Healing Colonial Mentality: A Study on How K-12 Filipina/x/o Educators Decolonize in Hawaiʻi to Inform Curriculum and Pedagogy

• In Event: Research In Progress Roundtables Session 4
  In Invited Roundtable: Cultural Issues in Education: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Media (Table 3)

Abstract

Filipina/x/os in Hawaiʻi have undergone a process of ethnic disidentification, a denial of their heritage because of an awareness of their marginalization and lack of social benefits of being Filipina/x/o in Hawaiʻi (Labrador, 2015). Filipina/x/os in Hawaiʻi are in a subordinated ethnic stratification (Okamura, 2021), which reinforces a colonial mentality, a form of internalized oppression (David, 2013). To move forward, Filipina/x/os need to decolonize, a process of unlearning colonial mentality (Halagao, 2010, Strobel, 2015). This qualitative study will explore how ethnic Filipina/x/os educators: (1) engage in a process of decolonization and (2) decolonize curriculum and pedagogy. Through pakasaritaan, an indigenous Ilokano practice of storytelling, this study aims to provide insights that inform curriculum and pedagogy to support Filipina/x/o youth.

Author

• Phillippe Rivera Fernandez-Brennan, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa