Poster #62 - Kaitiakitanga, as a Word or a Worldview? Integrating Indigenous Knowledge in Environmental School Programs

• In Event: 21.063 - MTCC Poster Session Three
  In Poster Session: 21.063-5 - Interdisciplinary Environmental Thought in Action: Schooling and Education

Abstract

Environmental issues are contentious in this post-truth era but need to be addressed to realize sustainable futures. Because of more holistic worldviews and connection to land-place, Indigenous knowledge is becoming more central to EE. However we need to ensure indigenous knowledge is enacted in ways that avoid it being subsumed and distorted by the dominant culture. We examine the Maori construct of kaitiaki as enacted in a fifth-grade environmental studies program in Aotearoa New Zealand. We found that students and teachers mostly defaulted to a Western environmental perspective that focuses on damage and remediation. This offers the space to think about teacher education that would afford more authentic perspectives of indigenous knowledge coupled with integration in the classroom.

Authors

• Joanna Higgins, Victoria University of Wellington

• Jennifer Dawn Adams, University of Calgary

• Marissa E Bellino, The College of New Jersey

• Raewyn Eden, Victoria University of Wellington