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Objective
Genuine and equitable school improvement in rural spaces is complex, given that education in rural places has been (and in many cases still is) used as a weapon of colonization and assimilation, especially for Indigenous communities. The result of historical and contemporary settler colonization is layers of relational, sociopolitical, and jurisdictional inequities. Equity efforts must sustainably and critically attend to local aspects of geography and culture in healthy ways for youth and their communities. This is the work of persisting, as described by Cummins and Chang (2020), “amid nonideal and constantly shifting settler-colonial school contexts” (p. 519). These contexts include state accountability policies pushing one-size-fits-all improvement efforts and anti-Critical Race Theory (CRT) laws aimed at supporting the continuation of white supremacy. The purpose of this paper is to provide two examples of successful efforts to develop culturally responsive educational programming and educators in rural schools and those serving Indigenous students.
Theoretical Framework
We draw on three aspects of pragmatism: actionable knowledge, interconnected knowing and acting experiences, and the experiential inquiry process (Kelley, 2020) to surface insights and share promising equity-oriented improvement practices in a Mountain West state.
Methods
This paper uses data sources—observations, interviews, and stories—from two IRB-approved projects.
Findings
The first example provides insights into how a research practice partnership has scaled land-based education amidst top-down, one-size-fits-all ‘improvement’ policy. This programming for elementary-aged students reunites them with their natural environments and pushes back against a trifecta of state policies associated with safety and security, facilities funding, and changes in science standards and assessment — all creating pressure for students to spend more time inside decaying school facilities (Savransky, March 31, 2023) on computers, isolated from each other and the land and water surrounding their schools.
The second example provides insights from the Indigenous Knowledge for Effective Education Program (IKEEP) at a university in the same state. Despite the backdrop of anti-CRT policies, this program continues to focus on preparing and certifying culturally responsive teachers and leaders to adapt education in rural and Tribal areas. At a predominately white institution of higher education in a state that has historically adopted a hostile stance toward Indigenous communities, IKEEP creates space for intentional support of self-determination, sovereignty, and Tribal nation building (Author, 2020; 2022).
Included in this work are examples of capacity building among non-Indigenous faculty and partner LEAs to build critical alliances and to interrupt hysteria and censorship surrounding anti-CRT campaigns. IKEEPs work contributes to locally negotiated practices seeking to uphold a critical democratic approach to education and works strategically to expand the opportunities for all K-12 and higher education students to learn about and benefit from the rich diversity of Tribal Nations and Indigenous perspectives (Benally & Anthony-Stevens, 2024).
Significance
These examples illuminate how educational researchers and preparation faculty can engage in improvement efforts that respects variation in social structures, cultural practices, and linguistics in rural spaces and resists policy that aims to enforce uniformity and suppress critical efforts to support racial equity.
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