Examining and Applying Safety Zone Theory: Current Policies, Practices, and Experiences

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Drawing on Lomawaima and McCarty’s (2006 “To Remain an Indian”) Safety Zone Theory (SZT), the researchers and practitioners in this session articulate how SZT has influenced their understanding of Indigenous education in the modern world and seek how Native peoples have created and/or expanded the safety zone. The authors adapt and apply SZT to comprehend students’ motivation, engagement, and identity in a Native American ethnic studies course; to analyze the implementation and interpretation of state mandated policies that mandate the instruction of Native American history; and to develop a decolonizing perspective within a Indigenous teacher education program. Decolonizing methodology is emphasized in all the studies.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

Chair

• Teresa L. McCarty, University of California - Los Angeles

Papers

• Creating and Negotiating Native Spaces in Public School Systems - Cynthia Benally, University of Utah

• Toward Culturally Relevant Teacher Education Within the Tribal College: Examining Safe and Unsafe Spaces in Early Childhood Education - Danielle R. Lansing

• Internal and Environmental Safety Zones: Applying the Safety Zone Theory to Identity, Motivation, and Engagement in a Native American Literature Classroom - Timothy Jose San Pedro, The Ohio State University

Discussant

• K. Tsianina Lomawaima, Arizona State University - Tempe