(2016). Cook Islands Students' Attitudes towards Physical Education. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, v41 n4 Article 8 Apr. Teacher education has the potential to bring changes within educational systems that can shape the knowledge and skills of future generations. Teaching in a culturally responsive manner is an important part of developing teachers to serve as key change agents in transforming education and society through research, from the perspectives of student learning and achievement in health and physical education. It was expected in this study that students' recognition of cultural activities could inspire them to engage in physical education. The aim of the study was to examine student awareness of teaching that included cultural activities, with an emphasis on Cook Islands traditional cultural values. One hundred and one students and three teachers from three different schools participated in the study. Only 5% of the student population were non-Cook Islanders. A quantitative methodology was used to analyse the results and findings of the data using an initial Exploratory Factorial Analysis… [PDF]
(2024). Resisting Divide-and-Conquer Strategies in Education: Pathways and Possibilities. Myers Education Press "Resisting Divide-and-Conquer Strategies in Education: Pathways and Possibilities" examines the ways in which divide-and-conquer strategies operate in the American public education system. In U.S. education, these mechanisms are endemic and enduring, if not always evident. Coordinated, strategic, well-funded, politically-viable campaigns continue to stoke fear, othering, villainization, and dehumanization of minoritized groups, pushing false and problematic narratives that inhibit progress toward social justice. Weaponizing hegemony and leveraging misinformation, reactionary agents and institutions seek to suppress truth, block access to democratic participation, and dismantle education and other sites of emancipatory possibility through the strength of divide-and-conquer mechanisms, pitting relatively disempowered groups against one another to preserve the dominant social order. Readers of this book will encounter conceptual and critical interrogations of divide and… [Direct]
(2021). "Witch Doctors" or Professionals? The Graduates of Mexico's First Intercultural University and the Struggle for Legitimacy. Education Policy Analysis Archives, v29 n160 spec iss Nov. Since 2003, the Mexican government has opened 11 intercultural universities serving a total of 15,000 students, a majority of whom are members of Mexico's Indigenous minority. While there is a growing body of work analyzing the intercultural model from public policy and theoretical perspectives, few studies focus on the experiences of the students and graduates of these institutions. In this article, I share the findings of one such study of the Intercultural University of Mexico State, the pioneer of the intercultural universities. Through interviews with graduates, students, and deans of three undergraduate intercultural programs, I seek to answer a central question, which is rooted in critical and decolonial theory: To what degree does the intercultural model achieve its stated mission of empowering Indigenous students and to what degree does it contribute to the reproduction of inequality? In general, the findings are mixed. While many students share experiences of discrimination… [PDF]
(2021). Standardizing Indigenous Erasure: A TribalCrit and QuantCrit Analysis of K-12 U.S. Civics and Government Standards. Theory and Research in Social Education, v49 n3 p321-359. This article details a national study of U.S. K-12 civics and government state-mandated standards, drawing specific attention to how Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty are represented. Utilizing QuantCrit methodologies informed by Tribal Critical Race Theory, this study makes visible colonial logics embedded within state civics and government standards that normalize the erasure of Indigenous nationhood, or that subtly and discursively erase Indigenous nationhood in other ways. Additional attention is also given to states that explicitly affirm contemporary Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty within the standards. By examining the ways state standards erase and/or affirm Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty, our hope is to support Indigenous and allied educators in their collective efforts to transform standards in their respective states to more responsibly reflect and support Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty…. [Direct]
(2021). "Imua": Reflections on "Imua," "Talanoa-va" and Leadership in the Ongoing Strategic Journey of a New Zealand University. Waikato Journal of Education, v26 spec iss p11-34. The appointment of the University of Waikato's first Assistant Vice-Chancellor Pacific in February 2019 was an important milestone, not only recognising years of work and dedication by numerous Pacific and Maori staff, but triggering a new strategic direction for 'Pacific at Waikato'. This paper explains that journey, one that is underpinned by Pacific cultural legacies, strengths, values and identity; built on talanoa-va; informed by research, data analytics, student and community voice; combined with strategic thought and planning; and outworked in the pan-Pacific epithet, 'imua'. This is a story of resilience, determination, negotiating a pandemic, problem-solving and innovation in an environment that seeks a 'culture of belonging' and where Pacific learners are encouraged to be themselves in the pursuit of educational achievement. This paper will be of interest to education providers, stakeholders and policy makers…. [PDF]
(2022). Academic Integrity in the Creative Arts. Australian Government Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Work produced during a course of study in the creative arts may differ from assessment in other disciplines in the following ways: (1) it is non-text-based: work may consist of a performance, video recording, digital or interactive work, music composition, audio recording, or physical artefact; and (2) it is creative: works demonstrate individual authorship, incorporating original and subjective elements. While breaches of academic integrity, such as plagiarism and contract-cheating, can occur in the creative arts, defining academic integrity, and detecting breaches of integrity in creative arts works is complex. This paper addresses the topics of academic integrity as authentic learning, embedding academic integrity in the creative arts curriculum, institutional academic integrity policy and the creative arts, and designing creative arts assessment for academic integrity…. [PDF]
(2016). Queering Place: The Intersection of Feminist Body Theory and Australian Aboriginal Collaboration. Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, v38 n1 p14-28. In this article the author used an auto-ethnographic philosophical approach to construct a fragile history of the present. Margaret Somerville reports doing this through tracing key moments and movements of queering feminist poststructural theory and evolving a queering method of body/place writing through her embeddedness in Aboriginal stories. Throughout Somerville's academic work she had been deeply influenced by Australian Aboriginal oral stories and structures of language and thought. The gesture of queering place through which place became Country for her was only made possible through body/place writing that allowed her to articulate something from the incommensurable space between self and other, self and world…. [Direct]
(2020). A Two-Eyed Seeing Context-Based Approach for Incorporating Indigenous Knowledge into School Science Teaching. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, v24 n2 p229-240. This paper is about using a 'Two-Eyed Seeing' approach as the process of co-learning for incorporating elements of indigenous knowledge into school science teaching. Two groups of 150 Form 3 integrated science learners drawn from six high schools in Mutare, Zimbabwe, comprised the study sample. One group of learners, the control group, was taught the concepts of forces in structures in the traditional way. The other, the experimental group, was prepared using a context-based Two-Eyed Seeing framework. A mixed-method but primarily quantitative research approach involving a pre-test-post-test control group quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the achievement differences between the two groups of learners. A content knowledge test (CKT) and a paper-and-pencil theory of practical skills test (PST) were administered to the two groups prior to and following instruction. The analysis showed that the experimental group produced significantly better results than the group… [Direct]
(2020). A Broken Paradigm? What Education Needs to Learn from Evidence-Based Medicine. Journal of Education Policy, v35 n5 p648-664. The paradigm of evidence-based education continues to inform the development of policy in a number of countries. At its simplest level, evidence-based education incorporates evidence, often that provided by randomised controlled trials, into classroom practice. England's Education Endowment Foundation is in the process of exporting evidence-based school education, promoted as a medical approach, to other countries, including Australia. Australia is in the process of establishing an Education Evidence Base, informed by the government's 2016 Productivity Commission report. While the literature around evidence-based education is explicit in identifying its basis in medicine, there has been little medical input into its development. Interdisciplinary examination of the medical literature reveals the contested nature and troubled state of evidence-based medicine and what policymakers need to consider to maximise the benefits of this translation into education…. [Direct]
(2020). About Museums, Culture, and Justice to Explore in Your Classroom. School : Questions. Teachers College Press Museums are public resources that can offer rich extensions to classroom educational experiences, from tours through botanical gardens to searching for family records in the archives of a local historical society. With clarity and a touch of humor, Quinn presents ideas and examples of ways that teachers can use museums to support student exploration while also teaching for social justice. Topics include disability and welcoming all bodies, celebrating queer people's lives and histories, settler colonialism and decolonization, fair workplaces, Indigenous knowledge, and much more. This practical resource invites classroom teachers to rethink how and why they are bringing students to museums and suggests projects for creating rich museum-based learning opportunities across an array of subject areas. The book features: (1) Links museums, classroom teaching, and social movements for justice; (2) Focuses on the cultural contributions of people of color, women, and other marginalized… [Direct]
(2007). Circles in the Sand: An Indigenous Framework of Historical Practice. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, v36 suppl p117-120. This paper seeks to identify and explore the differences of Indigenous approaches to historical practice. Why is history so important to Indigenous Australia? History is of crucial importance across the full spectrum of Indigenous understanding and knowledge. History belongs to all cultures and they have differing means of recording and recalling it. In essence, the paper explores the undercurrents of Australian history and the absence for so long of an Aboriginal place in that history, and the process over the past 40 years in correcting that imbalance. During the 1960s and 1970s the Aboriginal place in Australian history for so long erased, overlooked or ignored was suddenly a topic worthy of wider attention and importance. But despite all that has been published since, we have not realistically even touched the surface of what is buried within both the archives and oral memory. And quite clearly what has been recovered remains largely embedded within a white viewpoint of the past…. [Direct]
(2016). Considerations from Places Where Indigenous and Western Ways of Knowing, Being, and Doing Circulate Together: STEM as Artifact of Teaching and Learning. Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, v16 n2 p140-152. The editors have challenged us to consider STEM within the Canadian educational context. We find that the push to STEM is based on stories that frame the need for STEM within an economic imperative. Though some people are questioning the prevailing story and attempting to tell stories about STEM as a more integrated approach to teaching and learning, this work remains based in Western assumptions and philosophies. Based on our work alongside Aboriginal people, peoples, and communities, we offer another take on STEM, not as a framework for teaching and learning but rather as an artifact that emerges from teaching and learning…. [Direct]
(2018). Child Development in Educational Settings. Cambridge University Press Child Development in Educational Settings provides a comprehensive introduction to traditional and contemporary theories of development and learning in the contexts of early childhood and primary education. Drawing upon the experiences and perspectives of children, families, educators and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholars, Marilyn Fleer provides insights into significant theories and approaches, including cultural-historical, constructivist, social constructivist, maturational and ecological systems. The book features four major case studies, which are revisited throughout, to examine how learning and development can be re-imagined within socially, culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This approach enables readers to use theories to analyse and measure learning and development in planning and curriculum, and to feel empowered to enact change in their educational settings. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Child Development in Educational Settings… [Direct]
(2017). Learning Science: Putaiao in an Indigenous School–A Review of the Theory and Practice. Science Education International, v28 n3 p199-206 Sep. This paper presents a literature review of theory and briefly presents insight from a case study. The literature review attempts to explain what Putaiao is, how it is being taught, and the learning of Putaiao. It also investigates the Putaiao curriculum and the challenges currently being faced. The literature covers students from early childhood, primary, and secondary school, and in this review, it is mainly limited to Maori immersion classrooms and schools. Further work is needed focusing on teacher education and professional development of Putaiao teachers. Putaiao as a subject is facing several challenges that may be combated through more specific interventions – rather than studies investigating Kura as a whole. Despite the challenges faced, the literature overall has a positive outlook in which Putaiao is enjoyed by students who see it relates to their own knowledge and culture. The case study took place in a Maori medium school that caters for year 9-13 students. Two teachers… [PDF]
(2007). Community University Research Agreement. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, v36 suppl p38-44. This paper describes the process of engaging the extended Indigenous community within Saskatoon and the surrounding First Nations communities in what would be a first major research project between Indigenous communities and the University of Saskatchewan. A management committee was established comprised of all the major Saskatoon/Saskatchewan Indigenous organisations, such as the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians, Saskatoon Tribal Council, First Nations University of Canada and other community-based groups to ensure that research reflected First Nations and Metis needs. The project called "Bridges and Foundations" awarded some 35 projects close to two million dollars in research funds. The money was awarded through graduate student research bursaries, and community-based projects which highlighted the needs of Indigenous women, youth, students, elders and urban populations. The three research themes included respectful protocol, knowledge creation, and policy development…. [Direct]