Enacting Holistic Education Research, Repair, and Renewal: What Indigenous Education Can Teach Us

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

What can Indigenous education teach us about holistic repair, health and renewal, and academic wellbeing? How can education research contribute to the self-determination of Indigenous/minoritized communities and inclusive, just education for all? This session takes up the 2025 AERA theme, grounding our analysis in an 8-year, U.S.-wide study of Indigenous language- and culture-based schools that promote academic wellbeing through education that renews Indigenous ways of knowing, speaking, and being. The session (1) presents findings from this multisite, multimethod, multidisciplinary study that illuminate the possibilities and challenges of pedagogical practices of education remedy, repair, and renewal; and (2) examines the methodological affordances of research designed in partnership with Indigenous communities toward the goal of holistic academic wellbeing.

What can Indigenous education teach us about holistic repair, individual and communal health and renewal, and academic wellbeing for Indigenous/minoritized students? How can education research contribute to the self-determination of Indigenous/minoritized communities and inclusive, just education for all? This session takes up the 2025 AERA theme, grounding our analysis in an 8-year, U.S.-wide study of Indigenous language- and culture-based schooling that promotes academic wellbeing and renewal of Indigenous ways of knowing, speaking, and being. The study includes pre-K-12 public, charter, Tribal, and private/family-run schools in geographically, culturally, and linguistically diverse urban and rural settings. Across this landscape, symposium presenters have partnered with 8 Indigenous-serving schools to study the unique features of their pedagogies, opportunities to learn, and learner outcomes. Borne of a movement to transcend the damage of colonial education, these schools refuse standardization and prioritize the wellbeing of children and their families, communities, and the natural world. We can learn much from these schools about “situated community-based knowledge” and “traditions of learning and care.” The session’s objectives are to:
1. Present findings from this multisite study that illuminate the possibilities and challenges of pedagogical practices of education remedy, repair, and renewal.
2. Examine the methodological affordances of research designed in partnership with Indigenous communities toward the goal of holistic academic wellbeing.

Cross-cutting Disciplinary, Divisional, SIG, and Multigenerational Research and Knowledge Advanced by This Session

This session joins a growing body of scholarship on relational, culturally responsive, sustaining, and revitalizing pedagogies, and the role of Indigenous languages and Knowledge Systems in promoting holistic academic wellbeing and family-community thrivance. The session contributes a rare, U.S.-wide database on dual language and heritage-language development. The session spans multiple disciplines – education, Indigenous studies, educational and linguistic anthropology; multiple divisions (B, C, D, G, H) and SIGs (IPA, IPP, Bilingual Education, Policy); multiple methodologies; university- and school-based perspectives; and multiple generations reflected in the composition of presenters.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chair

• Cynthia Benally, University of Utah

Papers

• Designing a Relational Methodology Toward Just Education Renewal - Teresa L. McCarty, University of California - Los Angeles; Kyle Halle-Erby, University of California - Los Angeles

• Critical Ethnographic Case Studies of Holistic Relational Pedagogies in Indigenous Schooling - Tiffany S. Lee, University of New Mexico; Sheilah E. Nicholas, University of Arizona; James McKenzie, University of Arizona

• Outcomes of Indigenous Language- and Culture-Based Schooling - Thomas Jacobson, University of California - Los Angeles; Michael H. Seltzer, University of California - Los Angeles

• Telling Our Stories: The Possibilities of Indigenous Language- and Culture-Based Schooling for Wellbeing - Amy Begay, Flagstaff Unified School District; Roberta Gorman, Flagstaff Unified School District; Lisa LaRonge, Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School; Kili Namau'u, ‘Aha Pūnana Leo o Maui; Keller Paap, Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School; Audra Platero, Window Rock Unified School District; Ilene Ryan, Flagstaff Unified School District; Alvera Sargent, Friends of Akwesasne Freedom School; Victoria Tomas, Flagstaff Unified School District; Kiani Yasak, Samuel E. Kalama Intermediate School