(2016). "I Worry about My Community": African American Women Utilizing Communal Notions of Citizenship in the Social Studies Classroom. International Journal of Multicultural Education, v18 n1 p28-44. This qualitative multiple case study utilizes a Black feminist ethic of caring (Collins, 2009; Thompson, 1998) to explore how three African American women social studies teachers draw on their personal and community knowledge to conceptualize and teach the construct of citizenship to their students of color. Instead of conveying traditional notions of citizenship that value blind patriotism to the nation-state and individualism, they instead chose to teach citizenship as relational and centered on uplifting their cultural community. This study hopes to shed light on how critical notions of citizenship may be presented and utilized in classrooms…. [PDF]
(2016). Nga Reo e Toru: "Trissessment"–From Invitation to Expectation. Early Childhood Folio, v20 n2 p20-25. Teachers understand the importance of whanau (family) involvement for children's learning. This understanding comes from their own experience as teachers, from an extensive published research base, and, in Aotearoa New Zealand from the national early childhood education curriculum, "Te Whariki." Early childhood teachers also know that finding acceptable ways to engage whanau on a regular and equal basis can be challenging. This article reports on the pilot stage of a new perspective on assessment that includes earlier involvement of whanau, suggesting that whanau may welcome and gain new insights from being expected to consider and comment on their children's learning before the kaiako (teacher) has offered any analysis. We have named this process "trissessment": the inclusion of children's, whanau and teachers' voices…. [Direct]
(2017). Student Teachers' Perspectives on Chemistry Education in South Africa and Finland. Journal of Science Teacher Education, v28 n6 p485-506. Globalization, in the case of science education, leads not only to an increase in homogeneity but also to an increase in cultural encounters. In this study, researchers from 2 distinct cultures, South Africa and Finland, used a qualitative approach to probe student teachers' perspectives on chemistry education. Participants were 1st-year chemistry student teachers (n = 80) from South Africa and student teachers (n = 87) from Finland who were in varying stages of their studies. Student teachers' perceptions were categorized using the 5 thematic categories of the culturally responsive teaching model: content integration, facilitating knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, social justice, and academic development. Both the South African and the Finnish student teachers mainly indicated content integration. In addition, facilitating knowledge construction and prejudice reduction were expressed in relation to the need for communication with peers. Social justice was emphasized more… [Direct]
(2014). Nature Study, Aborigines and the Australian Kindergarten: Lessons from Martha Simpson's "Australian Programme Based on the Life and Customs of the Australian Black". History of Education, v43 n4 p487-503. This article examines an experimental kindergarten programme "Work in the Kindergarten: An Australian Programme based on the Life and Customs of the Australian Black" developed by Martha Simpson in early twentieth-century Australia. Here Simpson adapted international Revisionist Froebelian approaches to cultural epoch theory and nature study in an Australian context. Accepting that human development recapitulates, Simpson posited that Aboriginal culture could serve as stimulus for age-appropriate and improving child-centred activities. Local contingencies, including histories of violent cross-racial encounter, complicated an attempt by kindergartener Helen Beaumont to apply the programme in the Sydney slum suburb of Leichhardt. These contingencies are documented and analysed…. [Direct]
(2014). Towards Culturally Relevant Classroom Science: A Theoretical Framework Focusing on Traditional Plant Healing. Cultural Studies of Science Education, v9 n1 p221-242 Mar. A theoretical framework is an important component of a research study. It grounds the study and guides the methodological design. It also forms a reference point for the interpretation of the research findings. This paper conceptually examines the process of constructing a multi-focal theoretical lens for guiding studies that aim to accommodate local culture in science classrooms. A multi-focal approach is adopted because the integration of indigenous knowledge and modern classroom science is complex. The central argument in this paper is that a multi-focal lens accommodates the multifaceted nature of integrating indigenous knowledge and western oriented classroom science. The objective of the paper, therefore, is to construct a theoretical framework that can be used to guide and inform the integration of indigenous knowledge and western science at classroom science level. The traditional plant healing form of indigenous knowledge is used as a case study. The paper is important for… [Direct]
(2012). Traditional Healers' Views on Their Indigenous Knowledge and the Science Curriculum. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, v16 n3 p317-332. African traditional healers (THs) were interviewed in order to explore their indigenous knowledge (IK) concerning natural science topics and science teaching, with potential implications for school science curriculum. First, THs in Lesotho were interviewed about their general ideas and these were compared with ideas obtained from THs in a previous study in South Africa. Then THs in the Western Cape (South Africa) were interviewed about more specific aspects of their IK that could usefully be taught, and also invited to demonstrate teaching methods. The traditional healers interviewed in these studies expressed a coherent view about what could be taught, how to teach it, and enthusiasm to become more engaged in the schooling of African children…. [Direct]
(2012). Relationships between Knowledge(s): Implications for \Knowledge Integration\. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, v2 n4 p357-368 Nov. This article contributes to a critical dialogue about what is currently called \knowledge integration\ in environmental research and related educational programming. Indigenous understandings in particular are seen as offering (re)new(ed) ways of thinking that have and will lead to innovative practices for addressing complex environmental issues. A conceptual review of the perceived relationships between \Indigenous Knowledge\ and \science\ includes \just one not others,\ \degrees of separation\ and a \hierarchy.\ Each of these concepts has implications for how we think about knowledge integration. I frame this critical commentary within my experiences as a non-indigenous student researcher in an Indigenous Studies PhD program. The review offers a guide for communities, students, educators and others who are interested in negotiating the literature on knowledge integration. After distinguishing between informative and decisive integration, I establish the need for an alternate… [Direct]
(2013). Winter Counts as Transformative Inquiry: The Role of Creative Imagery as an Expression of Adaptive Change. Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education, v10 n1-2 p87-110. Pre-service teachers face a complex educational context and Transformative Inquiry is a useful approach for negotiating this terrain. We interpret the movement of students via the adaptive cycle put forth in panarchy theory as they engage in the inquiry process through "winter counts", a Plains First Nation tradition, as expressions of their understanding. These image-based expressions demonstrate the emotional, mental, spiritual and physical movement students have made within their inquiry. Panarchy theory moves beyond interpreting systems using simplistic equilibrium models and acknowledging the more complex and dynamic set of equilibria that describes transformation in ecological, social, and economic systems and considers the multiple complexities of systems thinking while providing insight into how change occurs as a constantly adaptive cycle process. Used sparingly within social sciences until recently, we argue it as particularly relevant for seeing Transformative… [PDF]
(2016). Hearing Ancestral Voices through Creative Art–A Tool for Environmental Education for Sustainability. International Journal of Education & the Arts, v17 n9 Apr. The research presented in this paper draws on a study in the Kgalagari region of Botswana where participant observation workshops were conducted to illustrate the impact of using the Arts in Education approach (AiE). This approach was used through traditional storytelling in lessons on environmental issues in a rural primary school in the Kgalahari region of Botswana. The BaKgalagari Standard 4 children participated in lessons in which community elders were invited to tell them stories. The lessons conducted offered the participants exemplary activities in conducting a teaching unit incorporating story-telling, dramatizing and visual art, whereby the story was embedded within the learners' contexts and in the idea of environmental appreciation. The outcome of the study demonstrated that this approach can enhance learning by yielding a more egalitarian and communicative environment, which takes into account the voices of previously socially excluded learners, into the teaching and… [PDF]
(2016). Valuing Native American Tribal Elders and Stories for Sustainability Study. Middle School Journal, v47 n2 p3-12. This article outlines a framework the authors have used to infuse sustainability study into humanities teaching at the middle school level. Native American tribal elders can act as co-teachers in such classrooms, and the place-based stories that shaped their views of the environment can serve as important classroom texts to investigate sustainable philosophies. Middle school students can learn to read with a sustainable lens and learn to use the narrative wisdom of tribal elders to read across texts for sustainability themes and messages. Respect for Native American culture flourishes in such an environment. Examples of Native American storied resources for sustainability are offered in this article…. [Direct]
(2018). Toward a Model of Global Meaning Making. Journal of Literacy Research, v50 n4 p397-422 Dec. Drawing upon tenets of critical theory, cultural capital, global epistemologies, decolonization, Indigenous ways of knowing, mobility and translanguaging, ethics, and global citizenship, this article proposes a model of cross-cultural meaning making and worldly reading as a foundation for global epistemological eclecticism in our research and pedagogical pursuits. The imaginary represents an aspirational model in the interest of decolonizing and supporting "other"–notably confronting western exclusivity and racism and mobilizing epistemologies of southern scholars and Indigenous communities…. [Direct]
(2014). Reconciliation and Transformation through Mutual Learning: Outlining a Framework for Arts-Based Service Learning with Indigenous Communities in Australia. International Journal of Education & the Arts, v15 n8 Sep. Service learning is described as a socially just educational process that develops two-way learning and social outcomes for community and student participants. Despite the focus on mutuality in service learning, very little of this literature specifically deals with the intense importance of mutuality and reciprocity when working with Indigenous community partners and participants. This is problematic for Indigenous service learning projects that seek to partner respectfully with Indigenous communities in Australia and elsewhere. To address this issue, the paper draws on existing international literature and data from an Indigenous arts based service learning project conducted in the Northern Territory of Australia to propose a framework centred on relationships, reciprocity, reflexivity and representation that can be adapted for future Indigenous service learning partnerships and research…. [PDF]
(2017). Beautiful Words: Enriching and Indigenizing Kwak'wala Revitalization through Understandings of Linguistic Structure. Canadian Modern Language Review, v73 n4 p425-437 Nov. British Columbia (BC), Canada, is home to 34 Indigenous languages, all of them classified as endangered. Considerable work is underway by First Nation communities to revitalize their languages. Linguists classify many of the languages of BC as polysynthetic, meaning that words are composed of many morphemes, or units of meaning. While strong fluent speakers and linguists who work with these languages have knowledge and appreciation of these units of meaning, those understandings are often not reflected in the approaches for teaching and learning BC languages. Drawing on examples from Kwak'wala, a language of coastal BC, we discuss how an Indigenized approach to language revitalization can recognize and respect the highly regarded ancestral origins and messages about identity that are reflected within the language. In developing understanding of the morphemes of the language, learners can grasp literal meanings and metaphors embedded in Kwak'wala words, leading to deeper… [Direct]
(2017). Engaging Karen Refugee Students in Science Learning through a Cross-Cultural Learning Community. International Journal of Science Education, v39 n3 p358-376. This research explored how Karen (first-generation refugees from Burma) elementary students engaged with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) practice of constructing scientific explanations based on evidence within the context of a cross-cultural learning community. In this action research, the researcher and a Karen parent served as co-teachers for fourth- and fifth-grade Karen and non-Karen students in a science and culture after-school programme in a public elementary school in the rural southeastern United States. Photovoice provided a critical platform for students to create their own cultural discourses for the learning community. The theoretical framework of critical pedagogy of place provided a way for the learning community to decolonise and re-inhabit the learning spaces with knowledge they co-constructed. Narrative analysis of video transcripts of the after-school programme, ethnographic interviews, and focus group discussions from Photovoice revealed a pattern of… [Direct]
(2014). Mixed Methods in Indigenous Research: Building Relationships for Sustainable Intervention Outcomes. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, v8 n3 p222-233 Jul. Indigenous communities raise concerns that they are overresearched and tired of research always asking the same questions and reproducing the same answers, thus pressuring researchers to open the discourse on mixed methods research so as to enable new debates and approaches to emerge. A postcolonial indigenous paradigm provides a theoretical framework that informed a mixed methods research approach to design and test the efficacy of a school-based risk-reduction intervention for 14-to 17-year-old adolescents in Botswana. Indigenous methods were used to collect cultural knowledge and to build relationships; these approaches allowed for the integration of the largely marginalized knowledge systems with dominant knowledge systems through a decolonization and indigenization research process…. [Direct]