"Our Ancestors Were Badasses": Place-Based Service-Learning as a Decolonizing Pedagogy

• In Event: 63.078 - Analyzing Perceptions, Negotiating Identity, Eliciting Voice, Measuring Success When Participating in Experiential and Service-Learning

Abstract

I use critical ethnography to examine a Native Hawaiian environmental stewardship service learning program in Hawai‘i. Analyzing this program and students’ perceptions of it through frameworks of place-based education and decolonizing pedagogy, I assert that the program offers a unique and promising example of connecting students with Native Hawaiian epistemologies and practices. Additionally, it teaches students the significance of (de)colonization. Implications for higher education service learning programs are considered.

Author

• Colleen Rost-Banik, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities