scholarly journals Talatalanoa as ongoing complex conversations and negotiation of practice in higher education

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 83-89
Author(s):  
David Fa'avae ◽  
Sonia Fonua
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Teacher Educator ◽  
Difficult Time ◽  
European Heritage ◽  
A Site ◽  
Diverse Cultures ◽  
Ways Of Being

Higher education is a site where diverse cultures and knowledges intersect. Engaging in complex conversations is necessary for educators and academics to confront and negotiate differences, especially in areas they may not be overly familiar with. Negotiating complex conversations is difficult, time consuming, risky, yet rewarding, particularly if shifts in the understanding or valuing of relational engagement and practice. In this article, as a Tongan teacher educator and Pāpālangi (of European heritage/s) educator, we critically reflect on our work in transforming learning and engagement contexts that predominantly ignore expressions of Pacific Indigenous knowledge and Tongan ways of being. Through our collaborative talatalanoa (ongoing conversations) we demonstrate the value of negotiating complex conversations in higher education and particular aspects to consider when instigating them.

scholarly journals More Than a Checklist: Meaningful Indigenous Inclusion in Higher Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Pidgeon
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Canadian Higher Education ◽  
Indigenous Nations ◽  
Statistics Canada ◽  
Ways Of Being

Since the 1970s there has been increased focus by institutions, government, and Indigenous nations on improving Aboriginal peoples participation and success in Canadian higher education; however disparity continues to be evident in national statistics of educational attainment, social determinants of health, and socio-economic status of Aboriginal compared to non-Aboriginal Canadians. For instance, post-secondary attainment for Aboriginal peoples is still only 8% compared to 20% of the rest of Canada (Statistics Canada, 2008, 2013). A challenge within higher education has been creating the space within predominately Euro-Western defined and ascribed structures, academic disciplines, policies, and practices to create meaningful spaces for Indigenous peoples. Indigenization is a movement centering Indigenous knowledges and ways of being within the academy, in essence transforming institutional initiatives, such as policy, curricular and co-curricular programs, and practices to support Indigenous success and empowerment. Drawing on research projects that span the last 10 years, this article celebrates the pockets of success within institutions and identifies areas of challenge to Indigenization that moves away from the tokenized checklist response, that merely tolerates Indigenous knowledge(s), to one where Indigenous knowledge(s) are embraced as part of the institutional fabric.

Tshivenda Female Attire: A Socio-cultural Significance

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matodzi Rebecca Raphalalani ◽  
Mashudu Churchill Mashige
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Dress Codes ◽  
Verbal Meaning

This study investigated, through observation of the Tshivenḓa female dress codes, the socio-cultural significance of such dress codes as a means of non-verbal communication. The non-verbal meaning embedded in different items of dresses conveys messages from the wearers to observers. The study adopted  a qualitative  design, since it used  document analysis and literature review as a means to adduce evidence that Tshivenḓa dress codes not only communicate socio-cultural meanings to the observer, but also signify gender, age group, rank, authority, status, and identity, as well as power relations—including the supernatural and the sacred. The study also revealed that there are dress codes that are specifically worn during initiation ceremonies among the Vhavenḓa people. In conclusion, we recommend that knowledge of Tshivenḓa dress codes should form part of the overall indigenous knowledge that needs to be studied in institutions of basic and higher education, and that for the sake of preserving this valuable information, communities need to be proactive in disseminating it to the younger generation.

What are the ‘Needs of Industry’?

1991 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-126
Author(s):  
Mary Tasker
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Teacher Educator

This article highlights a theme which looks set to become a major issue in the field of industry and higher education in the 1990s: how much are industry's needs confined to the commercial imperatives of the marketplace and how large an obligation do industry and educators have towards the wider ethical and environmental priorities of society at large? The article is written by a materials scientist and a teacher educator and draws conclusions from both fields.

scholarly journals Towards an Understanding of the Work of Teacher Education Professoriate in India

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-114
Author(s):  
Rajashree Srinivasan
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Professional Development ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Education System ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teacher Educator ◽  
School Education ◽  
Work Identity ◽  
Education In India ◽  
New Vision

Reforming the teacher education system has been a key government policy towards improving school education in India. While recent curriculum and governance reforms articulate a new vision of teacher education that underscores a symbiotic relationship between teacher education and school education, it fails to engage enough with the most important participant of the teacher education system—the teacher educator. Changes to curriculum and governance process in the absence of a pro-active engagement of teacher educators with the reforms can do little to influence the teacher education processes and outcomes. The work of pre-service teacher educators is complex because their responsibilities relate to both school and higher education. The distinctiveness of their work, identity and professional development has always been marginalized in educational discourse. This article analyses select educational documents to examine the construction of work and identity of higher education-based teacher educators. It proposes the development of a professional framework of practice through a collective process, which would help understand the work of teacher educators and offer various possibilities for their professional development.

scholarly journals Journeying Through Informing, Reforming and Transforming Teacher Education: Reflections on Curriculum Images

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-20
Author(s):  
Sadruddin Bahadur Qutoshi
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Teacher Educator ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Professional Lives ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Auto Ethnography ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Ways Of Being

This paper aims to address ‘how an auto/ethnographic muse explores informing, reforming and transforming states of teacher education and research practices.’ I critique informing and reforming states of teacher education in Pakistan for the limitations associated with these approaches rooted within the colonial system of education.  Within these two approaches to education, I share the experiences of teaching, learning, research practices, and beliefs, which could not address a broader view of teacher education. To address the research problem, I applied an unconventional approach to research by using auto/ethnography as a methodological referent within a multi-paradigmatic research design space. In so doing, I used the paradigms of interpretivism, criticalism, postmodernism, and integralism as data referents, which enabled me to capture the lived experiences of my professional lifeworld at different stages. Moreover, I used critical reflections on the experiences as a teacher, teacher educator, and researcher as epistemic techniques to explore, explain and construct meaning out of the perceptions, beliefs, and practices. Perhaps, engaging autobiographically as an approach to knowing deep-seated views and practices and critically reflecting on the embodied values of practices open new ways of being and becoming a transformative learner(s). This paper invites readers to reflect critically on their own deep-seated practices by using such unconventional approaches to research that would enable them to experience a paradigm shift in their thinking, believing, viewing, and doing. I believe that in doing so, practitioners as researchers, with their own embodied values of practice in their professional lives, can transform self/others by creating their own living-educational-theories.

Higher Education Transcendence Through Transdisciplinarity

2019 ◽  
pp. 30-44
Author(s):  
Linda Ellington ◽  
Kimberly L. Blanchette
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Higher Educational Institutions ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Learning ◽  
The Future ◽  
Higher Educational ◽  
Problem Solvers ◽  
Ways Of Being

The future of higher educational institutions is in need of innovators, creative thinkers, problem solvers, and people who can envision transcending across disciplines into a transdiciplinarity environment that by its nature requires institutions of learning to identify the challenges that affect humanity and investigate and implement solutions throughout the life of those challenges, working continuously to iteratively improve upon yesterday's solutions. Allowing the coexistence of old and new, being able to deal with change and disorder while explaining persistence and order requires practices that connect contextually things, people, and events that are distant and only partially congruent. Transdisciplinarity as a construct or framework can guide institutions of higher learning to break from outdated models and structures to form new ways of being that are fluid, heuristic, and holistic. Transperformative education can serve as a model to operationalize transdisciplinarity at the curricula, instructional, operational, and strategic level.

The Scholarship of the Black Academy

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-197
Author(s):  
Mark Rose
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Research Paradigm ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
Indigenous Perspective

In this chapter, priorities of the Black Academy are compared with Boyer's priorities of the professoriate. Understandings of Indigenous knowledge and the roles of the Black Academy are set in an historical context. From the colonial occupation to the 1980s, the “Dark Ages for Indigenous Knowledge,” engagement in Western knowledge was rare. Today, the Black Academy makes a range of contributions to higher education, providing: an Indigenous perspective; an oppositional approach; integrative Indigenous knowledge; contemporary Indigenous knowledge; and pure Indigenous knowledge. These contributions include elements of the scholarships of integration, of application, and of discovery, but pure Indigenous knowledge also involves conservation of knowledge and the role of community in its maintenance, which might be styled a scholarship of preservation; quite the opposite of Boyer's scholarship of discovery. Reflecting on the research paradigm involved, emerging contributions of the Black Academy represent a supercomplex renaissance.

Decolonization, social innovation and rigidity in higher education

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine McGowan ◽  
Andrea Kennedy ◽  
Mohamed El-Hussein ◽  
Roy Bear Chief
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Window Of Opportunity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Indigenous Knowledges

Purpose Reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian plurality has stalled. While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action could be a focusing event, creating a window of opportunity for transformative social innovations; we see coalescing of interest, social capital and investment in decolonization and indigenization in the proliferation of professorships, programs, installations and statements. However, Blackfoot (Siksika) Elder Roy Bear Chief raised significant concerns that Indigenous knowledge, experiences and people are not yet seen as relevant and useful in higher education; such marginalization must be addressed at a systems level for authentic reconciliation at any colonial university. The purpose of this paper was to explore this dual goal of exploring barriers to and opportunities for Indigenous knowledges and knowledge holders to be valued as relevant and useful in the Canadian academy, using a complexity- and systems-informed lens. Design/methodology/approach Local Indigenous Elders provided guidance to reflect study purpose and target audience of academics, with an approach that respectfully weaved Westernized research methods and co-learning through indigenous knowledge mobilization strategies. This analysis extends results from a qualitative grounded theory study to explain social processes of professors and administrative leadership in a Canadian mid-sized university regarding barriers and facilitators of implementing TRC Calls to Action. This further interpretation of applied systems and panarchy heuristics broadens understanding to how such micro-social processes are positioned and influence larger scale institutional change. Findings This paper discusses how the social process of dominionization intentionally minimizes meaningful system disruption by othering indigenous knowledge and knowledge holders; this form of system-reinforcing boundary work contributes to rigidity and inhibits potentially transformative innovations from scaling beyond individual niches and moments in time. Elders’ consultation throughout the research process, including co-learning the meaning of findings, led to the gifting of traditional teachings and emerging systems and multi-scale framework on the relevance of indigenous knowledges and peoples in higher education. Research limitations/implications This study was performed in one faculty of one Canadian institution; an important and potentially widely-present social process was identified. Further research is needed for greater generalizability. Conditions that led to this study are increasingly common across Canada, where at least one third of higher education organizations have explicit indigenization strategies and internationally where the rights and self-determination of indigenous peoples are growing. Social implications Insights from this study can inform conversations about social innovation in institutional settings, and the current systems’ resistance to change, particularly when exploring place-based solutions to national/international questions. These initiatives have yet to transform institutions, and while transformation is rarely rapid (Moore et al., 2018), for these potential innovations to grow, they need to be sustainable beyond a brief window of opportunity. Scaling up or deep within the academy seems to remain stubbornly elusive despite attention to the TRC. Originality/value This study contributes to a growing literature that explores the possibilities and opportunities between Indigenous epistemologies and social innovation study and practice (McGowan, 2019; Peredo, McLean and Tremblay, 2019; Conrad, 2015), as well as scholarship around Indigenization and decolonization in Canada and internationally.

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