(2018). Biculturalism 101: A Self-Study Exploring Culturally Responsive Practice. Studying Teacher Education, v14 n3 p308-319. There has been strong advocacy for teacher educators to be culturally responsive in their teaching, but less attention has been focused on the process and journey of becoming more culturally responsive. In this self-study, two teacher educators enrolled in a year-long, foundation-level Maori language course to learn the indigenous language of their country. Putting themselves into roles as students in a bicultural context was a powerful way to learn about Maoritanga and culturally responsive pedagogy, which they then applied in their own teaching. Data were generated through regular reflective journal entries, with significant moments being identified, discussed, and shared with their critical friend. Discussion highlighted that interactions in a bicultural context generated a great deal more than rudimentary language skills. By incorporating aspects of their experiences into their teaching, Dawn and Alan were able to examine the rationale for their actions as an important commitment… [Direct]
(2021). "We Can Do Better": University Leaders Speak to Tribal-University Relationships. American Educational Research Journal, v58 n3 p459-491 Jun. Wielding degrees of influence within educational organizations, university leaders are critical in determining how institutions enact their espoused missions and support severely marginalized campus communities. How do universities address and improve educational outcomes for the most severely underrepresented communities? This article presents emergent findings from an illustrative multiple-case study that examined the relationships between two public universities and local American Indian nations in California. As a preliminary step in understanding the present state of "tribal-university relationships," I present findings on university leaders' perceptions and knowledge regarding American Indians broadly and relationships with local Native nations specifically. Using tribal critical race theory as an analytical framework, I posit how colonization, federal recognition, and educational practices affect curricular, political, and economic relationships…. [Direct]
(2021). Supporting Black, Indigenous, and Students of Color in Learning Environments Transformed by COVID-19. International Journal of Multicultural Education, v23 n1 p162-173. This article sheds light on the challenges that Black, Indigenous, and students of color in the U.S. face in dealing with uncertainties and prejudice caused by the worldwide pandemic. It provides recommendations on culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining teaching strategies based on the cultural competence model (Pedersen, 1994; Sue, 2001; Sue et al., 1992) and curriculum reframing. Teachers of Black, Indigenous, and students of color around the world will find this article particularly useful because there are limited research-based recommendations applicable to schools in the U.S. and around the world…. [PDF]
(2021). Teacher Education for Diversity in India: Socio-Educational Experiences of Travel to a 'Margin'. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, v19 n2 p370-398 Sep. This paper is a reflective account of a travel that shifted the site of initial elementary teacher education from a metropolitan milieu of New Delhi; to the contrasting locale of a remote mountain region in the central Himalayas. This shift of site aimed to re-locate the concerns of quality schooling, diversity and ecological living to this new context. The possibilities of an emancipatory education for the marginalised children of these remote mountain regions may not emerge from mainstream schooling but are derived from an alternative educational imagination. This alternative educational trajectory is rooted in the children's locale specific bio-physical reality, social ecology and recovery of traditional local knowledge systems. The field experiences at a new site are among the critical dimensions of teacher education for diversity. In comparison to the learning that takes place at an urban location of the initial teacher education programme the insights gained from experiences at… [PDF]
(2019). Ethno-Social Knowledge: How Does Knowledge of Basic School Teachers in Indonesia?. Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn), v13 n4 p583-588 Nov. Ethno-social is learning that integrates culture and local wisdom into social learning. Indonesia is very rich with a variety of cultures and local wisdom. These cultural values and local wisdom must be used by the teacher as a material and source of learning. So from that, the purpose of this study is to know the ethno-social knowledge of elementary school teachers and the obstacles in applying it. This research uses quantitative design with survey research design. This study used 30 teachers as respondents. The instruments used were questionnaires and interviews. The results of this study are about the knowledge of ethno-social elementary school teachers in Indonesia in good condition. It is known that the ethno-social knowledge of teachers in Bajubang District is 6.7% included in the very bad category. While 30.0% are in a bad category, 43.3% are in a good category and 20.0% are in the very good category. The teacher applies ethno-social knowledge through various methods, learning… [PDF]
(2019). Linguistic Motherwork in the Zapotec Diaspora: "Zapoteca" Mothers' Perspectives on Indigenous Language Maintenance. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, v13 n2 p122-144. This article explores Indigenous Mexican mothers' perspectives on multilingualism and Indigenous language maintenance in their children's lives. Drawing on interview data from a larger qualitative study of language and ideology among multilingual children in Los Angeles, California, the article examines the perspectives of four Zapotec mothers who have children in a local public school with a Spanish-English dual language program. The interview data highlight what these women "think" and "do" with respect to the maintenance of the Zapotec language in the lives of their school-aged children. Critical Latinx Indigeneities and the feminist notion of "linguistic motherwork" are used to highlight the intersectional nature of these women's efforts to construct and sustain indigeneity in diaspora…. [Direct]
(2018). Strengthening Identities and Involvement of Aboriginal Children through Learning on Country. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, v43 n6 Article 6 p85-104 Jun. Djarlgarra Koolunger (Canning River kids) is a culturally centred outdoor learning project referred to as 'On Country Learning' or OCL. The project explores Aboriginal connectedness to the spiritual, social, cultural, environmental and geographic dimensions of particular outdoor spaces. This allows Indigenous and non- Indigenous students and their educators to connect at what Nakata (2007) terms the 'cultural interface'. OCL offers opportunities to transform the ways in which schools engage with Aboriginal perspectives whilst facilitating deep learning through what we describe as culturally responsive pedagogies. This paper stories the journey of Aboriginal students and their teachers, engaging in learning that is situated on Country. We examine the involvement of children when learning on Country and provide analysis using the Leuven Involvement Scales (1994). The analysis compares this group of children in a classroom context and an on Country context over a period of six months… [PDF]
(2019). Can Local Knowledge Make the Difference? Rethinking Universities' Community Engagement and Prospect for Sustainable Community Development. Journal of Environmental Education, v50 n1 p11-22. Against the backdrop of Africa's quest for development, there have been emerging demands for its universities to do more in contributing to development drives beyond their immediate sphere of operation. Drawing on an instrumental case study within an African community, this article heartens a reconsideration of African universities' community engagement as a catalyst for sustainable development. It ascertains that it would be beneficial to the university and its mission to foster sustainable development when local voices are assimilated within its knowledge creation, diffusion, and societal engagement objectives. Although this has the potential to instigate the university's engagement to address local and regional concerns and promote relevant development, this would be predicated on targeted collaborative engagement frameworks, underpinned by mutual trust…. [Direct]
(2004). Shades of Belonging. Pew Hispanic Center When census takers, pollsters or bureaucrats with application forms ask people to identify their race, most have no problem checking a box that corresponds to one of the five, standard, government-defined racial categories. In the 2000 Census, for example, 90 percent of the U.S. population was counted as either white, black, Asian, American Indian or Pacific Islander. Hispanics are the exception. While a little more than half picked one of the standard categories, some 15 million, 42 percent of the Hispanic population marked \some other race.\ Census 2000 and much other evidence suggests that Hispanics take distinctive views of race, and because their numbers are large and growing fast, these views are likely to change the way the nation manages the fundamental social divide that has characterized American society for 400 years. According to federal policy and accepted social science, Hispanics do not constitute a separate race and can in fact be of any race. The 2000 Census asked… [PDF]
(2020). Educating Humans. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education, v9 spec iss p33-55. African traditional education and soka approaches to education share a common vision of human education, which is key to transforming the education crisis facing Africa. We make this case in four steps. First, we explore the history of education in Africa to illustrate the roots of the crisis. Second, we introduce soka approaches to education, its history, and fundamental principles. Third, we analyze the convergence of African traditional education and soka approaches to education in terms of their underlying philosophies. Fourth, we investigate possible applications of both philosophies to improve schooling in Africa. The last section outlines how harnessing the insights of both philosophies will engender an African renaissance based on young people striving to live creative and contributive lives…. [PDF]
(2020). Childhood Innocence for Settler Children: Disrupting Colonialism and Innocence in Early Childhood Curriculum. New Educator, v16 n2 p131-148. This article explores the challenges of rewriting prescriptive early childhood curriculum wherein settler colonialism and childhood innocence as a discourse reinforce one another. We attend to two primary ideas: 1) that the presence of settler colonialism pervades everyday practices in the early years, and 2) early childhood curriculum maintains young children's innocence vis-a-vis the regulation of their knowledge of colonial violence and Indigenous dispossession. By examining the curricular revisions of one pre-service teacher, we highlight the tensions that educators may undergo in negotiating the violence of U.S. settler colonialism within classrooms with young children…. [Direct]
(2016). Filling in the Gaps: Lessons Learned from Preservice Teachers' Partnerships with First Nations Students. in education, v22 n1 p91-109 Spr. In this paper, I report on a school-university collaborative research project that examined ways to merge the out-of-school literacy resources with school literacy practices for First Nations students in a small city in Western Canada. The project involved three interconnected groups of research participants: (a) a teacher researcher study group; (b) students from the participating teachers' classes; (c) preservice teachers who were partnered with the students in literacy partnerships. Grounded in a "funds of knowledge" perspective, and utilizing ethnographic research methods, this qualitative study explored how students' linguistic and cultural resources from home and community networks were utilized to reshape school literacy practices through their involvement in the Heritage Fair Program. This paper focuses on select lessons the preservice teachers learned through their partnerships with the First Nations students. Study findings suggest that the collaboration increased… [PDF]
(2019). Why Educating for Shalom Requires Decolonization. International Journal of Christianity & Education, v23 n2 p185-203 Jul. Indigenous scholars argue that reconciliation requires educators to make space for Indigenous perspectives in the curriculum. This article agrees, arguing that Christians who are committed to Wolterstorff's (2004) concept of "educating for shalom" must work towards decolonization of the educational system. Eurocentrism in the current system is a product of racism, and prevents students from learning from a diversity of cultural perspectives. Further, failing to decolonize actively perpetuates injustice towards both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, and fails to equip students to participate in the societal changes that are necessary to heal the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in North America…. [Direct]
(2018). Navigating the "Inter" in Intercultural Education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, v39 n1 p15-30. The structure of the Australian national curriculum encompasses engagement with "intercultural education". Significantly, the context from which the curriculum was developed was heavily influenced by a multiculturalist ideology in which notions of cohesion and harmony were dominant. Therefore, those working with the curriculum need to understand the limited ways in which ideas of "diverse" culture might be constructed. As a cultural text this curriculum is a place of encounter between teachers and the various influences on the curriculum document itself. We assert that the perpetuation of ideographs in the context and text of the curriculum, underpin how "intercultural understanding" is positioned in the Australian Curriculum, and limit the narrative possibility of this encounter. It is essential to identify and interrogate such ideographs if we are to be cognisant of the complex politics of national curriculums and opportunities to "re-open"… [Direct]
(2017). Advancing Educational Diversity: Antifragility, Standardization, Democracy, and a Multitude of Education Options. Cultural Studies of Science Education, v12 n1 p177-187 Mar. This essay is a response to a paper by Avery and Hains that raises questions about the often unintended effects of knowledge standardization in an educational setting. While many K-12 schools are implementing common core standards, and many institutions of higher education are implementing their own standardized educational practices, the question is raised about what is lost in this effort to ensure regularity and consistency in educational outcomes. One such casualty may be local knowledge, which in a rural context includes ancestral knowledge about land, society, and cultural meaning. This essay explores whether or not efforts to standardize crowd out such knowledge, and decrease the diversity of knowledge within our society's complex ecosystem–thus making the ecosystem weaker. Using antifragility as a useful idea for examining system complexity, the essay considers the impact of standardization on innovation, democracy, and the valuation of some forms of knowledge (and its… [Direct]