Relational Pedagogies and Living Sovereignty: Reclaiming Indigenous Histories in Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Sovereignty, Refusal, and Relational Pedagogies: Indigenous Frameworks of Accountability, Love, and Responsibility in Education

Abstract

This study explores how teaching Indigenous Peoples histories can serve as a sovereign, relational, and community-rooted act of educational transformation. Drawing on Indigenous research methodologies and co-constructed with a Native elder, the study foregrounds lived experience and story as theory. Four themes shape the findings: intergenerational knowledge, historical trauma and resilience, sovereignty as a lived practice, and culturally grounded educational leadership. Rather than treating Indigenous histories as supplemental content, this study calls for education rooted in relational accountability and self-determination. It contributes to a vision of schooling as a site of healing, resurgence, and cultural survival.

Authors

• Lydiah Nganga, University of Wyoming

• John Kambutu, University of Wyoming

• Sergio Maldonado, University of Wyoming