scholarly journals "Gokum showed me how": Four Cree children's perspectives on language and culture maintenance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lucy Rose King
Keyword(s):  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
School Achievement ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
James Bay Cree ◽  
The Family ◽  
Indigenous Children ◽  
Culture Maintenance

<p>Eighty percent of Indigenous children in Canada attend provincial schools off-reserve where there is no legal requirement for inclusion of Indigenous language or content in the curriculum. This has implications for the twin challenges currently faced by Indigenous communities in Canada of maintaining traditional cultures and languages while also overcoming a large gap in educational achievement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. While the challenges are well understood, there has been little research into these issues from the perspective of the primary stakeholders in education: children. This qualitative study explores the perspectives of four Cree children, their family members, and some teachers through a critical, social constructivist lens in the context of a James Bay Cree community in northern Quebec, Canada. This study asks, “How do Cree children who live on a reserve and attend non-Indigenous schools, and their families, make space for the expression and maintenance of their language and culture in daily life?” The data analysed include a ‘photovoice’ project conducted with the four students, and focus group discussions held with the children, their families, and teachers. The findings demonstrate that families maintain Cree traditions through land-based activities like hunting, supported by intergenerational teaching within the family. Although participants expressed cautious optimism for language maintenance, students and parents perceived that Cree knowledge has no place outside of Cree communities. Teachers felt constrained by their lack of confidence, resources or government mandate for including Cree content. Overall, between Indigenous communities’ twin challenges of culture maintenance and school achievement, achievement appears to be valued more highly by some parents and teachers. These findings have implications for how we understand the ongoing effects of colonization, globalization, and the hegemony of dominant languages and cultures in Indigenous education.</p>

scholarly journals "Gokum showed me how": Four Cree children's perspectives on language and culture maintenance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lucy Rose King
Keyword(s):  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
School Achievement ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
James Bay Cree ◽  
The Family ◽  
Indigenous Children ◽  
Culture Maintenance

<p>Eighty percent of Indigenous children in Canada attend provincial schools off-reserve where there is no legal requirement for inclusion of Indigenous language or content in the curriculum. This has implications for the twin challenges currently faced by Indigenous communities in Canada of maintaining traditional cultures and languages while also overcoming a large gap in educational achievement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. While the challenges are well understood, there has been little research into these issues from the perspective of the primary stakeholders in education: children. This qualitative study explores the perspectives of four Cree children, their family members, and some teachers through a critical, social constructivist lens in the context of a James Bay Cree community in northern Quebec, Canada. This study asks, “How do Cree children who live on a reserve and attend non-Indigenous schools, and their families, make space for the expression and maintenance of their language and culture in daily life?” The data analysed include a ‘photovoice’ project conducted with the four students, and focus group discussions held with the children, their families, and teachers. The findings demonstrate that families maintain Cree traditions through land-based activities like hunting, supported by intergenerational teaching within the family. Although participants expressed cautious optimism for language maintenance, students and parents perceived that Cree knowledge has no place outside of Cree communities. Teachers felt constrained by their lack of confidence, resources or government mandate for including Cree content. Overall, between Indigenous communities’ twin challenges of culture maintenance and school achievement, achievement appears to be valued more highly by some parents and teachers. These findings have implications for how we understand the ongoing effects of colonization, globalization, and the hegemony of dominant languages and cultures in Indigenous education.</p>

scholarly journals Los niños del pueblo originario en el sureste mexicano y la educación intercultural bilingüe

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karla Del Carpio-Ovando
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Education ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
French Immersion ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Bilingual Programs ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Immersion Programs ◽  
Indigenous Children ◽  
Education In Mexico

<p>En este artículo describimos la situación actual de algunos programas bilingües implementados en regiones habitadas por pueblos originarios en México. Asimismo se discuten las deficiencias y las graves consecuencias que dichos programas han tenido en los pueblos originarios al igual que en sus lenguas y culturas. En este texto se enfatiza la importancia, el valor y la urgencia de otorgar una educación intercultural bilingüe de calidad a los niños indígenas mexicanos es por ello que en el presente se proporcionan las características de verdaderos programas bilingües y se compara el tipo de educación bilingüe implementada a niños indígenas mexicanos con el programa de inmersión canadiense (o mejor conocido como programa de inmersión en francés) por ser un modelo educativo que podría usarse y adaptarse al contexto de México.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave</strong></p><p>Educación bilingüe. Educación indígena. Niños. México.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Bilingual Education in the Mexican Context: Indigenous Children’s Reality </strong></p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>This article describes the current situation of some bilingual programs implemented in regions inhabited by indigenous peoples in Mexico. Also, the deficiencies and the negative effects that these programs have had on indigenous communities, their languages and cultures are mentioned. On the other hand, the importance, the value and the urgency to implement quality intercultural bilingual education for Mexican indigenous children are also emphasized. This work underlines some of the key characteristics that bilingual programs need to have. In addition, the type of bilingual education Mexican indigenous children have received is compared to Canadian Immersion Programs (better known as French Immersion Programs) since some aspects of this model could be used and adapted to bilingual education in Mexico.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong></p><p>Bilingual education. Indigenous education. Mexico.</p>

scholarly journals Dare to Dream: Promoting Indigenous Children's Interest in Health Professions through Book Collections

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-55
Author(s):  
Monique Clar ◽  
Éric Drouin ◽  
Sandy Iverson
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Information Science ◽  
School Achievement ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Book Selection ◽  
Service Project ◽  
Book Collections

Introduction: Indigenous peoples in Canada experience significant health challenges, but few pursue careers in the health sciences. Two programs by medical librarians designed to encourage children in First Nations communities to dream of careers in the health professions will be presented. Description: An academic library in [Province] developed children’s health and science book collections with Indigenous school libraries. Library and information science students, as well as a librarian, participated in health education activities in the recipient schools. This project inspired the community service project of the joint MLA/CHLA-ABSC/ICLC Mosaic|Mosaïque 2016 conference, which focused on placing similar collections in Ontario Indigenous communities. The mechanics, benefits, and challenges of the programs will be discussed including book selection and delivery. Outcomes: Hundreds of books have been delivered and informal qualitative evaluative data from the recipient communities indicates positive outcomes. Some difficulties in providing optimal access to the books were identified due to communication problems or the relative lack of library infrastructure in these communities. Discussion: Reading for pleasure is linked to student's academic success. Access to varied and quality literature is important for school achievement, therefore these collections may potentially impact student’s future life chances. While a direct correlation between these collections and student’s future career choices cannot be easily measured, it is known that Indigenous high school graduates frequently choose to pursue professions linked to the needs of the community. Therefore any materials drawing attention to potential community health needs may well influence student’s choices.

scholarly journals Indigenous Education and Human Rights

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Schimmel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
Educational Programmes ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe right to an education that is consonant with and draws upon the culture and language of indigenous peoples is a human right which is too often overlooked by governments when they develop and implement programmes whose purported goals are to improve the social, economic and political status of these peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples must fully respect and integrate human rights protections, particularly rights to cultural continuity and integrity. Racist attitudes dominate many government development programmes aimed at indigenous peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples are often designed to forcibly assimilate them and destroy the uniqueness of their language, values, culture and relationship with their native lands. Until indigenous peoples are empowered to develop educational programmes for their own communities that reflect and promote their values and culture, their human rights are likely to remain threatened by governments that use education as a political mechanism for coercing indigenous peoples to adapt to a majority culture that does not recognize their rights, and that seeks to destroy their ability to sustain and pass on to future generations their language and culture.

Cultural Variability in the Educational and Learning Capitals of Australian Families and Its Relationship With Children’s Numeracy Outcomes

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 348-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sivanes Phillipson ◽  
Shane N. Phillipson ◽  
Sarika Kewalramani
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Stepwise Regression ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Multiple Comparison ◽  
Comparison Analysis ◽  
The Family

This article explored the variability of parental educational mind-sets among Australian parents toward the accessible educational and learning capitals that may affect their children’s educational achievement. The participants ( N = 1,917) responded to the Family Educational and Learning Capitals Questionnaire as well as their ethnic identity. Parents also reported their children’s numeracy scores in a standardized test of achievement. Six major groups were adequate for statistical analysis, including Australians, British, Chinese, Indian, Other Asian, and Other European. A multiple comparison analysis was performed on the responses by parents from the six ethnic groups to examine the differences in parent responses to access to capitals. Controlled for ethnic groups, stepwise regression analysis showed which capitals predicted numeracy achievement of their children. The results indicated that within this sample of Australian parents, there is variability across different ethnic groups in what is considered important in their children’s educational achievement and this variability is associated with differences in numeracy outcomes.

Strategies to identify intercultural competences in community instructors

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcela Georgina Gómez-Zermeño
Keyword(s):  
Community Education ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Intercultural Skills ◽  
Intercultural Competencies ◽  
Education Community ◽  
Indigenous Children ◽  
Case Type ◽  
Teaching Learning

Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify intercultural competencies in community instructors who serve in CONAFE in Chiapas, México. Design/methodology/approach The study applied a mixed methods method, based on an ethnographic design with a naturalistic approach. The quantitative instrument was applied to 119 community instructors; from these participants, four interviews were conducted with a sample of case-type participants, and four cases are presented. Findings The results show differences between community instructors who demonstrate intercultural skills and those who require developing them. It is concluded that teachers should receive training that strengthens their intercultural competences to enable indigenous children to take advantage of the knowledge they acquire in their community and the pedagogical advantage offered by the use of their mother tongue in the teaching–learning process. Originality/value This educational research about intercultural competences in the field of indigenous education, community education and intercultural education provides significant learning that advances the understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity.

“You gotta know how to tell a story”: Telling, tales, and tellers in American and Israeli narrative events at dinner

1993 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoshana Blum-Kulka
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Ethnography Of Communication ◽  
Story Telling ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Family Constellation ◽  
The Family ◽  
Narrative Event ◽  
American Families

ABSTRACTThis study explores the degree of cultural diversity in the dinner-table conversation narrative events of eight middle-class Jewish-American and eight Israeli families, matched on family constellation. Conceptualized in terms of a threefold framework of telling, tales, and tellers, the analysis reveals both shared and unshared narrative event properties. Narrative events unfold in both groups in similar patterns with respect to multiple participation in the telling, the prevalence of personal experience tales, and the respect for children's story-telling rights. Yet cultural styles come to the fore in regard to each realm as well as their interrelations. American families locate tales outside the home but close in time, ritualizing recounts of “today”; Israeli families favor tales more distant in time but closer to home. While most narratives foreground individual selves, Israeli families are more likely to recount shared events that center around the family “us” as protagonist. In modes of telling, American families claim access to story ownership through familiarity with the tale, celebrating monologic performances; but in Israeli families, ownership is achievable through polyphonic participation in the telling. (Ethnography of communication, language and culture, conversation analysis, folklore, narrative).

scholarly journals Promoting traditional foods for human and environmental health: lessons from agroecology and Indigenous communities in Ecuador

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Laura Deaconu ◽  
Geneviève Mercille ◽  
Malek Batal
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Traditional Food ◽  
Traditional Foods ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Dietary Practices ◽  
Production Diversity

Abstract Background: The displacement of traditional dietary practices is associated with negative nutritional consequences for rural Indigenous people, who already face the brunt of both nutritional inadequacies and excesses. Traditional food (TF) consumption and production practices can improve nutritional security by mitigating disruptive dietary transitions, providing nutrients and improving agricultural resilience. Meanwhile, traditional agricultural practices regenerate biodiversity to support healthy ecosystems. In Ecuador, Indigenous people have inserted TF agricultural and dietary practices as central elements of the country’s agroecological farming movement. This study assesses factors that may promote TF practices in rural populations and explores the role of agroecology in strengthening such factors. Methods: Mixed methods include a cross-sectional comparative survey of dietary, food acquisition, production and socioeconomic characteristics of agroecological farmers (n=61) and neighboring reference farmers (n=30) in Ecuador’s Imbabura province. Instruments include 24-hour dietary recall and a food frequency questionnaire of indicator traditional foods. We triangulate results using eight focus group discussions with farmers’ associations. Results: Compared to their neighbors, agroecological farmers produce and consume more TFs, and particularly underutilized TFs. Farm production diversity, reliance on non-market foods and agroecology participation act on a pathway in which TF production diversity predicts higher TF consumption diversity and ultimately TF consumption frequency. Age, income, market distance and education are not consistently associated with TF practices. Focus group discussions corroborate survey results and also identify affective (e.g. emotional) and commercial relationships in agroecological spaces as likely drivers of stronger TF practices. Conclusions: Traditional food practices in the Ecuadorian highlands are not relics of old, poor and isolated populations but rather an established part of life for diverse rural people. However, many TFs are underutilized. Sustainable agriculture initiatives may improve TF practices by integrating TFs into production diversity increases and into consumption of own production. Agroecology may be particularly effective because it is a self-expanding global movement that not only promotes the agricultural practices that are associated with TF production, but also appears to intensify affective sentiments toward TFs and inserts TFs in commercial spaces. Understanding how to promote TFs is necessary in order to scale up their potential to strengthen nutritional health.

scholarly journals Ett nationellt metasystem för utbildning och fostran i Tornedalen

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Elenius
Keyword(s):  
Primary Schools ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Northern Sweden ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
National Education ◽  
Poor Region ◽  
The Family ◽  
Industrial Schools

A national metasystem for education and fostering in TornedalenA national interacting metasystem of national education and fostering developed in the Finnish speaking region Tornedalen in northern Sweden from the late 19th century to the 1950s. It was not formally agreed as a deliberate education system, but was more of a tacit understanding of a common nationalistic goal within different educational institutions such as primary schools, the residential industrial schools [arbetsstugor], the folk high-schools and the different forms of explicit military education. The aim was to help the poor region economically, to spread the Swedish language and culture in the area, to break the isolation of the region through education and to integrate this geopolitically sensitive border region into the nation. The integrative phase of Swedish nationalism was a common denominator. Leading persons in the educational and fostering activities were many times the same persons. There was a consensus over party lines about the need of acculturation and assimilation of the Tornedalians. The school, the nation and the family was regarded as central concepts in the fostering of the minority into Swedish citizens. By regarding the educations in Tornealen as a metasystem of ideological influences you get an imagination of the ideological power single educations gets when interconnected as a system.

scholarly journals Exploring the Preparedness of Ghanaians for Retirement and Ageing: A Case Study of the Cape Coast Metropolitan Area

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Korkoi Aboh ◽  
Busisiwe P. Ncama
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Older People ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Elderly Persons ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Cape Coast ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Traditional System ◽  
The Family

Introduction: There is evidence of the inability of older people in Nigeria, Ghana and other developing countries to sustain themselves through savings, assets or pensions. This situation highlights the minimal benefit of pensions, savings or assets as income sources for older people; old age very often brings poverty and disability. Methodology: A qualitative interpretive design informed the study. The study area was categorized into three distinct ecological areas namely urban, periurban and rural areas. Twenty interviews and three focus group discussions with 68 elderly persons were conducted in ten sub-districts in the Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana. The forty-eight elderly individuals were put into groups of 8, 20 and 20 for the focus group discussions. Data was thematically analysed.Results: Four major themes and subthemes were identified to reflect the pertinent issue of exploring and defining the preparedness of people for their retirement and ageing. There was evidence that preparing for old age is not an active precedent for the people of Cape Coast and they still believe in the traditional system of caring where it is the sole responsibility of the family to care for its own aged members.Conclusion: It is evident that formal care is not practiced in Ghana and that the aged therefore find the idea bewildering. They want to experience this care, but existing norms expect the family members to single-handedly provide care for their aged.

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