Education's Role in Cultivating Indigenous Futures

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

What forms of education are necessary for thriving Indigenous futures, given the many and intersecting challenges of our time? Indigenous peoples have illuminated the impacts of imperial educational systems driven through colonial practices. Economic, social, and educational systems are working as they were intended--to harm, exclude, and erase Indigenous peoples. In the last year there have been discoveries of children’s bodies at boarding schools in the U.S. and Canada, followed by promises of reconciliation. How does one reconcile the future for children who are no longer alive? One way is to imagine the conditions that are necessary for their peoples, lands, and waters to thrive. In this session, Indigenous scholars will respond to the framing question and share forms of Indigenous education from specific territories, the conditions needed for such models to grow, and the ways scholarship can contribute.

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Presenters

• Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, Northwestern University

• Anthony B. Craig, University of Washington

• Ananda M. Marin, University of California - Los Angeles

• Keiki Kawai’ae’a, ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language

• Linda T. Smith, Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi

• Malia Villegas, National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center

Moderator

• Megan Bang, Northwestern University