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- All Subjects: General Education
- All Subjects: Language Revitalization
- Creators: Mccarty, Teresa L.
Description
Relationships are the heart of Anishinaabeg culture and language. This research proposes understanding Anishinaabemowin, the language of Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi peoples, as a living, historical, and spiritual member of the cultural community. As a community member, the language is the Oldest Elder. This understanding provides a relational lens through which one can understand language history from an Indigenous perspective. Recent scholarship on Indigenous languages often focuses on the boarding school experiences or shapes the narrative in terms of language loss. A relational understanding explores the language in terms of connections. This dissertation argues that the strength of language programs is dependent on the strength of reciprocal relationships between the individuals and institutions involved. This research examines the history of Anishinaabemowin classes and programs at three higher educational institutions: Bemidji State University, University of Michigan, and Central Michigan University. At each institution, the advocates and allies of Oldest Elder fought and struggled to carve space for American Indian people and the language. Key relationships between advocates and allies in the American Indian and academic communities found ways to bring Oldest Elder into the classroom. When the relationships were healthy, Oldest Elder thrived, but when the relationships shifted or weakened, so did Oldest Elder's presence. This dissertation offers a construct for understanding Indigenous language efforts that can be utilized by others engaged in language revitalization. The narrative of Oldest Elder shifts the conversation from one of loss to one of possibilities and responsibilities.
ContributorsMead, Chelsea M (Author) / Fixico, Donald L. (Thesis advisor) / Mccarty, Teresa L. (Committee member) / Osburn, Katherine M. B. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study examines the contemporary school placement decisions of Navajo parents in the reservation community of Piñon, Arizona. School placement decisions are defined as the school where the parent chooses to enroll his/her child for schooling. Twelve Navajo parents participated in this qualitative study, which explored their past educational experiences in order to garner insight into the current school placement choices they have made for their children. Navajo parents who live within the community of Piñon, AZ who currently have school-aged children living in their household were recruited to participate in this study. Participants took part in 60- to 90-minute interviews that included questions related to their prior educational experiences and current school placement choices for their children. Parents were given an opportunity to reflect about the school placement decisions they have made for their children. The variety of schools Navajo parents are able to choose from were illuminated. These findings have implications for education decision makers by providing insight into which schools parents are choosing and why. The study will assist Navajo Nation policy makers in future educational planning, and may have more general implications for American Indian/Alaskan Native education. This may assist Navajo Education policy makers in making future decisions regarding the newly developed Navajo Department of Education and its education planning. Participants will also benefit from the study by being able to understand how the past has impacted the school placement choices they have made. In doing so parents may be better able to articulate the impetus behind the choices they make for their children, thereby becoming better advocates for themselves and their children. The results of this study impacts scholarly literature as a new viewpoint in the area of school choice. Navajo parents represent a distinct group who make educational choices within a specific context. This study is unique as the impact of historical Indian education policies is considered. Future studies can further expand on the topic creating a unique area of research in the field of Indian education.
ContributorsLansing, Danielle R (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L. (Thesis advisor) / Romero-Little, Mary Eunice (Committee member) / Frederick, Dale (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This qualitative study explores the learning experiences of two first-grade teachers in a progressive public elementary school in the southwestern U.S. Participants inquired into their literacy instruction practices within their reading-workshops. Weekly inquiry group conversations between teachers and researcher informed a perspective of learning as participation. During the semester-long study, two key questions guided design and implementation: 1) What is the nature of teachers' learning experiences related to their literacy instruction practices, contextualized within an inquiry group? 2) How do those learning experiences reflect and/or refract the community, interpersonal, and individual planes of analysis? An ethnographic perspective informed data collection and analysis; data were collected through weekly inquiry-group conversations, bi-weekly classroom observations, and in-depth interviews. A learning framework of community, interpersonal, and individual planes of analysis served as an analytic tool used in conjunction with a modified analytic induction. Teachers' case studies offer unique accounts of their learning, contextualized within their specific classrooms. Findings are discussed through narrative-based vignettes, which illustrate teachers' learning trajectories. On the community plane, apprenticeship relationships were evident in teachers' interactions with students' parents and with one another. Interpersonal interactions between teachers demonstrated patterns of participation wherein each tried to teach the other as they negotiated their professional identities. Analysis of the individual plane revealed that teachers' past experiences and personal identities contributed to ways of participation for both teachers that were highly personal and unique to each. Affective considerations in learning were a significant finding within this study, adding dimensionality to this particular sociocultural theory of learning. The ways teachers felt about themselves, their students, their community, and their work constituted a significant influence on what they said and did, as demonstrated on all three planes of analysis. Implications for practice include the significance of professional development efforts that begin at the site of teachers' questions, and attention to teachers' individual learning trajectories as a means to supporting educators to teach in more confident and connected ways.
ContributorsSteeg, Susanna Mae (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L. (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo E. (Committee member) / Marsh, Josephine P. (Committee member) / Smith, Karen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Although there are millions of Nahuatl speakers, the language is highly threatened. The dominant language of Coatepec de los Costales, a small village in Guerrero, Mexico, was historically Nahuatl, a Uto-Aztecan language, referred to by some as “Mexicano” (Messing, 2009). In the last 50 years, there has been a pronounced shift from Mexicano to Spanish in the village, and fewer than 10% of the residents currently speak Mexicano. Without intervention, the language will be lost in the village. The ultimate cause of language shift is a disconnect in transferring the Indigenous language from the older to the younger generations. In Coatepec, older Nahuatl speakers are not teaching their children the language. This recurring theme appears in case studies of language shift around the world. Using a conceptual framework that combines (1) a critical sociocultural approach to language policy; (2) Spolsky’s (2004) definition of language policy as language practices, ideologies or beliefs, and management; (3) the ethnography of language policy, and (3) Indigenous knowledges, I collected and analyzed data from a six-month ethnographic study of language loss and reclamation in Coatepec. Specifically, I looked closely at the mechanisms by which language ideologies, management, and practices were enacted among members of different generations, using a combination of observation, archival analysis, and in-depth ethnographic interviews. Seidman’s (2013) three-part interview sequence, which includes a focused life history, details of experience, and reflections on meaning, provided the framework for the interviews. What are the language ideologies and practices within and across generations in this setting? What language management strategies – tacit and official – do community members of different generations employ? This in-depth examination of language ideologies, practices, and management strategies is designed to illuminate not only how and why language shift is occurring, but the possibilities for reversing language shift as well.
ContributorsLagunas, Rosalva Mojica (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L. (Thesis advisor) / Romero-Little, Mary Eunice (Thesis advisor) / Brayboy, Bryan McKinley (Committee member) / Coronel-Molina, Serafín M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016