This article explores First Nations (Native American) science education from a cultural perspective Science is recognized as a subculture of Western culture Scientific and Aboriginal ideas about nature are contrasted Learning science is viewed as culture acquisition that requires First Nations students to cross a cultural border from their everyday world into the subculture of science The pathway toward the cross-cultural education explored in the ar- ticle is: (1) founded on empirical studies in educational anthropology; (2) directed by the goals of First Nations people themselves; (3) illuminated by a reconceptualization of science teach- ing as cultural transmission; (4) guided by a cross-cultural STS science and technology cur- riculum; and (5) grounded in various types of content knowledge (common sense, technology, and science) for the purpose of practical action such as economic development, environmental responsibility, and cultural survival Cross-cultural instruction requires teachers to identify cultural border crossings for students and to facilitate those border crossings by playing the role of tour guide, travel agent, or culture broker, while sustaining the validity of students' own culturally constructed ways of knowing © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc Sci Ed 81:217 - 238, 1997

Toward a First Nations Cross-Cultural Science and Technology Curriculum.

The food sovereignty movement initiated in 1996 by a transnational organization of peasants, La Via Campesina, representing 148 organizations from 69 countries, became central to self-determination and decolonial mobilization embodied by Indigenous peoples throughout the world. Utilizing the framework of decolonization and sustainable self-determination, this article analyzes the concept of food sovereignty to articulate an understanding of its potential for action in revitalizing Indigenous food practices and ecological knowledge in the United States and Canada. The food sovereignty movement challenged the hegemony of the globalized, neoliberal, industrial, capital-intensive, corporate-led model of agriculture that created destructive economic policies that marginalized small-scale farmers, removed them from their land, and forced them into the global market economy as wage laborers. Framed within a larger rights discourse, the food sovereignty movement called for the right of all peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food and the right to define their own food and agricultural systems. “Indigenizing” food sovereignty moves beyond a rights based discourse by emphasizing the cultural responsibilities and relationships Indigenous peoples have with their environment and the efforts being made by Indigenous communities to restore these relationships through the revitalization of Indigenous foods and ecological knowledge systems as they assert control over their own foods and practices.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/5/3/57/pdf

“Indigenizing” Food Sovereignty. Revitalizing Indigenous Food Practices and Ecological Knowledges in Canada and the United States

Understanding historical news discourse on aboriginal issues is a first step towards situating aboriginal policy matters within a contemporary socio-political context. Using methods of critical discourse analysis, selected newspaper coverage of four ‘flashpoints’ in the history of aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations in Canada is examined. In addition to drawing contrasts between mid-19th and late-20th-century representations of aboriginal people in the media, some of the broader features of news discourse about aboriginal issues are elucidated, including the news frames employed, and the way meaning is structured through the use of equations, oppositions, headlines, lead paragraphs, sources and other techniques. A significant finding of this study is the degree to which news discourse about aboriginal people has remained constant over the last century and half. In the 1990s, these issues were framed, much as they were in colonial times, in ways that protect dominant interests and signify aboriginal people...

Historical representations of aboriginal people in the Canadian news media

This study of off-reservation boarding schools for Native Americans illustrates how Indian students contested federal authority. Analyzing domesticity training and notions of proper dress for female students, it sheds light on the relations of power within the schools as the U.S. government tried to train Indians for subservience according to 19th-century racist theories of their circumscribed physical and mental development. Archival records document federal practice; narratives by alumni of the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School in Oklahoma provide student perspectives. The bloomer story, an important shared narrative, symbolizes student cooperation within (and competition between) gender-defined peer groups. [American Indians, education, women, boarding schools, power relations, resistance, ethnicity]

Domesticity in the federal Indian schools: the power of authority over mind and body

Resource extraction companies worldwide are involved with Indigenous peoples. Historically these interactions have been antagonistic, yet there is a growing public expectation for improved ethical performance of resource industries to engage with Indigenous peoples. (Crawley and Sinclair, Journal of Business Ethics 45, 361-373 (2003)) proposed an ethical model for human resource practices with Indigenous peoples in Australian mining companies. This paper expands on this work by re-framing the discussion within the context of sustainable develop- ment, extending it to Canada, and generalizing to other resource industries. We argue that it is unethical to sacrifice the viability of Indigenous cultures for industrial resource extraction; it is ethical to engage with indigenous peoples in a manner consistent with their wishes and needs as they perceive them. We apply these ideas to a case study in the coastal temperate rainforest of Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia, Canada. In this case a scientific panel comprised of Nuu-Chah-Nulth elders, forest scientists and manage- ment professionals, achieved full consensus on developing sustainable forest practice standards by drawing equally on Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and Western science in the context of one of the most heated and pro- tracted environmental conflicts in Canadian history. The resulting sustainable forest practice standards were later adopted by leading forestry firms operating on the coast. Our analysis of this scientific panel's success provides the basis for advancing an ethical approach to sustainable development with Indigenous peoples. This ethical ap- proach is applicable to companies working in natural re- source industries where the territories of Indigenous peoples are involved.

http://biophilosophy.ca/Teaching/4160materials/Lertzman.pdf

Yvonne Hebert

Papers

Indian Education in Canada. Volume 1: The Legacy

Indian Education in Canada

Indian Education in Canada, Volume 1: The Legacy

Indian Education in Canada, Volume II: The Challenge