(2022). Cultural Identity Central to Native American Persistence in Science. Cultural Studies of Science Education, v17 n2 p557-588 Jun. Native Americans are the least represented population in science fields. In recent years, undergraduate and graduate level summer research programs that aimed to increase the number of Native Americans in science have made some progress. As new programs are designed, key characteristics that address science self-efficacy and science identity and provide supports for Native American students' commitment to a scientific career should be considered. In this study, we used sequential mixed methods to investigate the potential of culturally tailored internship programs on Native American persistence in science. We analyzed surveys (n = 47) and interviews (n = 4) with Native American students to understand their perceptions of themselves in relation to science research and how summer research experiences might develop science identities. Based on regression modeling, science identity, but not science self-efficacy, predicted intent to persist in science. In turn, science self-efficacy and… [Direct]
(2022). The Native American Leadership Model. Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education, v33 n3 Spr. The Native American Leadership Model is a source for understanding leadership styles through a lens of tribal core values and Indigenous learning methodologies. This model can serve as a tool to reclaim and assert the Indigenous perspective on Native American leadership that was dismantled over centuries through U.S. assimilation policies. The foundation for this model of traditional Native American leadership is rooted in many practices of ceremony and spiritualism. To further work towards decolonization, Native people must claim their roles as leaders based on a modern view of the world through their cultural lens of knowledge and wisdom…. [Direct]
(2022). A Scoping Review of School-Based Prevention Programs for Indigenous Students. Grantee Submission Indigenous communities demonstrate immense cultural strengths despite being impacted by mental health and academic disparities due to ongoing systemic racism and historical trauma. Given that schools are a context in which indigenous youths' needs have potential to be met through preventive intervention, this scoping review explores and summarizes the cultural relevance of school-based prevention interventions that have been implemented with students from indigenous backgrounds. We included articles published between January 2010 and February 2020 that included descriptive, outcome, and/or program development data on school based prevention programs used with indigenous students in the United States and Canada. The initial search yielded 2,131 articles for review, and ultimately 35 articles describing 27 interventions were included in the final sample. The majority of the programs (n = 20) were focused on substance use prevention or sexual and reproductive health and targeted… [PDF] [Direct] [Direct]
(2022). A Scoping Review of School-Based Prevention Programs for Indigenous Students. Educational Psychology Review, v34 n4 p2783-2824 Dec. Indigenous communities demonstrate immense cultural strengths despite being impacted by mental health and academic disparities due to ongoing systemic racism and historical trauma. Given that schools are a context in which indigenous youths' needs have potential to be met through preventive intervention, this scoping review explores and summarizes the cultural relevance of school-based prevention interventions that have been implemented with students from indigenous backgrounds. We included articles published between January 2010 and February 2021 that included descriptive, outcome, and/or program development data on school-based prevention programs used with indigenous students in the USA and Canada. The initial search yielded 2131 articles for review, and ultimately 35 articles describing 27 interventions were included in the final sample. The majority of the programs (n = 20) were focused on substance use prevention or sexual and reproductive health and targeted adolescents in… [Direct] [Direct]
(2017). The Decolonial Turn Revisited. Education as Change, v21 n3. In a recent article in this journal, Vorster and Quinn offered a set of recommendations on how academic staff developers can advise university lecturers on decolonising their curricula and methods. Their main advice was to integrate more African cultural elements into their teaching. However, Vorster and Quinn's advice is rather general. In this paper, I wish to complement their advice by giving some specific recommendations on how the decolonisation of education can happen in the field of philosophy. [This article offers a commentary on Jo-Anne Vorster and Lynn Quinn's "The 'Decolonial Turn': What Does It Mean for Academic Staff Development?" (EJ1149746).]… [Direct]
(2017). Employing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to Foster Literacy Learning in Schools. Cogent Education, v4 n1 Article 1295824. In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that to enable students in schools from an increasingly diverse range of cultural backgrounds to acquire literacy to a standard that will support them to achieve academically, it is important to adopt pedagogy that is responsive to, and respectful of, them as culturally situated. What often has been omitted from the literature, however, is discussion of a relevant model of learning to underpin this approach. For this reason, this paper adopts a sociocultural lens through which to view such pedagogy and refers to a number of seminal texts to justify of its relevance. Use of this lens is seen as having a particular rationale. It forces a focus on the agency of the teacher as a mediator of learning who needs to acknowledge the learner's cultural situatedness if school literacy learning for all students is to be as successful as it might be. It also focuses attention on the predominant value systems and social practices that… [Direct]
(2020). Defining Opportunities to Engage with the Discourses of Australia's 'Education Revolution'. Journal of Educational Administration and History, v52 n2 p178-192. Research to date has criticised the policy on education that evolved under a federal Labor government during the period 2007-2013. These analyses suggest that a global neoliberal agenda dominates, with the effect of constructing limited and damaging concepts of equity and social justice. The research presented here offers an alternative perspective. Rather than presenting global ideas as all pervasive in local contexts, this work indicates that alternative discourses to those of neoliberalism can be included during local policy creation. Critical discourse analysis of the texts related to the education policy created in 2008 reveals a number of discourses about schooling, standards, equity and social justice that go beyond neoliberalism. Broadening the existing interpretations of Labor's education policy of 2008 provides opportunities for researchers within the sociology of education and social justice to make constructive connections with policy in Australia…. [Direct]
(2023). Policy and Practice for Multilingual Educational Settings: Comparisons across Contexts. Bilingual Education & Bilingualism. Multilingual Matters Exploring multilingualism as a complex, context-related, societal and individual phenomenon, this book centres around perspectives on how multiple languages are made (in)visible within educational settings in the Global North. The authors of each chapter compare and contrast findings across geographical contexts with the goal of understanding the facets of multilingualism that, on the one hand, conform across contexts, and on the other, diverge context-specifically. The chapters range from contributions with a focus on national/state planning for the development of sustainable multilingual and intercultural educational policies, to chapters that deal with multilingual practices and identities of students and student teachers as well as the consequences for language practices, strategies and policies in diversifying societies. This cross-contextual, comparative and interdisciplinary exploration of multilingualism will be of great interest to researchers, administrators, practitioners… [Direct]
(2023). Pedagogy Matters: Positive Steps towards Indigenous Cultural Competency in a Pre-Service Teacher Cohort. Australian Journal of Education, v67 n1 p6-27 Apr. The present study aimed to empirically evaluate the knowledges, attitudes and perspectives of pre-service teachers towards Indigenous peoples, and to identify relationships between student learning experiences and student knowledges, attitudes and preparedness to work with Indigenous peoples, at one Australian university. The project was part of a broader mixed-methods study utilising an Indigenous Graduate Attribute evaluation instrument developed by Indigenous scholars at another Australian university, hence we also present construct validation of the instrument for the present sample. The project identified that students entered the units with positive attitudes towards Indigenous peoples and knowledges and found value in their learning. Students reported that the units facilitated authentic engagement with Indigenous standpoints even though some educators were non-Indigenous. Visible pedagogical and content decisions such as Indigenous leadership in the course, collaboration… [Direct]
(2022). Enduring Lessons for Current Times from a Forgotten Froebelian Foot Soldier in Aotearoa-New Zealand: Miss Isabel Little (1876-1937). Global Education Review, v9 n1 p69-84. Miss Isabel Little was a Scottish infant teacher who immigrated to New Zealand in 1912. She was described as a "Froebel trained Scot from Edinburgh" and known around Wellington education circles for her "modern methods". In contrast to known Froebelian pioneers, Miss Little's historical footprint is light but the few glimpses yield insights useful to consider in current times. Miss Little is described in this article as a forgotten Froebelian foot soldier who, like others were the mainstay of a kindergarten movement that transformed the early education of children. Individual and collective advocacy, as demonstrated by Miss Little a century ago, are evident in current times. The political and pedagogical context of early years education has changed in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) but there are still battles to be won. Coinciding with the consequences of COVID-19 in 2020 was the government's intended roll-out of "He Taonga te Tamaiti — Early learning action plan… [PDF]
(2017). Settler Grammars and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, v45 n5 p439-454. In 2011, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership introduced new Professional Standards for Teachers, which require that graduate teachers possess knowledge and understanding of Indigenous students and cultures. The authors conducted interviews with 12 non-Indigenous teacher educators at one Australian university in order to understand how these Standards are interpreted and implemented. We adopt Calderon's framework of settler grammars to interpret the dialectic of presence and absence that teacher educators in our study describe. Extending this frame to an analysis of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, we find that settler grammars function to simultaneously erase Indigenous claims to sovereignty and epistemological equality, whilst promoting a representation of Indigenous people that asserts the primacy of the settler colonial state…. [Direct]
(2018). Developing a 'Culturally Validated' Dialogic Indicator Tool: A Reconceptualised Analytical Framework Using Talanoa to Code Classroom Talk. Waikato Journal of Education, v23 n1 p25-41. Dialogic approaches are promising vehicles for effective pedagogy, providing opportunities for students to talk about learning; build on and sustain individual and collective identities, and; advance thinking and understanding in ways that support enhanced achievement. Whilst this is an idealised view of talk in classrooms, international literature provides evidence that suggests teachers struggle to shift practice toward dialogic pedagogy. From a national perspective, a more pressing issue given the nature of this study is to reconcile international views of dialogic pedagogy with a Pacific worldview. This article reports on the process of developing an analytic framework or tool for identifying 'dialogic' practices that are informed by Pacific ways of knowing or orientations, including language practices to progress that reconciliation. The reconceptualised 'Pacific Dialogic Indicator Tool' (PDIT) will foreground culturally validated language acts based on talanoa dimensions and… [PDF]
(2018). Dangerous Liaisons: Metonymic Effects between School and Education. Policy Futures in Education, v16 n7 p906-917 Oct. This paper considers the ways in which the words "school" and "education" are conflated in the social imaginary, and what the effects of this conflation in meaning and purpose are both theoretically and in practice. It is not difficult to see the ways in which these two terms are used almost synonymously, and uncritically. Yet "school" and "education" operate in a double-bind, as both are interchangeable in meaning while simultaneously opposed to each other: education is often defined as a traditional process, whereas school is a formal, updated structuring of that process. This paper looks first at the place of metaphor in terms of the construction of knowledge, and how that produces both a "proper" as well as a forgetting within and through discourses. Following Nietzsche's concept of metaphoricity, note is then taken of the distinctions between both the meaning and uses of metaphor and metonymy, in that the former creates… [Direct]
(2017). Maori Literacies: Ecological Perspectives. set: Research Information for Teachers, n3 p32-37. An important aim of the Tuhia ki Te Ao–Write to the Natural World project is to investigate ways in which the cultural and ecological perspectives of Maori can be recognised and developed within literacy practices in secondary schools. In this article we propose four significant aspects to engaging with Maori literacies in classroom pedagogy and practice: place and environment; the relation of the tangible and intangible; "capturing the being"; and the concept and practice of tohu. Attention to, and awareness of, these areas may help mainstream educators to engage in conversations about how eco-critical literacy can be situated in Maori ways of knowing and operating…. [Direct]
(2018). Creating a Rich Curriculum through Intentional Teaching. Early Childhood Folio, v22 n1 p33-38. Early childhood curricula are designed to provide young children with a range of experiences and interactions in order to grow their knowledge, skills, and dispositions for learning. New Zealand early childhood teachers typically aim to provide rich play and learning experiences which foreground children's interests, position teachers as facilitative, and where extensive teacher engagement within children's play may be perceived as undesirable interference. This passive positioning of teachers in early childhood education may be detrimental to young children's learning and wellbeing. To address this, we propose teachers' engagement in intentional teaching as an important aspect of ensuring children experience the rich curriculum intended in "Te Whariki 2017."… [Direct]