44.052 - Decolonizing and Indigenous Cross-Cultural Research Methodologies

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The purpose of the session is to present cross-cultural research models from four research teams focused on issues of decolonization, immigrant and indigenous populations, healing collaborations and rethinking insider/outsider views. The common thread is that each project positions their research as a political act. Therefore, culturally responsive research tools are woven into the theoretical frameworks, research designs and methods of each presenter. The researchers seek to replace replication and deficit models of cross-cultural research with models built upon authentic collaboration; models which can transform and uplift both the participants and the researchers. The primary focus will be on the methodological concerns that arise in research collaborations that consider and represent issues of race, colonization, immigration, indigenous populations, and human rights.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

Chair

• Mary Jane Moran, The University of Tennessee

Papers

• Decolonizing Research With Children and Persons With Disabilities: Critical Reflections on North/South Collaborations - Kagendo Mutua, The University of Alabama; Beth Blue Swadener, Arizona State University

• Collaboration as a Healing Research Tool: The Narratives of Three Early Childhood Researchers - Samara Madrid Akpovo, The University of Tennessee - Knoxville; Deborah Young, Naropa University; Sapna Thapa, University of Wisconsin - Stout

• Narrative as a Philosophical Method of Re-Membering and Re-Elevating Cultural Complexities - Sonja Arndt, University of Waikato; Marek Tesar, The University of Auckland

• Embodied Complexities of Insider-Outsider Tensions in a Comparative Education Study - Christine Massing, University of Regina; Anna Kirova, University of Alberta; Larry Prochner, University of Alberta