Matching Items (5)
Filtering by

Clear all filters

156860-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
ABSTRACT

The history of Indian education within public schools is deeply problematic. Power imbalances have led western education to enter Indigenous communities with their own agendas and without prior consultation with the people and communities. As a consequence, Indigenous scholars are moving to take control and reclaim ownership of the education

ABSTRACT

The history of Indian education within public schools is deeply problematic. Power imbalances have led western education to enter Indigenous communities with their own agendas and without prior consultation with the people and communities. As a consequence, Indigenous scholars are moving to take control and reclaim ownership of the education of our children that occurs in our communities and public schools. This dissertation focuses on attitudes toward culturally relevant instruction/curriculum by asking the question, what is the landscape and current climate of culturally responsive schooling for Pueblo and American Indian students within Bernalillo High School and Bernalillo Public Schools in Bernalillo, New Mexico? Through a qualitative study, teachers, administrators, consultants and faculty were interviewed to gain their perspectives on culturally relevant instruction/curriculum. Through analysis of these interviews and focus group, it was found that participants were aware of culturally relevant instruction/curriculum and utilize it in some sense with their students. This study also looks at the current landscape of American Indian and Pueblo education in the state of New Mexico. Indigenous education has always been a part of the learning process for Pueblo people. With the coming of western education Pueblo people were forced to attend boarding schools as well as public schools causing assimilation. This study calls on culturally relevant instruction/curriculum as a way to provide a successful education for Pueblo students. This study looks at the need for culturally responsive schooling paradigms and practices for Indigenous students. It also looks at culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) as a way to help explore, shape and provide valuable theoretical tools for developing culturally relevant instruction/curriculum. The policy paper proposes that Bernalillo Public Schools (BPS) work with Pueblos to promote the delivery of the most appropriate education and services for Pueblo children.
ContributorsChavez, Curtis (Author) / Brayboy, Bryan (Thesis advisor) / Sumida-Huaman, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Tsinnajinnie, Leola (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
153803-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
These are unprecedented times. Like never before, humans, having separated themselves from the web of life through the skillful use of their opposable thumbs, have invented the means of extinction and have systematized it for the benefit of the few at the expense of all else. Yet humans are also

These are unprecedented times. Like never before, humans, having separated themselves from the web of life through the skillful use of their opposable thumbs, have invented the means of extinction and have systematized it for the benefit of the few at the expense of all else. Yet humans are also designing fixes and alternatives that will soon overcome the straight line trajectory to ugliness and loss that the current order would lead the rest of humanity through. The works in this dissertation are connected by two themes: (1) those humans who happen to be closely connected to the lands, waters and wildlife, through millennia of adaptation and inventive association, have a great deal to share with the rest, who, through history have become distanced from the lands and waters and wildlife they came from; and (2) as the inheritors of all the insults that the current disrespectful and wasteful system is heaping upon all true sensibilities, young people, who are Indigenous, and who are the critical generation for biocultural survival, have an immense role to play - for their cultures, and for all of the rest. The survivance of autochthonous culture through intergenerational conduct of cultural practice and spirituality is profoundly affected by fundamental physical factors of resilience related to food, water, and energy security, and the intergenerational participation of youth. So this work is not so much an indictment of the system as it is an attempt to reveal at least two ways that the work of these young Indigenous people can be expedited: through the transformation of their education so that more of their time as youths is spent focusing on the wonderful attributes of their cultural associations with the lands, waters, and wildlife; and through the creation of a self-sustaining youth owned and operated enterprise that provides needed services to communities so they can adapt to and mitigate the increasingly variable, unpredictable, and dangerous effects and impacts of global heating and climate disruption.
ContributorsEricson, Mark (Author) / Brayboy, Bryan (Thesis advisor) / Sumida Huaman, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
154296-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
This dissertation explores how historical changes in education shaped Diné collective identity and community by examining the interconnections between Navajo students, their people, and Diné Bikéyah (Navajo lands). Farina King investigates the ongoing influence of various schools as colonial institutions among the Navajo from the 1930s to 1990 in the

This dissertation explores how historical changes in education shaped Diné collective identity and community by examining the interconnections between Navajo students, their people, and Diné Bikéyah (Navajo lands). Farina King investigates the ongoing influence of various schools as colonial institutions among the Navajo from the 1930s to 1990 in the southwestern United States. The question that guides this research is how institutional schools, whether far, near, or on the reservation, affected Navajo students’ sense of home and relationships with their Indigenous community during the twentieth century.

The study relies on a Diné historical framework that centers on a Navajo mapping of the world and earth memory compass. The four directions of their sacred mountains orient the Diné towards hózhǫ́, the ideal of society, a desirable state of being that most translate as beauty, harmony, or happiness. Their sacred mountains mark Diné Bikéyah and provide an earth memory compass in Navajo life journeys that direct them from East, to South, to West, and to North. These four directions and the symbols associated with them guide this overarching narrative of Navajo educational experiences from the beginning of Diné learning in their home communities, to the adolescent stages of their institutionalized schooling, to the recent maturity of hybrid Navajo-American educational systems. After addressing the Diné ancestral teachings of the East, King focuses on the student experiences of interwar Crownpoint Boarding School to the South, the postwar Tuba City Boarding School and Leupp Boarding School to the West, and self-determination in Monument Valley to the North.

This study primarily analyzes oral histories and cultural historical methodologies to feature Diné perspectives, which reveal how the land and the mountains serve as focal points of Navajo worldviews. The land defines Diné identity, although many Navajos have adapted to different life pathways. Therefore, land, environment, and nature constituted integral parts and embeddedness of Diné knowledge and epistemology that external educational systems, such as federal schools, failed to overcome in the twentieth century.
ContributorsKing, Farina (Author) / Fixico, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Lomawaima, K. Tsianina (Committee member) / Iverson, Peter (Committee member) / Osburn, Katherine M.B. (Committee member) / Tohe, Laura (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
153791-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
In order to examine the concept of Pueblo Indian epistemology and its relevance to western science, one must first come to some understanding about Pueblo Indian worldviews and related philosophies. This requires an analysis of the fundamental principles, perspectives, and practices that frame Pueblo values. Describing a Pueblo Indian worldview

In order to examine the concept of Pueblo Indian epistemology and its relevance to western science, one must first come to some understanding about Pueblo Indian worldviews and related philosophies. This requires an analysis of the fundamental principles, perspectives, and practices that frame Pueblo values. Describing a Pueblo Indian worldview and compartmentalizing its philosophies according to western definitions of axiology, ontology, epistemology, and pedagogy is problematic because Pueblo ideas and values are very fluid and in dynamic relationship with one another. This dissertation will frame a Pueblo Indian epistemology by providing examples of how it is used to guide knowledge production and understandings. Using the Community-Based Education program (CBE), at the Santa Fe Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I will demonstrate how this unique epistemology guides the CBE philosophy by creating meaningful hands-on learning opportunities for students. What sets this program apart from typical formal schooling classes in schools in the United States is that the local Pueblo communities define the curriculum for students. Their participation in curriculum design in the CBE process enables students to participate in seeking solutions to critical issues that threaten their Pueblos in the areas of environment and agriculture. This program also supports the larger agenda of promoting educational sovereignty at the Santa Fe Indian School by giving the Pueblo tribes more control over what and how their students learn about issues within their communities. Through the community-based agriculture and environmental science programs, students study current issues and trends within local Pueblo Indian communities. In two linked classes: Agriscience and Native American Agricultural Issues, students work with community farms and individual farmers to provide viable services such as soil testing, seed germination tests, and gathering research for upcoming agriculture projects. The policies of the governing body of Santa Fe Indian School mandate the use of CBE methods throughout all core classes. There are steps that need to be taken to ensure that the CBE model is applied and supported throughout the school.
ContributorsDorame, Anthony, 1944- (Author) / Sumida-Huaman, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Brayboy, Bryan (Committee member) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
156225-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
This dissertation focuses on traditional arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) as a form of place-based education by asking the question, what is the role of traditional arts at IAIA? Through a qualitative study students, faculty, staff, and alumni were interviewed to gain their perspectives on education,

This dissertation focuses on traditional arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) as a form of place-based education by asking the question, what is the role of traditional arts at IAIA? Through a qualitative study students, faculty, staff, and alumni were interviewed to gain their perspectives on education, traditional arts, and the role of traditional arts at IAIA. Through analysis of these interviews, it was found that participants viewed traditional arts as a form of place-based education and that these practices should play an important role at IAIA. This study also looks at critical geography and place-based practice as a form of anti-colonial praxis and an exercise of tribal sovereignty. Colonization restructures and transforms relationships with place. Neo-colonialism actively seeks to disconnect people from their relationship with the environment in which they live. A decline in relationship with places represents a direct threat to tribal sovereignty. This study calls on Indigenous people, and especially those who are Pueblo people, to actively reestablish relationships with their places so that inherent sovereignty can be preserved for future generations. This study also looks at the academic organization of IAIA and proposes a restructuring of the Academic Dean and Chief Academic Officer (AD&CAO) position to address issues of transition, efficiency, and innovation. The extensive responsibilities of this position cause several serious concerns. The policy paper proposes that the academic programs be divided thematically into 2 schools that will allow greater flexibility and adaptive practices to emerge out of the academic division at IAIA. The combination of restructuring the academic division at IAIA, my theoretical argument promoting place-based praxis as anti-colonial practice, and my research into the application of place-based programming at IAIA all support my overall goal of supporting Pueblo communities through my own work.
ContributorsSwentzell, Porter (Author) / Sumida-Huaman, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Lomawaima, K. Tsianina (Committee member) / Chhetri, Netra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018