Developing Equity Literacy via Indigenous Epistemology in Secondary Teacher Preparation

• In Event: Literacy Across the Disciplines

Abstract

This work describes the usefulness of including the review of a Mesoamerican Indigenous epistemology, the Nahui Ollin, in a teacher preparation program to assist in the development of prospective teachers’ equity literacy. A M.Ed. secondary teacher preparation program adopted Equity Literacy (EL) (Gorski & Swallwell, 2015) as a core concept to revise and expand the program’s multicultural and diversity undertakings. After many students in the program described their struggle to develop EL, the program incorporated study of the Nahui Ollin in an effort to support this development. This paper describes initial findings of research investigating prospective teachers’ perceptions of how studying the Nahui Ollin assisted their EL development.

Author

• Richard A. Orozco, University of Arizona
  Presenting Author