Indigenous Teachers and Pedagogies of Linguistic and Cultural Relevance: Changing Imaginaries of Indigenous Education in Mexico

• In Event: Multilingual Educators Shaping Culture, Identity, and Literacies Across Contexts

Abstract

This paper reports on ways Indigenous Mexican educators navigate paradoxical community and institutional imaginaries around Indigenous language and cultural reclamation in the colonial contexts of schooling. Framed by an ecology of language lens, this study used collaborative ethnographic and critical Indigenous methodologies to examine how eight elementary teachers in southern Mexico committed challenging the coloniality of schooling, expand the opportunity space of Intercultural-Bilingual Education(IBE) policy. Findings reveal Indigenous educators, in intentional collaborations with parents, students, and community, engage in complex relational interactions to shift community imaginaries and school practices around linguistic and cultural practice. Community-centric dialogues and pedagogies that prioritize Indigenous ways of knowing offer significant examples of paradigm shifts in Indigenous education for self-determination.

Authors

• Vanessa Anthony-Stevens, University of Idaho

• Eulalia Gallegos Buitron, The University of Idaho