After many efforts to lift the achievement of its high numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse students, a district in Massachusetts realized that the missing link was parent involvement. In this article, the author describes a program the district created to improve relationships between teachers and families and the enormous difference…

Arizona, 71 Hopi pupils left their families and homes to attend Sherman Institute, an off-reservation Indian boarding school in Riverside, California. Accompanied by their Kikmongwi (Village Chief), Tawaquaptewa and other Hopi leaders, the Hopis embarked on an adventure that forever changed their lives. For the majority of Hopi students, the…

The chapters in this book reflect the work of science and mathematics educators who have worked for many years at the international level. As members of the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education, their work provides readers with issues, models, practices, and research results that have applicability and…

This paper reports on an international experience designed, within a sociocultural frame, for teacher education students to examine theoretical knowledge and make visible local knowledge on diversity issues, and the interrelatedness and complexity of language, literacy and culture and its impact on educational practices. It examines the context of…

This book of essays draws on a cultural geography project in which an ethnographer and Apache consultants mapped the area around Cibecue, on the Fort Apache Reservation (Arizona). The essays focus on different Apache individuals and examine the ways that Apache constructions of place reach deeply into other cultural spheres. Many Apache place…

Written in English and French, this paper outlines current Canadian intellectual property legislation as it relates to Aboriginal people in Canada, and provides a general review of the implications and limitations of this legislation for protecting the traditional knowledge of Aboriginal people. An initial discussion of Aboriginal perspectives…

The Cup'ik people are a group of Yup'ik Eskimos who live in southwest Alaska. This curriculum aims to enhance Cup'ik students' interest in their own culture by making that culture a part of their daily activities; to teach students to practice the traditional Cup'ik respect for elders, fellow students, and others in the community; and to teach…

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative (AKRSI) promotes systemic educational reform based in the culture and philosophy of the Alaska Native world view. AKRSI's first 5-year funding cycle ended in August 2000, and AKRSI was funded for a second 5 years beginning in November 2000. AKRSI activities are…

A great deal of traditional indigenous knowledge is being irretrievably lost in New Zealand as the Maori elders age and pass away. There has been a resurgence of interest on the part of the Maori in recording traditional knowledge, particularly at the local or community level, and using new technologies to make aspects of traditional knowledge…

The Seri people, of Sonora state (Mexico), have traditionally fished and hunted turtles in the Gulf of California and gathered plants in the Sonoran Desert. Intergenerational transmission of the intricate environmental knowledge needed for these activities was accomplished through storytelling and observational learning, but is now threatened by…

Presents evidence that Native peoples' profound understanding of ecology, the nature of individuality, and resulting differences in survival and reproduction led them to develop ideas of evolution through natural selection long before Europeans. Suggests that in order to survive, Native Americans must not allow Western ways of thought, which are…

Anticipated the modern physics relativity theory, American Indians gained information about the natural world through careful observation based on the principle that all things are related. American Indian students could radically transform scientific knowledge by grounding themselves in traditional knowledge about the world and working this…

On a tour of Cuba, Native scholars from North and South America reconnected with the "extinct" Taino people and shared their knowledge of traditional healing herbs. Western science is just beginning to validate the tremendous knowledge base that indigenous healers have developed--most indigenous medicinal knowledge is useful for finding…

As Aboriginal peoples gain more access to schools of social work, the academy needs to respond to their educational needs. This involves incorporating Aboriginal worldviews and research methodologies into social work education. This paper focuses on one definition of worldviews according to Aboriginal epistemology and implements an anti-colonial…

The type of education prevalent in Africa before the coming of Western civilisation was generally known as African traditional education or indigenous education of the various communities. Most recent works on new perspectives in African education, vis-a-vis the role and impact of Christian missions from the West include those of Coetzee and Roux…