Culturally Sustaining Leadership: Supporting the Resilience of Indigenous Students in the United States and Australia

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 565-587
Author(s):  
Sheri S. Williams

The purpose of this qualitative study was to gather the perspectives of educational leaders in the United States and Australia on strategies for transforming an almost exclusively Westernized curriculum into a curriculum that honors Indigenous worldviews. The research design was exploratory in nature and involved an examination of the ways in which culturally sustaining leadership may be employed to support the resilience of Indigenous students across borders. The methodologies of dialogue and reflection provided a way to engage participants in an international exchange. Participants were 11 aspiring administrators enrolled in an educational leadership program in the United States and five visiting educators from Australia. Participants pre-assessed their understandings about culturally relevant curriculum, engaged in dialogue, submitted journal reflections, and presented final testimonies. Findings from the thematic analysis revealed the value of designing curriculum grounded in cultural humility and a holistic worldview. Respondents concluded curriculum must be linked to the resiliency of Indigenous students and focused on the interconnected relationships of country, place, culture, and people. The implications suggest there is an opportunity for systemic change when networks of Indigenous leaders and allies come together in a global exchange of ideas. These findings may be important for other collaborators who aim to draw upon the knowledge traditions of Indigenous communities across borders. Additional multicountry study is needed to expand the knowledge base and make Indigenous worldviews central to the mission of schools and communities in the United States and across borders.

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana S. Curran ◽  
Pamela B. Andreatta ◽  
Xiao Xu ◽  
Clark E. Nugent ◽  
Samantha R. Dewald ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Residency programs seek to match the best candidates with their positions. To avoid ethical conflicts in this process, the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP or Match) has rules regarding appropriate conduct, including guidelines on contact between candidates and programs. Our study examined communication between obstetrics and gynecology (Ob-Gyn) programs and residency candidates after interviewing and prior to ranking. Methods Ob-Gyn program directors in the United States were sent a self-administered survey via e-mail. Data were collected and analyzed using descriptive methods to examine communication practices of these programs. Results The response rate was 40%. The findings showed that respondents had variable interpretations of the NRMP rules and suggest that programs may be communicating their match intentions especially to favored candidates. Respondents' open text comments highlighted program directors' frustrations with current NRMP rules. Discussion NRMP communication rules are intended to minimize pressure on residency candidates. Our findings suggest they may be leading to unforeseen stresses on program directors and candidates. Conclusions As educational leaders in medicine, we must consider what professional communications are acceptable without increasing the pressure on candidates during the ranking and match process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (s1) ◽  
pp. 413-423
Author(s):  
Zuzanna Kruk-Buchowska

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze how Indigenous communities in the United States have been engaging in trans-Indigenous cooperation in their struggle for food sovereignty. I will look at inter-tribal conferences regarding food sovereignty and farming, and specifically at the discourse of the Indigenous Farming Conference held in Maplelag at the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. I will show how it: (1) creates a space for Indigenous knowledge production and validation, using Indigenous methods (e.g., storytelling), without the need to adhere to Western scientific paradigms; (2) recovers pre-colonial maps and routes distorted by the formation of nation states; and (3) fosters novel sites for trans-indigenous cooperation and approaches to law, helping create a common front in the fight with neoliberal agribusiness and government. In my analysis, I will use Chadwick Allen’s (2014) concept of ‘trans-indigenism’ to demonstrate how decolonizing strategies are used by the Native American food sovereignty movement to achieve their goals.


Author(s):  
Benjamin Hoy

This book examines the creation and enforcement of the border between Canada and the United States from 1775 until 1939. Built with Indigenous labor and on top of Indigenous land, the border was born in conflict. Federal administrators used deprivation, starvation, and coercion to displace Indigenous communities and undermine their conceptions of territory and sovereignty. European, African American, Chinese, Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota, Lakota, Nimiipuu, Coast Salish, Ojibwe, and Haudenosaunee communities faced a diversity of border closure experiences and timelines. Unevenness and variation served as hallmarks of the border as federal officials in each country committed to a kind of border power that was diffuse and far-reaching. Utilizing historical GIS, this book showcases how regional conflicts, political reorganization, and social upheaval created the Canada–US border and remade the communities who lived in its shadows.


Author(s):  
Aubrey Jean Hanson ◽  
Sam McKegney

Indigenous literary studies, as a field, is as diverse as Indigenous Peoples. Comprising study of texts by Indigenous authors, as well as literary study using Indigenous interpretive methods, Indigenous literary studies is centered on the significance of stories within Indigenous communities. Embodying continuity with traditional oral stories, expanding rapidly with growth in publishing, and traversing a wild range of generic innovation, Indigenous voices ring out powerfully across the literary landscape. Having always had a central place within Indigenous communities, where they are interwoven with the significance of people’s lives, Indigenous stories also gained more attention among non-Indigenous readers in the United States and Canada as the 20th century rolled into the 21st. As relationships between Indigenous Peoples (Native American, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) and non-Indigenous people continue to be a social, political, and cultural focus in these two nation-states, and as Indigenous Peoples continue to work for self-determination amid colonial systems and structures, literary art plays an important role in representing Indigenous realities and inspiring continuity and change. An educational dimension also exists for Indigenous literatures, in that they offer opportunities for non-Indigenous readerships—and, indeed, for readers from within Indigenous nations—to learn about Indigenous people and perspectives. Texts are crucially tied to contexts; therefore, engaging with Indigenous literatures requires readers to pursue and step into that beauty and complexity. Indigenous literatures are also impressive in their artistry; in conveying the brilliance of Indigenous Peoples; in expressing Indigenous voices and stories; in connecting pasts, presents, and futures; and in imagining better ways to enact relationality with other people and with other-than-human relatives. Indigenous literatures span diverse nations across vast territories and materialize in every genre. While critics new to the field may find it an adjustment to step into the responsibility—for instance, to land, community, and Peoplehood—that these literatures call for, the returns are great, as engaging with Indigenous literatures opens up space for relationship, self-reflexivity, and appreciation for exceptional literary artistry. Indigenous literatures invite readers and critics to center in Indigeneity, to build good relations, to engage beyond the text, and to attend to Indigenous storyways—ways of knowing, being, and doing through story.


Author(s):  
Steven Conn

This chapter examines why educational leaders and businessmen in the United States thought it was a good idea to establish business schools in the first place. The answer often offered at the time was that American business itself had grown so big and complex by the turn of the twentieth century that a new university-level education was now required for the new world of managerial work. However, the more powerful rationale was that businessmen wanted the social status and cultural cachet that came with a university degree. The chapter then looks at the Wharton School of Finance and Economy at the University of Pennsylvania, which was founded in 1881 and became the first business school in the United States. All of the more than six hundred business schools founded in the nearly century and a half since descend from Wharton.


Author(s):  
Claradina Soto ◽  
Toni Handboy ◽  
Ruth Supranovich ◽  
Eugenia L. Weiss

This chapter describes the impact of colonialism on indigenous women with a focus on the experience of the Lakota women on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota. It explores the experiences of indigenous women as related to history, culture, intrapersonal violence, and internalized oppression. A case study of a Lakota woman is provided as an example of strength and triumph in overcoming adversity and being empowered despite the challenges of marginalization faced by many Native Americans in the United States and indigenous women throughout the world. The chapter discusses how readers can be advocates and actively engage in decolonizing and dismantling systems of oppression to protect future generations and to allow indigenous communities to heal and revitalize.


Author(s):  
Swasti Bhattacharyya

Discussing religious views from within any tradition is challenging because they are not monolithic. However, it is worth exploring religious perspectives because they are often the foundation, whether conscious or not, of the reasoning underlying people’s decisions. Following a brief discussion on the importance of cultural humility and understanding the worldview of patients, the author focuses on Hindu perspectives regarding the care of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. Along with applying six elements of Hindu thought (underlying unity of all life, multivalent nature of Hindu traditions, dharma, emphasis on societal good, karma, and ahimsa), the author incorporates perspectives of Hindu adults, living in the United States, who responded to a nationwide survey regarding the care of high-risk newborn infants in the hospital.


2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Cristina Massieu Trigo ◽  
Blanca Olivia Acuña Rodarte

The production of biofuels in Mexico is a fledging project. Lack of planning, the obstacles presented by PEMEX, and the resistance of small farmers have limited their production. Even at this stage, however, some of its effects are increasingly clear: its socio-environmental violence affects the natural resources of peasants and indigenous communities. In addition, Mexico’s trade relationship with the United States, characterized by strong dependency, has affected its food sovereignty in that corn imports have become more expensive because of the increase in U.S. production of corn-derived ethanol. La producción de agrocombustibles en México es un proyecto incipiente. La falta de planeación, los obstáculos por parte de PEMEX, así como la resistencia por parte de los campesinos han limitado su producción. Sin embargo, aún en esta fase incipiente se per-ciben claramente algunos de sus efectos, los cuales consideramos como violencia socio-ambiental, ya que en principio atentan contra los recursos naturales de territorios campesinos e indígenas. Por otro lado, la relación comercial de México con Estados Unidos, caracterizada por una fuerte dependencia, ha incidido en la soberanía alimentaria del primero, ya que las importaciones de maíz se han encarecido debido al incremento de la producción de etanol a partir de este cereal en la nación vecina.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document