No abstract

In recent years, Indigenous ecological knowledge has been receiving increased attention due to its potential to help address the devastating impacts of climate change and environmental degradation. Indigenous peoples in various contexts have become engaged in collaborative research projects with scientists and other experts to build environmentally sustainable societies. Environmental education has been another site for incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of knowing. This paper presents one such programme designed by the Bunun Indigenous group in Taiwan to support environmental learning and reconnection with the natural world of their group as well as other Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals willing to participate. While the programme's objective is learning with and from the natural environment (the lessons that can be adopted by non-Indigenous groups), its other objectives include rebuilding and strengthening Indigenous identities, cultures and ways of life, and potentially contributing to decolonisation of settler societies and reconciliation between groups.

Racial and ethnic minorities experience misrecognition, prejudice, and discimination in Hong Kong. In response to these challenges, multicultural education there aims to enable young people to recognize diversity in a more tolerant, open-minded way. Educators have been encouraged to not rely only on textbooks, but to include news and digital media in such teaching. This paper examines online media representations of diversity in Hong Kong in the context of multicultural education, focusing on Apple Daily (AD), a popular liberal Hong Kong news source. We analyze how AD represents ethnic minorities, contributing to the construction of a particular multicultural environment and identity among Hong Kong people. Despite its multicultural orientation, AD remains problematic as a learning tool. In relation we recommend that more alternative digital media be used to learn about diversity in Hong Kong. We give as an example the use of student self-authored digital texts during the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, which enabled ethnic minorities to engage in performative citizenship. We identify a focus on multiple, self-authored perspectives as part of critical media literacy, which we regard as essential for young people to better understand diversity, in contrast to straightforward reliance on multicultural news sources.

Enlighten -Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow http://eprints.gla.ac.uk Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education Approaches to Indigenous People's Education in TaiwanTaiwan has cast multicultural policies as a remedy for inequalities and injustices its 16 Indigenous groups face. Such policies aim to revive Indigenous languages and cultures and create a more welcoming and inclusive environment in schools. Despite the fact that Indigenous people are expected to be primary beneficiaries of these policies, not much is known about how they have affected Indigenous students and communities, if at all. Relying on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 16 Indigenous participants, this paper explores whether the policies have accomplished or are on the way to accomplishing the goals set, as seen by Indigenous people. The findings show that the multicultural approach to education is still informed by assimilationist logic that expects Indigenous people to adjust to the culture and orientations of the dominant group, and as such, does not redress the existing injustices and inequalities.Character count: 54,032 its 16 Indigenous groups face. Such policies aim to revive Indigenous languages and cultures and create a more welcoming and inclusive environment in schools. Despite the fact that Indigenous people are expected to be primary beneficiaries of these policies, not much is known about how they have affected Indigenous students and communities, if at all. Relying on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 16 Indigenous participants, this paper explores whether the policies have accomplished or are on the way to accomplishing the goals set, as seen by Indigenous people. The findings show that the multicultural approach to education is still informed by assimilationist logic that expects Indigenous people to adjust to the culture and orientations of the dominant group, and as such, does not redress the existing injustices and inequalities.

This article examines non-Indigenous teachers’ expectations of, perceptions of, knowledge about, and attitudes towards Indigenous students in Taiwan using a Strategic Relational Approach. Drawing on survey data that combined Likert-scale responses with reflexive, open-ended questions, we found that whilst teacher survey responses indicated a normatively positive view of Indigenous students, this was troubled by their open-ended answer responses which included many negative perceptions of Indigenous students’ behaviours, family backgrounds, and capacity for educational achievement. We argue that this indicates an underlying tension held by non-Indigenous teachers of Indigenous students, constructed through contradictory perceptions of self (open to and encouraging of Indigenous learners) and of Indigenous students (as less capable than non-Indigenous students, and uninterested in educational success). Using the Strategic Relational Approach’s notion of a context conduct dialectic, we offer an explanation of this tension by positioning teachers centrally within Taiwan’s cultural political economy, before considering implications for teacher education.