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Indigenous Research

Just as curriculum studies encompasses the curriculum as culturally and politically situated, indigenous research is grounded in the social-historical conditions of the indigenous community and in the positionality of the indigenous researcher as a member of the community. Linda Tuhiwai Smith describes the work of the indigenous researcher in framing the research question in terms of indigenous politics and cultural action. Whose questions are posed? Whose interests does the research serve? Who will reflect on the significance of the research? Who will share the research? Indigenous research seeks to deconstruct the Eurocentric models of the past and to regain the critical consciousness of the cultural, historical, and linguistic roots of indigenous peoples. Indigenous research regains this critical consciousness through the teachings, stories, and actions of indigenous peoples in their schools and in their communities. The transformative knowledge gained from this fresh view of the curriculum supports quality education for native communities.

Themes and Knowledge Systems

Indigenous research includes themes in education that are repeated across communities and across educational institutions. These themes include the history of indigenous schooling, the history of formal schooling including organizational structures in schools and governance of schools, school funding and funding for indigenous populations, language shift, language revitalization, curriculum and pedagogy in schools serving indigenous learners and demographic trends in schools serving indigenous learners, student academic achievement, retention, graduation rates and violence in schools, teacher preparation and teacher induction in indigenous communities, and factors the community that support school success.

Indigenous research includes the documentation and articulation of indigenous knowledge systems. This research is based on ethical rights of cultural and intellectual property and the oral tradition that is based on reciprocity, trust, and cultural and linguistic knowledge within the community. Beth Leonard discusses issues of the ethical use of recordings of her native Deg Xinag language and issues of cultural rights when she questioned speakers of her ancestral language during her research. This articulation of this knowledge system is framed within the oral tradition, a tradition that is a way of sharing stories and sharing reciprocal relations of trust. Through the oral tradition, indigenous knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation. This oral tradition includes the knowledge of elders, knowledge of the environment, knowledge of traditional economies including food preparation, healing, and child rearing skills. Indigenous research strengthens the oral tradition and supports the efforts of indigenous peoples to record cultural and linguistic knowledge. The 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples to develop their intellectual property through traditional knowledge and cultural expression.

Processes

Narrative

Indigenous research is undertaken through narrative inquiry. The researcher begins with an unstructured oral interview with a member of the indigenous community. The interview is transcribed, and the transcripts of the interview are given to participants. The transcripts are discussed and become a part of the ongoing record. The indigenous participant researcher builds a sense of the whole from this rich data source that focuses on concrete events in the stories of the participants. As a participant researcher, the indigenous researcher critiques outsider interpretations. The text of the interview challenges and moves the thinking of researcher and the participants beyond their understanding when the dialogue began. Indigenous narrative research explores the institutions of literacy and power in which indigenous teachers work and live. The researcher listens for the unique stories of how teachers learned to value their language and why they continue to teach it. Each teacher understands the history of indigenous language literacy in a different way; each teacher passes this understanding on to his or her students in a different way. These stories are invitations for all teachers to give voice to their histories and memories. An understanding of these beliefs about how indigenous language will continue in future generations supports the autonomy of teachers and community members to reverse language shift.

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