Indigenous Education Commons^™

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

Hands On Archiving: Aid In Reorganizing The San Bernardino County Museum Archive Room And Archival Material, Ezequiel Vera

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This paper documents the process and details of the History Archives Inventory Project at the San Bernardino County Museum (SBCM). Most of the work of this project is done in-person and will include photographic evidence of the project, a written portion that will explain the process of the project, and secondary literature that will help explain the process of the project and its corresponding decision making. The History Archives Inventory Project is a multiple year-long project; this paper will be limited to my time working on the project while completing my Master of Arts in History at CSUSB. My time …

"Integrating The Seven Stages Of Conocimiento With Nahuatl And Ralámuri Wisdom In Kosmic Feminism: My Creative Writer Identity.", Hilda Yaneth Sotelo Dr

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

This paper explores the intersection of Kosmic Feminism and the seven stages of conocimiento as outlined by Gloria Anzaldúa, integrating Indigenous wisdom from Nahuatl and Ralámuri traditions. It examines how decolonial thought, feminist theory, and creative writing can be transformative tools for personal and communal healing. Drawing on personal experiences rooted in the borderlands of Ciudad Juárez-El Paso and Rarámuri heritage, the author blends Anzaldúa’s framework of conocimiento with Indigenous perspectives to offer a critique of patriarchal systems and a vision of holistic, cosmic resistance. The seven stages of conocimiento—awakening (El Arrebato), liminality (La Nepantla), commitment (El Compromiso), healing (La …

From Oral Traditions To Digital Screens: The Evolution Of Folklore In The Modern Age, Echo Padgett

Student Scholar Symposium

This research explores how folklore and oral traditions adapt within digital spaces, focusing on Native American Skinwalker narratives and Biblical parables. By exploring these stories’ transformation on modern platforms, we are able to see the impact of digital media on traditional storytelling. In Navajo mythology, Skinwalkers are individuals, typically male, who practice the Witchery Way, gaining the ability to transform into animals to cause harm and disrupt the natural order. However, modern media often portrays them as monstrous, alien-like creatures, stripping away their cultural significance. The rise of sensationalized narratives, such as those surrounding Skinwalker Ranch, further these misconceptions, linking …

Just Plain(S) Native: Isolating Experiences Of Non-Plains Native Students At A Primarily Plains Nasnti, Bryne Qavvik Croyle Johnson

Undergraduate Research Symposium 2025

Higher education institutions have historically underserved the needs of Native students, even when active efforts are made to the improvement of services and support. Sense of belonging is a particularly ephemeral point of student’s engagement with a campus community, and studies about Native students don’t always account for the vast cultural differences between the different tribes and villages. My aim with this study is to present for consideration the isolating effects of culturally nonspecific services and groups on Native students at the University of Minnesota, Morris, a Native American-Serving Non-Tribal Institution (NASNTI). Employing ethnographic interview methods and discursive analysis, I …

Learning From Indigenous Knowledge And Research, Rob Morrison

Faculty Publications

The goal of this sabbatical research is to learn more about non-Western ways of knowing and learning (epistemologies) and to become a more effective culturally responsive teacher. I investigated how Indigenous Knowledge and research practices can enrich current definitions and practices of Information Literacy and integrate them into the research process. Information Literacy is part of a larger and more complex research process that involves connecting researchers’ questions and purpose with literature reviews and the resulting new knowledge.

I am continuing my research journey that started with my dissertation work on Culturally Relevant Information Literacy and Critical Information Literacy (CIL). …

Sekolah Pancasila: An Educational Empowerment Effort For The Suku Anak Dalam In Sekaladi, Jambi, Tohap Pandapotan Simaremare, Nurul Quraini Aulia, Indra Budiman Nst, Putri Oktaviani Yulias, Sinta Wahidha As Shalikhah, Eva Gustiani, Teguh Widodo

Jurnal Civics: Media Kajian Kewarganegaraan

The Suku Anak Dalam (SAD) community in Sekaladi Village, Jambi, experiences inequality in access to education, a fundamental right of every citizen. This disparity has caused delays in their educational development, affecting their understanding of national values and human rights, prompting the Village Innovation Program team from the University of Jambi to implement an educational program called Sekolah Pancasila. This research aims to enhance SAD children's understanding of the values of Pancasila and the concept of Indonesia. This research used qualitative methods with an interactive and case study approach. The research location is in Jambi Province. The results show that …

Entrepreneurial Citizenship: Crafting Good And Smart Ventures With Civic Character, Meiwatizal Trihastuti, Bimo Pranata

Jurnal Civics: Media Kajian Kewarganegaraan

This study examines the concept of entrepreneurial citizenship and how it shapes entrepreneurs who embody both integrity and business acumen within the context of citizenship. Employing a qualitative approach with case study methodology, this research explores how the characteristics of civic entrepreneurs contribute to the development of business leaders who integrate civic values with entrepreneurial intelligence. Data collection methods include in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs exhibiting strong entrepreneurial citizenship attributes, participant observation, and the analysis of relevant documents. The findings reveal that entrepreneurs who adopt the principles of entrepreneurial citizenship tend to demonstrate a heightened awareness of social and environmental responsibility, …

Navigating Climate Action: The River As Teacher For Eco-Literacy, Educational Regeneration And Creative Participation, Bibi (Silvina) Calderaro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cultures' engagements with land and its more-than-human elements reveal their attitudes toward these dimensions, spanning a spectrum from reciprocal to transactional practices. In time, these engagements form a body of knowledges that nurtures the culture and its land, or arrests their vital and diverse qualities. This research project aims to bring to light how the different ways of engaging with and relating to land are embedded in knowledge production, distribution and communication—in short, in general educational endeavors and their philosophies—to promote a better understanding of the principles of eco-literacy. Additionally, a purpose of this project is to provide insights into …

Bridging Indigenous And Hispanic Knowledge Systems Through Collaborative Panel Discussions: Stem Teachers’ Perceptions Of Culturally Sustaining Nature-Based Pedagogy, Uma Ganesan

Critical Proceedings of the STEM ED Conference (2024)

This paper presents findings from a transformative collaborative panel discussion session at the 2024 STEM Education Conference, examining how nature-based, environmentally conscious, and culturally sustaining science teaching practices implemented at the Umonhon Nation Public School (UNPS) in Nebraska can inform teaching practices in the Rio Grande Valley. The session was co-facilitated by University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Associate Professor Dr. Amanda Morales and UTRGV Assistant Professor Dr. Uma Ganesan. The study combines panel discussion analysis with qualitative survey data from participating STEM educators, providing rich insights into teachers’ perceptions of implementing culturally and linguistically sustaining (CLS) practices in diverse contexts. By …

Amplifying Student Voices: Cultural Identity And Funds Of Knowledge In Stem Education Through Interactive Cross-Cultural Dialogue, Uma Ganesan

Critical Proceedings of the STEM ED Conference (2024)

This paper examines the outcomes of an innovative interactive session at the 2024 STEM Education Conference held in Mission, Texas, that brought together Indigenous high school students from the Umonhon Nation Public School (UNPS), Rio Grande Valley (RGV) high school students, and preservice teachers from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). Participants explored the intersection of cultural identity, student funds of knowledge, and STEM education through structured speed-chatting activities and facilitated dialogues. The session, co-facilitated by University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Associate Professor Dr. Amanda Morales and UTRGV Assistant Professor Dr. Uma Ganesan, along with UNL preservice teachers Ms. …

Intergenerational Oral History As A Tool For Reconnecting In Educational Spaces, Jessica Godfrey

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Contemporary education in the post-industrial western world functions to prepare students for participation in a dominant culture as compliant employees and abiding citizens. In rebellion against this institutional paradigm are educational practices that equip students with the ability to engage in critical analysis and engage with their communities as whole, self-knowing individuals. To accomplish this, educational endeavors are in desperate need of curricula that invite the totality of student and community experience into spaces of learning. These environments foster authentic growth and capitalize on the educational resource of student experience as a worthy source of knowledge. Intergenerational oral history as …

A Critical Approach To Analyzing And Addressing Worldview-Based Cultural Conflict Between Indigenous Peoples And Western Science In Education And Research, Deborah H. Williams

Sabbatical Projects

Intercultural conflict exists in science education and research, I argue as a result of differences between the Western scientific worldview and the Indigenous worldview. Native Americans are the most underrepresented group in STEM, and this has been the case, in my personal experience for over two decades. Western science is not universal or acultural, Indigenous peoples have their own ways of knowing founded on different philosophical assumptions and recognizing metaphysical phenomena and explanations that are rejected by Western science and the positivist/post-positivist paradigm. Through the power of colonial privilege, scientists, science departments, and science disciplines have been able to erect …

Teaching Towards Connection And Love For Place Through A Kinship/Indigenous Worldview: A Critical Pedagogy Of Place, Rita Monique Bouchard

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to observe the lived experiences of children while learning about place through a Kinship/Indigenous worldview and the impact of the experience on their love and care for place. The study unfolds from a theoretical framework at the nexus of critical theory, place-based education, and a Kinship/Indigenous worldview. The overarching question is, “Can teaching through an Original Kinship/Indigenous Worldview grow children towards connection and love for place?” Elementary students and their teacher explored one square block of the school community, illuminating a different aspect of our place daily through Kinship/Indigenous worldview Precepts (Wahinkpe …

Proposed Principles Beyond Human And Non-Human Binaries: Engaging A Kincentric View In Environmental Education, Christine Marie Widrig

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This is a crucial time for a call to an awakened consciousness toward respectable, equitable, and expansive relationships and agency with the natural world. Indigenous philosophy and practices offer alternative visions for cultivating representations of language, narrative, and tradition that expand boundaries of modern Western thought and discourse. Key to many Indigenous traditions is fostering relationships of kin(ki), meaning kinship, within diverse ecological landscapes and place, while engaging respectfully with the non-human world. These alternative ways of consciousness and agency can be vital means of supporting healthy biodiversity and conservation, amid spiritual practices. In this dissertation, I propose and outline …

Campesino World-Building: Stories Of Migration, Memory, And Care In The Tension Of The Colonial Frame, Chelsea Ríos Gómez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Campesinos, often reduced to the label of “farmworkers”, are too often seen only through the lens of their labor within profit-driven systems. This thesis disrupts that limited narrative by illuminating the rich, expansive nature of vivencias campesinas, ways of being that transcend capitalist measures of value. These vivencias are lived, embodied experiences rooted in campesino lifeways, encompassing cultural, spiritual, and relational practices that nurture and sustain life.

My research is guided by four central questions: (1) In what ways have campesinos in pixley resisted exploitative labor systems, and how can this resistance be understood as a form of care labor? …

Place-Based Learning Practices: A Diptych Case Study Of Human And More-Than-Human Relationality At The Tribal And Western Academic Institutional Interface, Karley M. Rojas-Vienneau

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The ‘Place-Based Learning Practices Project’ is a graduate project under the Native American Studies Department Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute (FSL). Making contributions at the intersection of Western academia and Indigenous science, it imagines and realizes content, policies, and protocols surrounding two case studies and the larger cal poly humboldt (cph) institution which respect, honor, and uplift Indigenous sovereignty and resurgence in partnership with the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe and the greater regional tribal community. Encompassing two projects internal and external to the institution, I aim to address the construction of controlled and protective environments …

Beyond The Possible: Climate Justice, Global Citizenship, And Classrooms – Speculative Essays, Amanda C. Fanelli

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the potential of speculative essays as pedagogical tools to inspire K-12 educators to integrate climate justice education within their classrooms, utilizing the framework of Global Citizenship Education (GCE). While climate change is often presented in schools as a scientific or technical issue, the literature on environmental justice demonstrates that climate change is inextricably linked to systemic inequities rooted in race, gender, colonialism, and economic oppression (Bullard, 2000; Shiva, 1988; Whyte, 2017). Yet educators frequently lack accessible, integrative frameworks for addressing these intersections in their teaching without overhauling existing curricula. This study addresses that gap by triangulating ecopedagogy, …