(2006). Modernity, Prestige, and Self-Promotion: Literacy in a Papua New Guinean Community. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, v37 n4 p366-380 Dec. In this article, I examine patterns of literacy use in the daily life a rural community in the Papua New Guinea highlands. It is demonstrated that many of these practices do not correspond to the ways in which agencies responsible for imparting literacy, particularly the local school, intend. Instead, village concepts of prestige, chance, and reciprocity are influential in shaping literacy practices, and the uses are governed by local associations and preoccupations with modernity…. [Direct]
(2003). Indigenising Curriculum: Questions Posed by Baiga "Vidya.". Comparative Education, v39 n2 p199-209 May. The Baiga of central India are known for their extensive knowledge of the forest and healing. Healing knowledge is transmitted orally from male expert practitioners to novices. Features of this instruction, which is experiential and geared to the apprentice's levels of interest and ability, raise questions about the feasibility of including indigenous knowledge in school curricula, where practices and underlying assumptions are very different. (Contains 37 references.) (SV)…
(1994). Talking on the Water: Wisdom about the Earth, Dispensed from a Floating Podium. Sierra, v79 n3 p72-75 May-Jun. Reports excerpts of interviews conducted by Jonathan White with six prominent visionary environmental thinkers: Lynn Margulis; Peter Matthiessen; Roger Payne; Richard Nelson; Matthew Fox; and Dolores LaChapelle. Explores provocative, timely, and crucial questions about humanity's relationship with nature. (MDH)…
(2010). Educational and Socio-Cultural Experiences of Immigrant Students in South African Schools. Education Inquiry, v1 n4 p347-365. The advent of democracy and the easing of both legal and unauthorised entry to South Africa have made the country a new destination for Black asylum-seekers, long-distance traders, entrepreneurs, students and professionals. As this population continues to grow, its children have begun to experience South African schools in an array of uniquely challenging ways. In addition to opening their doors to all South African children irrespective of race, colour or creed, most public schools in South Africa have also opened their doors to a number of Black immigrant children. There is, however, very little research on the socio-cultural experiences of Black immigrant students within the "dominant institutional cultures" of schools. Accordingly, this study asks what are the educational and socio-cultural experiences of Black immigrant students in South African schools? To what extent has the ethos of these schools been transformed towards integration in the truest sense and how do… [Direct]
(2008). Cognitive Development and Home Environment of Rural Paraguayan Infants and Toddlers Participating in Pastoral del Nino, an Early Child Development Program. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, v22 n4 p343 Sum. Participants included 106 infants and toddlers living in rural Paraguay and their primary caregiver. Children ranged in age from birth to 24 months and belonged to two distinct groups, including 46 children who had never participated in Pastoral del Nino, an early child development program, and 60 children who had participated in Pastoral for at least half the child's life. This article describes a study comparing the cognitive development and caregiving environment of rural Paraguayan infants and toddlers, from birth to 24 months, who were participating in Pastoral del Nino with that of children who were not participating in Pastoral programs. Cognitive (BSID-II) scores differed between the two groups, with Pastoral infants and toddlers scoring significantly higher at 0-4 months and 20-24 months. IT-HOME scores were significantly higher for Pastoral children at 0-4 months, 5-9 months, 10-14 months, and 15-19 months. Overall, best predictors for BSID-II scores included health,…
(2008). Changing Literacies, Changing Formations: The Role of Elicitation in Teacher Action Research with New Technologies. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, v14 n5-6 p447-463 Oct. As new technologies promise to be an enduring feature of the landscape of teachers' work, we consider how teachers implicitly bring stories forward into their classroom explorations with new media as a part of their \informal learning\. By \stories\ is meant specific classroom texts as well as preferred teacher practices with those texts. The article represents a reflection on the methodological role that \elicitation\ can play in drawing out teacher thinking during a time of professional change, thinking that would otherwise likely remain embedded, particularly when teachers' attention is focused forward on innovation in practice. The methodological use of \elicitation\ emerged in the first year of an ongoing teacher action research study, in which seven teachers have been involved in a professional development initiative that actively engages teachers in examining changing literacy formations, beginning with the teachers' own literacy formations. The methodological practice of… [Direct]
(2005). Cross-Cultural Research Principles & Partnerships: Experiences from New Zealand and Australia. Management in Education, v19 n1 p17-20. Indigenous communities remain concerned about research into their lives, their control over and participation in the research process and the public dissemination of knowledge. The relationship between researcher and participant and the product of this relationship has been traditionally cast as a dualism with one side being the less powerful, although the power relationships that set up the dualism in the first place are typically ignored. Embedded in any research relationship are the politics of position that create a hierarchical identity between researcher and participant. The terms "researcher" and "participant" contain overtones that suggest this relationship is concerned with and directed to the "looking over" or "looking after" the other. Furthermore, research and the apparent authoritative role and gaze of the researcher is embedded with dilemmas and difficulties that are exacerbated and brought into sharp relief when cultural… [Direct]
(2007). Moving Horizons: Exploring the Role of Stories in Decolonizing the Literacy Education of White Teachers. International Education, v37 n1 p114-131 Fall. This article considers the place of stories in literacy formation and thus, in producing colonialism, as well as the role they can play in decolonizing formation; a story is understood to provide a perceptual horizon that influences how the teacher carries him/herself in the world. Eighteen white teachers, living in Canada, were invited to be part of a study in which they examined their constructions of "difference" through the reading and discussion of children's stories in teacher literature circles held once a month. Twelve of the teachers were predominantly of white (European or Euro-Canadian) ancestry while six were Indigenous teachers; four were male, fourteen were female. This article focuses on the processes involved in moving and decolonizing storied horizons. It is divided into four sections: (a) "decolonizing" the imagination and what that term means when applied to white teachers; (b) a brief description of the study conducted with the teachers; (c)… [Direct]
(2007). Oklahoma: A View of the Center. Studies in American Indian Literatures, v19 n3 p1-44 Fall. This article presents a dialogue on twentieth-century Oklahoma artists and writers given at a conference titled "Working from Community: American Indian Art and Literature in a Historical and Cultural Context" and held in the summer of 2003 at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Twenty-five educators converged for six weeks of intensive study of American Indian art and literature to further more thoughtful scholarship on indigenous culture and to encourage teaching strategies that might integrate native topics into general courses on art and literature. The dialogue explored the shared subject matter of a select group of twentieth-century Oklahoma artists and writers, uniting the divide between the visual arts and literature for a more comprehensive perspective while revisiting the pervasive question of the connection between artist, home, and place. The five themes of travel, loss, memory, transformation, and dance were chosen as the organizing categories for… [Direct]
(2007). Tribal Watershed Management: Culture, Science, Capacity, and Collaboration. American Indian Quarterly, v31 n1 p87-109 Win. This research focuses on two elements of contemporary American Indian natural resource management. First, the authors explore the capacity of tribes to manage natural resources, including the merging of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) with Western science. Second, they analyze tribal management in the context of local and regional collaborative watershed groups. Of particular interest to this discussion is the variation in the capacity of individual tribes to participate actively in resource management. The authors compare three cases–two from the Pacific Northwest, namely, Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe and Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and one from the Southwest, namely, Yavapai-Apache Nation–to explore the challenges tribes face to regain partial or complete control of traditional lands and resources. The three cases illustrate that there is not a clear divide between the use of Indigenous knowledge and Western science in tribal resource management…. [Direct]
(2002). The Story of the Hawaiian Studies Center on the Brigham Young University-Hawaii Campus. Journal of American Indian Education, v41 n2 p9-18. With an advisory committee of native community members, elders, educators, and students, the Center for Hawaiian Language and Cultural Studies has successfully founded, within a mainstream institution with strong religious foundations, a cultural center that teaches native values and language. The center creates cultural/educational projects that involve community organizations and are grounded on caring for the land and sea. (TD)…
(2003). Performing Race, Culture, and Gender in an Indigenous Australian Women's Music and Dance Classroom. Communication Education, v52 n3-4 p258-272 Jan. One perpetual concern among Indigenous Australian peoples is authenticity of voice. Who has the right to speak for, and to make representations about, the knowledges and cultures of Indigenous Australian peoples? Whose voice is more authentic, and what happens to these ways of knowing when they make the journey into mainstream Western academic classrooms? In this paper, I examine these questions within the politics of \doing\ Indigenous Australian studies by focusing on my own experiences as a lecturer in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland. My findings suggest that representation is a matter of problematizing positionality and, from a pedagogical standpoint, being aware of, and willing to address, the ways in which power, authority, and voice are performed and negotiated as teachers and learners of Indigenous Australian studies…. [Direct]
(2007). Responding to Health Skills Shortages: Innovative Directions from Vocational Education and Training. Support Document. National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) This research examines innovative solutions developed by the vocational education and training (VET) sector in response to skill shortages in the health sector. The study focuses on VET-trained workers in the health industry, and includes enrolled nurses, nursing assistants, personal care assistants, allied health assistants and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers. The research, which also examines innovative overseas approaches to skill shortages in this industry, found that a partnership approach was one answer to dealing with skills shortages in this sector. The support document includes literature review, methodology, models and case studies. (Contains 12 figures and 6 appended tables.) [This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report, "Responding to Health Skills Shortages: Innovative Directions from Vocational Education and Training" (ED499736) and was funded by the Australian Department of Education, Science and… [PDF]
(2006). Deal or No Deal?. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, v23 n21 p34-35 Nov. Education at a tribal college for non-Native students is "an awfully good deal for states," says Dr. Joseph F. McDonald (Salish/Kootenai), president of Salish Kootenai College on the Flathead reservation in Montana. It may come as a surprise to most Americans, but tribal colleges have been quietly providing higher education to a substantial number of non-Native, so called "non-beneficiary," students for many years, despite the fact that they receive no state or federal funding for these students. Funding for these students is derived primarily from tuition, which is usually significantly less than comparable state institutions. However, tuition often just barely covers the costs of educating the non-beneficiary students, placing a tremendous burden on the already cash-strapped colleges. For an unknown number of these students, it's a case of simply not being native enough. While they may be of American Indian ancestry, they are neither part of federally recognized… [Direct]
(2009). Three Pathways to Change in New South Wales Education, 1937-1952. Education Research and Perspectives, v36 n2 p45-80. Between 1937 and 1952 three differing philosophies for the reform of NSW schooling found expression in three successive ministers for education. David Drummond, the Country Party minister during the Great Depression, wanted to extend the well-established democratic principle of equality of opportunity and the formation of character. He emphasised the improvement of schooling for country children, provision of education for handicapped children, and improved technical education. Clive Evatt, Labor Minister for Education in the early 1940s, focused on the recently publicised doctrines of progressive, child centred education. An international conference on progressive education had been held in Australia in 1937. Following the 1939-45 war, a third, pragmatic, non-theoretical minister, Bob Heffron, sought to adapt traditional policies to help build a better world, a welfare state, based on improved services which included, to a limited degree, education. But Heffron had to focus on… [PDF]