(2016). Myths and Realities of Tribal Education in Jammu and Kashmir: An Exploratory Study. Online Submission, American Research Thoughts v2 n4 p3535-3547 Feb. Education is the key to developmental process and also influences demographic behaviour. Jammu and Kashmir is homeland to a number of tribal communities with diverse eco-cultural, socio-economic and geographical backgrounds. These Scheduled Tribes experience passive indifference that takes the form of exclusion from educational opportunities and social participation. Education has been considered as a lever to raise one's position in the society as well as a tool to fight against poverty and ignorance. The present paper explored the current status of education among scheduled tribes in Jammu and Kashmir. Despite constitutional protection and assurances, even after two and a half decades, their educational status is far lower than the total literacy of the State and also lower than literacy rate of scheduled tribes at national level. There is an essential need to make serious efforts by government, non-government organizations and other local bodies to augment the pace of development… [PDF]
(2019). Strategies for Settler Decolonization: Decolonial Pedagogies in a Popular Music Analysis Course. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, v49 n1 p125-139. Canadian institutions of higher education are grappling with decolonization, particularly with how to move beyond decolonial and settler colonial theory and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's Calls to Action to practical and specific strategies for meaningful change in the classroom. To that end, this paper offers a case study of a settler instructor's process of decolonization in a popular music analysis course and describes a variety of methods for decolonizing course design and classroom activities. A discussion of how to apply and adapt the author's methods for different courses, programs, and local contexts leads to critical reflection on the impact of these changes on student learning and their efficacy in terms of decolonization itself…. [PDF]
(2019). Inclusion and Engagement through Traditional Indigenous Games: Enhancing Physical Self-Efficacy. International Journal of Inclusive Education, v23 n12 p1248-1262. This paper reports on mixed methods research that was part of a larger investigation into the impact of an inclusive, physical activity intervention programme on a broad range of variables including children's enjoyment of, and participation in physical activity, self-perceptions, physical self-efficacy and how this influenced their overall social-emotional health and well-being. A six-month intervention programme based on Traditional Indigenous Games (TIG) was conducted in a total of five schools with 235 children and their seven teachers, in Queensland, Australia. Student reflective surveys used a four-point Likert scale to collect quantitative data relating to enjoyment and inclusion, perceptions of ability and physical self-efficacy. Qualitative data were also obtained through teachers' anecdotal notes and post-intervention semi-structured interviews. Statistically significant differences across time were found for student enjoyment, inclusion, perceptions and physical… [Direct]
(2019). Contemporary School Knowledge Democracy: Possible Meanings, Promising Perspectives and Necessary Prerequisites. Educational Action Research, v27 n1 p108-124. The basic aim of this paper is to discuss the concept 'Knowledge Democracy' (KD) and what it can mean in the school context, its implications on knowledge production and dissemination and on the educational practices. We try to enrich this discussion by presenting action research projects to provide case studies of how thinking about KD can reshape educational practice. We consider that the discussion on KD has to be enriched as the concept seems very promising with good prospects towards school's democratization. On the other hand, as it is quite new, it can encompass internal contradictions that can cause problems at the level of practice. So, we consider very important any contribution to this discussion not as another theoretical sample of the debate on the 'politics of knowledge', but because any improvement at the thinking of the issue can be reflected on school practices. Any challenge to traditional politics of knowledge can lead to a deeper understanding of the world of… [Direct]
(2022). How Teachers Balance Language Proficiency and Pedagogical Ideals at Universities in Indigenous and Postcolonial Societies: The Case of the University of Greenland. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, v21 n6 p439-452. Based on Bourdieu's theory of practice, this article explores pedagogical ideals and educational policies in teachers' everyday practice in a postcolonial bilingual university setting in Greenland. Greenlandic and Danish teachers' teaching ideals were explored during a one-year pedagogy qualifying course for assistant professors organised by the (Danish) authors in cooperation with University of Greenland. The overall pedagogical agenda placed an emphasis on student activity. Both Greenlandic and Danish teachers' representations of their practice accounted for the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of their indigenous students, but they did so in different ways. Whereas Greenlandic teachers tended to emphasise formal correctness in the use of Greenlandic language and student understanding and translation of the learning objectives, Danish teachers tended to lower their own perceived academic norms and graded certain students more leniently in order to compensate for both their… [Direct]
(2017). First Nations, M√©tis and Inuit Presence in the Newfoundland and Labrador Curriculum. Race, Ethnicity and Education, v20 n4 p446-462. This article responds to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Canada's 2015 call for the education of Canadians about "residential schools, treaties, and Aboriginal peoples' historical and contemporary contributions to Canada." It is an analysis of the Canadian and world studies curricula and texts in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1 of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada. The analysis is based on academic research and consultations with First Nations, M√©tis and Inuit peoples (FNMI) educators, educational administrators and knowledge holders. Although there is evidence of reform, as a whole the curriculum suffers from silences and lack of context, problematic placement and associations, the intrusion of settler perspectives, contradiction over judgement about issues related to FNMI peoples and inconsistency that undermine efforts at reform. This article provides guidance to curriculum designers, textbook writers, teachers and administrators participating in the… [Direct]
(2021). The Representation of Social Groups in U.S. Educational Materials and Why It Matters: A Research Overview. New America Culturally responsive education is an asset-based approach to teaching and learning, which incorporates materials that reflect students' cultural communities ("mirrors") and those of different communities ("windows"). These materials support students' engagement, learning and interests in career fields, expose them to different perspectives and experiences, and influence their understanding of self and social groups. However, are all students provided with opportunities for windows and mirrors, specifically through characters and people featured in educational materials? This report synthesizes the results of more than 160 studies to explain the connection between culturally responsive education materials and learning, and examines representation of different social groups. More specifically, it captures the frequency and portrayal of different racial, ethnic, and gender groups within printed and digital educational media to provide a comprehensive understanding… [PDF]
(2014). Online, Tuned In, Turned On: Multimedia Approaches to Fostering Critical Media Health Literacy for Adolescents. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education, v5 n3 p267-280. The commercial media is an influential sociocultural force and transmitter of health information especially for adolescents. Instruction in critical media health literacy, a combination of concepts from critical health literacy and critical media literacy, is a potentially effective means of raising adolescents' awareness about commercial media and its influence on their health. We first provide background on critical media health literacy for adolescents. We then discuss the potential for involving adolescents in creating multimedia to demonstrate basic principles of critical media health literacy skills. Using excerpts from two of our research projects to illustrate our ideas, we draw conclusions and suggest future research in critical media health literacy for adolescents…. [Direct]
(2018). Recognizing and Reducing Barriers to Science and Math Education and STEM Careers for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. CBE – Life Sciences Education, v17 n4 Meeting Report 1 Dec. Climate change is impacting the Pacific Islands first and most drastically, yet few native islanders are trained to recognize, analyze, or mitigate the impacts in these islands. To understand the reasons why low numbers of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders enter colleges, enroll in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, or undertake life sciences/STEM careers, 25 representatives from colleges and schools in seven U.S.-affiliated states and countries across the Pacific participated in a 2-day workshop. Fourteen were indigenous peoples of their islands. Participants revealed that: (1) cultural barriers, including strong family obligations and traditional and/or religious restrictions, work against students leaving home or entering STEM careers; (2) geographic barriers confront isolated small island communities without secondary schools, requiring students to relocate to a distant island for high school; (3) in many areas, teachers are undertrained in… [Direct]
(2015). The Possibilities and Limits of the Structure-Agency Dialectic in Advancing Science for All. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, v52 n4 p574-583 Apr. In this special issue, the structure-agency dialectic is used to shift the analytic frame in science education from focusing on youth as in need of remediation to rethinking new arrangements, tools, and forms of assistance and participation in support of youth learning science. This shift from "fixing" the individual to re-mediating and transforming the functional system is key to reimagining new forms of learning and doing science that are tied to the imaginings of new futures, trajectories, and identities. In this manuscript, we discuss the major contributions of these studies in the special issue. In so doing, we seek to lay out both the possibilities and limits of the structure-agency dialectic in advancing science for all. We suggest that social and pedagogical imaginaries enable one to move the structure-agency dialectic towards transformative ends. We further suggest that to account more actively for how position and power shape the ways in which individuals seek to… [Direct]
(2018). A "SOTRA Environment": How Hearing Bedouin Mothers of Children with Hearing Loss Perceive the Education System. Volta Review, v118 n1-2 p60-87 Nov. Israel's Bedouin population has a high percentage of children with disabilities, including hearing loss. This study, conducted among Bedouin mothers in Israel's Negev desert, found that the mothers' perception of their child's disability may influence their attitude toward the available educational environments and the child's placement. Children whose mothers perceive their disability as remediable are generally placed by the school system in special needs or mainstream classes in regular schools. Children whose mothers perceive the disability as irremediable are generally placed in special needs schools. However, special needs education for the Bedouin population in Israel's Negev is not developed enough to meet the children's needs. Their parents use these educational arrangements primarily for what they call a "sotra framework"–an environment that protects the child and preserves family honor…. [Direct]
(2017). Effect of National Partnerships on NAPLAN. Cogent Education, v4 n1 Article 1273166. The annual National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) measures the literacy and numeracy skills of primary and secondary students in Australia. Under the three Smarter Schools National Partnership, additional funding is provided to the independent schools with the expectation of improving student performance. Using multilevel modelling to account for within-school variables and demographics, we analyse NAPLAN data from the 2008-2011 tests for a sample of independent schools to estimate the effect of the National Partnerships on student performance. The results indicated that on average male students performed higher in the numeracy test but scored lower in each of the literacy tests. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students scored lower in numeracy, reading, writing, and grammar and punctuation. Students from low socioeconomic status schools performed lower in writing…. [Direct]
(2020). Anti-Colonial Orientations to Place: Unsettling Encounters with South African Educational Landscapes. Equity & Excellence in Education, v53 n3 p288-303. The authors bring together decolonial, place attuned, and critical posthumanist orientations to analyze an event during a residential workshop organized as part of a state-funded research project on decolonizing early childhood discourses in South Africa. An invitation during the workshop to grapple with what might be unsettling by attending to the agency of the more-than-human world and its entanglement with unequal human geographies of place, generated a diffractive photographic image and unsettling stories as a group of early childhood teachers and educational researchers kept re-turning to the data. Working with Barad's methodology of temporal diffraction as apparatus, we discursively and visually trace entanglements that emerged from this data. We conclude on the mattering of this work for engaging with the potentials and tensions of attending to the more-than-human within highly asymmetrical human relations in the settler colonial context of South African education…. [Direct]
(2008). Learning to Be a \Nehiyaw\ (Cree) through Language. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, v2 n3 p233-245 Jul. This article describes a journey and a rediscovery of what it meant and means to speak from a Cree worldview. The way I was raised created my identity as a \nehiyaw\ and to my having a Cree worldview; however, I lost these concepts when I started school and moved to the city. Later, in my adult years, I began re-learning my own history and language. Participating in a Cree immersion camp helped me to regain the Cree literacy that I had lost or forgotten. To understand the structure of the Cree language and philosophy, I looked to childhood memories and graduate-level classes that drew on Indigenous peoples' knowledge. Both memories and classes added to my Cree state of being, which resulted in my becoming a whole and complete nehiyaw–\an exact person.\ (Contains 1 footnote.)… [Direct]
(2015). Learning Journeys from Early Childhood into School. Teaching and Learning Research Initiative This project focused on the transition between early childhood and school and explored ways to understand and enhance children's learning journeys as they move between the two sectors. Transitions can be seen as an intrinsic component of life, with individuals in any society experiencing a series of passages "from one age to another and from one occupation to another" (van Gennep 1977, p. 3). Each transition point can be thought of as crossing a threshold, leaving behind the known to enter a new role, context, status, or position (Fabian, 2002). Transitions can offer both crisis and opportunity (H√∂rschelmann, 2011, p. 379) and the threshold phase is often a time of uncertainty as the familiar is left behind, and the person is not yet fully incorporated into the new. This has been described as a move from "being to becoming" and then to a new "being" (Ackesj√∂, 2013, p. 393). The focus on enhancing learning journeys and exploring the effect of transition… [PDF]