While interaction and exchange between cultures is arguably increasing in our globalized world, sentiments reflecting division among cultures and ways of being in the world remain. In particular, the relevance of ideas,theory, and philosophy based on traditional "Western" values and a focus on the individual is often drawn into question…

This study presents an analysis of the incommensurability about the representations or models elaborated by children from an Indigenous community within three areas or cultural domains, namely, the ethnic, daily (domestic), and school domains and their implications in relation to science education. The children belong to an Indigenous Nahuatl…

This chapter summarizes the complex history of colonization of the Indigenous peoples of what is now the United States from the perspective of leadership education. The authors review the dilemmas and challenges of bridging fundamental cultural differences regarding leadership education and concrete steps toward decolonizing leadership education.

The purpose of this forum paper is to address how conceptions of "success" in STEM education are culturally informed, and how supporting students in achieving success goes beyond normative definitions of academic achievement. Furthermore, the imposition of success from the dominant culture may be limited in scope with culturally diverse…

In 2016, the province of British Columbia introduced a redesigned K-6 curriculum. Undergirding this plan is the learning philosophy, the First Peoples Principles of Learning. This paper is written from the perspective of a settler teacher as she engages in self-study research to develop her understanding of the curricular plan. The author…

Preserving the unique contours of cultural communities is integral to the rich weave of our collective human heritage. However, the postcolonial United States (US) educational paradigm, reflected in curricula and standards based on white middle-class norms, has a flattening effect on the vibrancy of diverse languages and community traditions.…

An assumption of culture-based education with respect to American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children is that discontinuity between home and school cultures is responsible for educational underachievement. Using data from the 2009 round of the National Indian Education Study, a subset of the larger National Assessment of Education Progress…

Examining the "chanupa," or ceremonial pipe, from a Lakota perspective reveals it as responding to a particular ontology and extends indigenous rhetorics to consider the ontological dimensions of communication. Distinctions between indigenous rhetorics and new materialist rhetorics bring greater attention to how groups and individuals…

Using a reflective exercise designed for this study, Guatemalan educators explored their students' and their own cultural capital. The "cultural capsule exercise" served as a vehicle to bring delicate issues that are difficult to discuss, but that are essential to effective schooling, to reflective conversations. A total of 108 teachers…

This article provides an overview of the ideas that two groups of bilingual teachers from different contexts, one indigenous and the other Western, have about the concepts of education, bilingualism, and interculturality. Their opinions were gathered through focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and videos, and reviewed under light of what the…

In her novel "Power," Linda Hogan provides readers with a close look at how separatism and syncretism, or exclusion and inclusion, are complex ideologies that lead to complex decisions. A close look at the novel reveals that the tensions and sharp dichotomies between the traditional world of the Taiga elders and the European American world,…

In traditional tribal cultures, children are treated with great respect and eagerly learn from their elders. But in contemporary Western society, Native students have the highest dropout rates and are subjected to disproportionate school disciplinary exclusion, which becomes a pipeline into the justice system (Sprague, Vincent, Tobin, & Pavel,…

According to this author, the Earth is in trouble. Decades of mining, over-fishing, and the pumping of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere have taken an enormous toll on an otherwise robust and healthy planetary ecosystem. Those responsible have prioritized financial gain over sustainability, over life--plant, animal, and human. Short-term profit…

The education of American Indians and Alaska Natives has increasingly become more complex given the differences in tribal languages and cultures, especially as changing demographics and issues of Indian identity are considered. There are over 200 languages and vast cultural differences between and within the 565 federally recognized tribes in…

For twenty-eight years, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have evolved beyond their beginnings as yet another 1980s alternative band giving voice to its generation's disaffected youth into a modern symbol (among others) of tribal identity for displaced Native Americans. These young Native people span communities both on and off reservations and reserves…