Implementing Indigenous Land-Based Pedagogies as Models for Peace: Challenges and Opportunities in K-12 Education Policy in Brazil and Canada

• In Event: Educating for peace and global citizenship: Integrating life skills, non-violence, and philosophical wisdom for social cohesion and sustainable futures

Proposal

Indigenous land-based pedagogy (ILBP) is a critical and proven response to the failures of mainstream education. These approaches emphasize interdependent relationships to the land as “context and process” for teaching and learning (Simpson, 2017, p. 151). ILBP centers reciprocal and non-exploitative relationality with the land, providing contextualized knowledge in many areas, including land governance, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and self-determination (Kimmerer, 2011). Although unconventional to mainstream Western colonial educational policy, these pedagogical practices have existed since time immemorial, and many Indigenous nations worldwide continue ILBP practices today (Simpson, 2017). The theoretical framework of radical Indigenous internationalism highlights the benefits of international relationships between Indigenous nations across the globe, such as solidarity-building and cooperative frameworks (Yazzie, 2019). In a world facing ecological crises and social fragmentation, ILBP offers a transformative educational paradigm. It bridges hyperlocal relationships with the land to global learning across the international Indigenous network. Integrating ILBP into mainstream education can thus promote sustained peace through institutional transformation, lessening personal and structural violence (Galtung, 1969).

There have been numerous publications on the benefits of Indigenous relationality and land-based teachings, but within the past five years, there has been an increase in publications focusing specifically on Indigenous land-based pedagogy and implementation. Given the relational nature of these methods, there is a tension between respecting the worldviews embedded in Indigenous pedagogies and their integration into broader education policy. A gap in the literature therefore remains in exploring the implementation of ILBP in public education as a peace-building model, connecting local and global Indigenous knowledge. This study addresses this gap through a comparative analysis of Brazil and Canada. As two of the largest American nations built on colonization and Indigenous displacement, they both have histories of colonial violence and contemporary Indigenous issues, yet their distinct sociopolitical contexts create a contrast rich for comparative analysis.

Therefore, this study explores this tension through a systematic literature review and an exploratory interview study investigating the following research questions (RQs):

RQ1: How do teachers in Canada and Brazil talk about the benefits and limitations of integrating Indigenous land-based pedagogy in K-12 public schools?

RQ2: What are the challenges and opportunities in the implementation of Indigenous land-based pedagogies in K-12 public schools in Brazil and Canada?

This systematic literature review analyses the integration and implementation of ILBP in K-12 education in Canada and Brazil. We selected the Web of Science database as the primary search platform due to its comprehensive index of high-impact, peer-reviewed literature. We conducted a multi-stage strategy with four queries. The initial one with core terms, such as “land-based education,” in Brazil and Canada yielded 11 articles. To broaden our scope and capture Brazilian studies, we incorporated keywords like “environment education” combined with “Indigenous knowledge,” resulting in 18 articles. The third query retrieved 20 articles, narrowed by population-specific terms (e.g., “K-12”, “youth”). A final query combining all keywords resulted in 4 articles. This comprehensive search yielded 39 unique articles. To streamline the results for a more targeted analysis, we employed three exclusion criteria: a K-12 focus, removing articles centered on post-secondary or pre-school contexts (n=5), a pedagogical filter, excluding articles not focused on curriculum or learning outcomes (n=6), and a focus on substantive research (n=1 excluded), leaving 27 articles for in-depth review.

The results reveal significant benefits of integrating ILBP in K-12 public schools: enhanced student well-being, resilience, and cultural identity (Snow & Obed, 2022; Fast et al., 2021), deeper ecological literacy (He tohu o te wa, 2019), and the development of holistic, relational ways of knowing (Pugh et al., 2019). Conversely, the limitations are almost entirely systemic: the clash with standardized curricula (Karsgaard et al., 2024), inadequate teacher training (Hill et al., 2025), and policy/funding barriers (Toward Inummarik, 2022). In Brazil and Canada, our findings identify common core areas of challenges and opportunities for implementation of ILBP: 1) Centering Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 2) Practicing Relational, Place-Based Pedagogy, 3) Fostering Community-Led Learning, and 4) Committing to Decolonization. Publications grounded in the Brazilian context (da Silva et al., 2020; Bicalho et al., 2020; Gomes & Silva, 2024) present a distinct challenge: a sociopolitical environment where Indigenous voices are marginalized in policy and media. By contrast, publications grounded in the Canadian context also face structural barriers, but have a greater volume of published works engaging with Indigenous communities and their worldviews. Despite documented successes in fostering student resilience and identity (Snow & Obed, 2022), ILBP consistently clashes with standardized curricula (Karsgaard et al., 2024), inadequate teacher training (Hill et al., 2025), and restrictive policies (Toward Inummarik, 2022).

Our exploratory interview study and qualitative analysis of interview transcripts seek to answer our research questions beyond existing literature. We solicited interviews through our professional networks, selecting 10 K-12 teachers with a range of experiences and perspectives implementing ILBP in the classroom. The format of the interviews was semi-structured, using a set of key questions and prompts for organic conversation. Each interview was 45 minutes and conducted virtually. Our qualitative analysis is in progress, as we plan to code each transcript to identify emergent themes and generate our key findings.

This research contributes to the literature by synthesizing studies on the implementation and integration of ILBP in education policy and generating key findings on teacher perspectives to inform educational policy. This synthesis reveals that while ILBP provides clear benefits for students to promote local and global peace-building and relationships, its potential is fundamentally limited by the colonial structure of education systems, which remain the primary obstacle to meaningful policy and practical integration. Given our study's exploratory approach, we make three recommendations for future research. First, education policymakers could benefit from a comprehensive literature review that includes Indigenous forms of knowledge production to address the limitations of traditional academic research. Second, a Critical Participatory Action Research study on ILBP implementation may provide more palpable insights and outcomes. Finally, an analysis of teacher perspectives on intended versus achieved ILBP can further provide insight into teacher development and training necessary for meaningful integration of ILBP.

Authors

• Clover Chen

• Livia Fares