives on Local Languages: African Mother-Tongue Education in Times of Globalisation. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, v6 n1 p17-36. Analyses of how African communities use language show that indigenous languages coexist with metropolitan languages in complex configurations of speech practices. Argues that these practices should suggest a rethinking of the purpose, function, and methodology of teaching languages in developing African contexts, building on the ways that local communities use multilingualism to address power relationships inherent in local-global configuration. (Author/VWL)…

Schlene, Vickie J. (1991). Christopher Columbus: Bridge between the Old and New World. OAH Magazine of History, v5 n4 p47-48 Spr. Presents a partial bibliography of ERIC database entries concerning Christopher Columbus and the effects of his discoveries upon the world. Includes works on historiography, the ecological impact of the meeting of the two worlds, and history lesson plans. (DK)…

Deloria, Vine, Jr. (1992). Ethnoscience and Indian Realities. Winds of Change, v7 n3 p12-18 Sum. Advocates for ethnosciences courses in higher education. Compares the epistemology of Western science and traditional tribal knowledge, including methods of information gathering, data interpretation, fragmented versus holistic approach, and world views. Discusses the expansion of some fields of scientific inquiry to include "ethnoscience," and the role of American Indian science students in furthering its acceptance. (SV)…

Menzies, Charles R. (2001). Reflections on Research with, for, and among Indigenous Peoples. Canadian Journal of Native Education, v25 n1 p19-36. An anthropologist of Indigenous descent reflects on challenges confronting researchers in mainstream institutions as they pursue respectful research relationships with Indigenous peoples. Challenges include differing cultural attitudes toward knowledge and research, institutional policies on publication and intellectual property, political issues, the anthropologist's role in the community studied, limits of objectivity, and the possibility of activism. (Contains 34 references.) (Author/SV)…

Pauka, Soikava; Treagust, David F.; Waldrip, Bruce (2005). Village Elders' and Secondary School Students' Explanations of Natural Phenomena in Papua New Guinea. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, v3 n2 p213-238 Jun. This research investigated the sources of explanations and understanding of natural phenomena in terms of the students' cultural and school science experiences. The first phase involved interviews with eight village elders that probed their explanations and understanding of natural phenomena. The second phase involved the design, development and administration of two questionnaires on natural phenomena to 179 students in a rural boarding high school in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Most village elders gave explanations of many of the phenomena in terms of spirits, spells, magic, religion, and personal experiences. Most school-aged students choose scientific explanations of natural phenomena in terms of what they had learned in school or from personal experiences. However, many choose explanations of the same phenomena about spirits, spells and magic that came from the village, family or home. The study revealed that students' ideas about natural phenomena are strongly governed and… [Direct]

Inglis, Christine (1986). Australia. Education and Urban Society, v18 n4 p423-36 Aug. Examines educational provisions for ethnic and racial groups in Australia, comprised primarily of the aborigines and the migrants or non-English speaking immigrants. Discussion of the official policies of "self determination" and "multiculturalism" emphasizes the important differences between the two and the considerations given them by the Australian government. (SA)…