What's Missing, What's Needed in Indigenous Education and Practice Research

Margaret Ronald
Dakota State University

Indigenous peoples are those who have some of the earliest historical connections to specific geographic areas. In these places, they have developed holistic systems of knowledge, ways of looking at the world, ways of educating their young, and practices which have enabled them to sustain their environments and communities over long periods of time. Today, most Indigenous peoples have been colonized and efforts have been made to supplant their traditional education, knowledge, paradigms and practices with those of the dominant culture, typically white and European. Research into practices, Indigenous education, and knowledge has existed along the periphery of comparative education for years, bubbled to the surface in the late-1970s, and resurfaced with more vigor in the 1990s. Today, research into these topics is more important than ever.

Before the mid-1970s, most comparative educators left the topic of Indigenous knowledge, education and practices to anthropologists, geographers and biologists. Even with the changes in educational reforms in the late-1970s, the result of changing civil and human rights policies worldwide, most comparative educators continued to avoid these topics. There were, however, a few notable exceptions and a flurry of research activity between 1975 and 1977. All in all, this period began to look like the validation of Indigenous knowledge, paradigms and practices. This was not the case. Research focusing on “modern” educational approaches and the continued imposition of the dominant culture’s educational paradigms on “developing” and “underdeveloped” countries continued to predominate. Assimilation efforts which created Indigenous language (and culture) loss continued.

"Few researchers in comparative education, however, were critically scrutinizing the topics or approaching them using holistic methodologies..."

In the early 1980s there were several attempts to resurrect research on Indigenous education and practice. Several promising articles were published, but no real analysis of the education of Indigenous peoples or their knowledge and practices emerged. Finally, in the late-1980s, increasing research and commentary on Indigenous ways of knowing, multilingual policy, Indigenous practices, and the education of Indigenous peoples surfaced again. It appears that education reforms worldwide, dating back to the previous decade, were now legitimate enough to merit research. It is also possible that time had allowed more critical historiographies and these were driving this research.  Few researchers in comparative education, however, were critically scrutinizing the topics or approaching them using holistic methodologies. Researchers who did found themselves on the periphery, excluded from mainstream conversations of the movers and shakers driving “development education” funding and research in comparative education. These renegade academics struggled to obtain funding for qualitative research and found administrative support for their efforts less than enthusiastic.

The 1990s beckoned in an era of conversation questioning dominant, positivist frameworks in some university settings. There were occasional lectures peppered with allusions to other ways of knowing and being. Regardless of this encouragement, research looking at traditional knowledge, education and practice was seen primarily as the purview of other disciplines. Few departments of comparative education felt comfortable with a student or faculty member rambling off into the hinterlands to critique “development education” efforts and focus on Indigenous practices. It was as if modernity and post modernity had equipped the field with such a solid set of blinders that without a significant turn of the head, which neither the profession nor society encouraged, the Indigenous was rendered invisible.
 By the mid-1990s research examining bilingual and multilingual educational policies began in earnest. Some even looked at the insertion of Indigenous knowledge in curricula. Researchers began framing issues of traditional worldviews and explored Indigenous education and practice within these contexts.  Despite this, those researching traditional knowledge systems and worldviews outside these contexts still were not integrated into the larger arena of comparative education. Some of these were beginning to explore the role of Indigenous knowledge and practice in the context of education for sustainability. These researchers found themselves looking for other venues for presentation and publication or abandoning their work in this area altogether.

	"With the growing concern about environmental sustainability and Indigenous peoples as a result of UNESCO work, more researchers are focusing on growing efforts to integrate Indigenous knowledge and worldview into curricula..."

Within the past decade there has been an upswing in research on the effects of dominant education on Indigenous peoples, efforts to integrate first language and culture into K-12 settings around the world, and the integration of Indigenous knowledge into K-12 and higher education. Increasingly too, some are examining Indigenous education, knowledge and practice in light of cultural and environmental. With the growing concern about environmental sustainability and Indigenous peoples as a result of UNESCO work, more researchers are focusing on growing efforts to integrate Indigenous knowledge and worldview into curricula. However, positivistic methodologies remain the norm. Only a few are venturing into the use of more holistic methodologies. Fewer still are managing to approach these topics from Indigenous paradigms.  In addition, many comparative educators involved in Indigenous knowledge issues still find platforms for their research difficult to find, and funding even scarcer (especially with current mania on high stakes testing, homogeneous and narrowing standards, and an emphasis on “scientific” research). At conferences their presentations have been sprinkled throughout the schedule and many have found they have little in common with other presenters. In comparative education publications, relevant dedicated issues and forum are also rare. The solution for some has been the Special Interest Group. Unfortunately, while there are many positives in such solutions, the fragmenting nature of such approaches is not representative of holistic Indigenous traditions. Such practices may further alienate these researchers and their work, pushing Indigenous knowledge, practices and Indigenous education once more into the obscurity of the “past” and the “primitive.”

This is unacceptable. Today, more than ever, with increasing neocolonialism, waning confidence in dominant economic systems, increasing population growth and globalization, degrading environments and changing global climate, there is a pressing need for comparative educators to examine Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous education and practices, and the effects of dominant education efforts on Indigenous peoples. Neocolonialism bodes continued commodification of Indigenous knowledge and practices. Waning confidence in dominant economic systems increases the need to understand “others” approaches. Is ever-increasing consumerism possible when living on a planet with a finite resource base?  Can students in dominant “modern” cultures benefit from Indigenous paradigms? Increasing globalization and population growth results in increased homogeneity. Biologists understand the necessity of biodiversity to the survival of ecosystems. They also note that cultural diversity has fostered this biodiversity. Does increasing cultural homogeneity spell extinction for one species after another? Does a more homogenous culture, like a monoculture agricultural system make human populations less resilient and more at risk? Can Indigenous practices fostered by Indigenous education lead to the preservation instead of the degradation of environments? Do Indigenous knowledge systems house practices or mindsets that may better prepare us to cope with climate change? Rapid social and environmental culture change are not new. Indigenous groups have survived such changes. Indigenous education, Indigenous knowledge, and Indigenous practices are rapidly disappearing in some areas, but they are not “the past” and they are not “primitive.” Comparative educators need to remove the blinders imposed by their narrow “modern” ways of “knowing,” and find chinks in the funding and publication cracks to persist with their work. Research into Indigenous education, knowledge, and practice are vital to the creation and conservation of sustainable, resilient, adaptive ecosystems and should be protect and used to transform education curricula, pedagogy and development efforts.

Margaret Ronald, Ph.D.
College of Education
Dakota State University
Madison, SD 57042