Indigenous Resources and Pedagogical Practices for Sustainable Holistic Education

• In Event: Highlighted session: Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy

Proposal

The children of the Indigenous communities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh, are among the most illiterate in the country and at the highest risk of dropping out from schools. More than half of all households lack formal schooling, and of those who start school, fewer than eight percent complete elementary education and fewer than three percent complete secondary education, compared to seventy-four percent who complete elementary education and fifty-five percent who complete secondary education nationwide respectively (HRDC 2009; Integrated Regional Information Networks [IRIN], 2011). This empirical study (n=1852) explores a novel approach of using indigenous cultural resource-based content and native pedagogical practices for sustainable holistic education. The findings show that this intervention has positive impact on academic language skills, civic and moral education, empathy, and perspective taking and articulation skills.
Background and Review of Relevant Literature
The Challenges of Indigenous Education
Approximately 370 million people, nearly 5% of world’s population, are indigenous and live in more than 90 countries spanning six continents (Mauro & Hardison, 2000; UN, 2018; UNESCO, 2011). In most of these countries, indigenous students have lower academic achievement and higher risk of dropping out than their non-indigenous peers (ACARA, 2013; Brayboy, & Maughn, 2009; McKeough et al., 2008; UNDP, 2009). For example, only 39% of indigenous Australian (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) students complete 12 years of schooling compared to 77% of non-indigenous students, a difference of 38 percentage points. In Guatemala, a country with a large indigenous population (40%), the difference in achievement between indigenous and non-indigenous children is substantial: one standard deviation in language test scores and approximately half that in mathematics (McEwan & Trowbridge, 2007). Similar disparities are found on almost every measure of academic success in countries with indigenous populations around the world. If all indigenous peoples were to reside in one country, it would be the third most populated country in the world (Appendix B). Clearly, current education systems and teaching practices are failing to meet the needs of a large number of students who come from indigenous communities.
While it is unclear precisely what causes these widespread educational failures for indigenous students, scholars have hypothesized a number of contributing factors. Indigenous students are likely subject to various factors associated with all students with poor academic outcomes (e.g., high-poverty, low-literacy households, emphasis on rote memorization, etc.), factors associated with minority students (e.g., schooling in unfamiliar language, unequal access to education, adversely effected by armed conflict, stereotype, prejudice, etc.), and in addition likelihood of cultural irrelevance of content and teaching practices. Unfortunately, all the conditions mentioned above are present in the CHT.
Culturally Resources for Indigenous Education
As seen in the high drop-out and low school completion rates, one of the key challenges in working with indigenous students is encouraging motivation and engagement. Findings from the studies with underserved cultural, ethnic, or linguistic minorities demonstrate that cultural resource-based curriculum and pedagogy may help address this challenge (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995a, 1995b; Lumsden, 1994; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992). Studies have demonstrated that students show greater enthusiasm and interest if content and activities relate to their lives (Mart, 2011). If the academic content relates with the real world that surrounds them, either through classroom activities or in field exercises, it deepens their understanding of the content and allows them to see how the skills they learn can be applied in the real world. Furthermore, relevance increases a sense of ownership and improves learning outcomes (Creese, 2011). Thus, cultural relevance plays an important role in student motivation, and motivated and engaged in learning activities are associated with higher academic outcomes (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000).
Methods
This Cultural Resource-based Classroom Discussion (CRCD) intervention study employs an experimental design to determine whether classroom discussion using culturally relevant content leads to development of literacy skills, moral and civic knowledge, and perspective taking and articulation skills. Students (n=1852) from sixteen schools from CHT, Bangladesh, participated in this study. Within each school, classrooms are randomly assigned to control or treatment group. A total of fourteen storybooks (Appendix J), two books for each grade from 4th to 10th, were selected for the study. Teachers in both the discussion (treatment) and non-discussion (control) groups will be assigned two storybooks per grade. These storybooks are based on stories found in local culture, mythology, and community (Appendix G for a list of storybooks). Each story contains moral and civic values that were passed down through generations of Indigenous peoples. Teachers engage student in taking perspective of different characters in the story and articulate their positions in essay prompts. Students discuss moral, civic, and ethical values embedded in the stories and then write an essay at the end of week. Both perspective essays and moral values essays were then coded and rated by three raters. Assessment of literacy data were collected in three stages, a) pre-test: before introduction of storybooks, b) post-test: after two weeks when discussions were completed, and c) retention-test: after two months of post-test.
Results
The results provide support for the research question 1 – participation in the CSRD program has a significant impact on students’ knowledge in targeted academic language skills (p<.001), after accounting for other covariates. Results indicated that (Appendix I), in all grades from 4th-8th and across all participating schools, cultural minority indigenous students in treatment group on average performed better in literacy assessment than cultural minority indigenous students in the control group.
Overall, I found impacts on a range of student outcomes. The difference between the intervention and control groups ranged from 6% to 28% of a standard deviation across various measures. The CRCD curriculum had a statistically significant impact on all outcome variables of interest for the elementary cohort, including: Vocabulary (ES = .28, p <.001, q =.001), perspective articulation (ES = .12, p = .03 q = .013) and positioning (ES =.19, p = .001, q = .002), academic language (ES = .06, p = .025, q = .013), and reading comprehension (ES = .15, p < .001, q = .001).
Student show a wide variety of moral, civic, and ethical values embedded in the stories, often different values articulated by different students from the same story. Results also indicate that pair discussion (for example, think-pair-share) or small group discussion (for example, four corners) improves their articulation skills and ability to provide rationale for the values they learned from the stories.
Conclusion
This study has important implications on practice that are significant in two fronts: (1) supporting Indigenous pedagogical practice based discussion activities can help students develop academic skills and addressing achievement gaps, even for the most marginalized indigenous students, and (2) culturally relevant content has the potential in developing interest in learning moral and civic values and perspective taking and articulation skills. This study may also contribute to the larger body of research on academic success for students in linguistic and cultural minority indigenous communities around the world.

Author

• Maung Nyeu, Harvard University