Native Youth and “Belonging”: Pedagogies of Relationships and Community for Indigenous Education

• In Event: Indigeneity and Decoloniality

Abstract

This paper presentation shares a book project that explores the ways in which Native Youth perspectives and experiences make visible Indigenous Knowledge systems and enact new possibilities to support Indigenous education and the self-determination of Indigenous communities. Drawing from storywork with Pueblo, Diné, and Apache Native youths in various schooling and community contexts in the Southwest United States, youth reveal how they experience relationships with peers, teachers, counselors, school leaders, and other adults in educational contexts. Collectively these relationships create generative learning environments in and out of schools that build upon and legitimize the identities of Indigenous students, families, and communities. The youth participants reveal how to collectively engage in self-determination and sustaining Indigenous education.

Authors

• Patricia D. Quijada Cerecer, University of California - Davis

• Tiffany S. Lee, University of New Mexico