Culturally Responsive Schooling for Indigenous Youth: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on culturally responsive schooling (CRS) for Indigenous youth with an eye toward how we might provide more equitable and culturally responsive education within the current context of standardization and accountability. Although CRS for Indigenous youth has been advocated for over the past 40 years, schools and classrooms are failing to meet the needs of Indigenous students. The authors suggest that although the plethora of writing on CRS reviewed here is insightful, it has had little impact on what teachers do because it is too easily reduced to essentializations, meaningless generalizations, or trivial anecdotes-none of which result in systemic, institutional, or lasting changes to schools serving Indigenous youth. The authors argue for a more central and explicit focus on sovereignty and self-determination, racism, and Indigenous epistemologies in future work on CRS for Indigenous youth. at TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY on October 20, 2014 http://rer.aera.net Downloaded from Culturally Responsive Schooling 943To gather scholarship for this article, the Education Resources Information Center database was searched for references between the years 1980 and 2007. The following search terms were used: instructional strategies, culturally relevant teaching/pedagogy/education, culturally congruent teaching/pedagogy/education, and culturally responsive teaching/pedagogy/education. And all of these were paired with Native American, American Indian, and Indigenous. The Journal of American Indian Education was also searched for the same date range using the same search terms, as were an online book catalog, Amazon.com, and Google. 3 All results were compiled with abstracts where available. After compiling the numerous articles, books, and Web sites, we read and typed notes on each of them. We then coded these notes according to themes derived directly from the notes.In what follows, we first provide an historical overview of efforts to articulate CRS for Indigenous youth. Second, we discuss a number of definitions offered in the literature for CRS, including both what is and what is not included in most definitions. Third, we review the most common reasons given for educators to engage in CRS for Indigenous youth. Fourth, we provide an overview of the two most frequently discussed topics related to CRS for Indigenous youth: pedagogy and curriculum. Fifth, we discuss teacher characteristics that are necessary for engaging in CRS. Sixth, we discuss school-and district-level issues related to CRS. And finally, we share some case studies and examples of successful attempts at CRS for Indigenous youth. Throughout each of these sections, emphasis is on synthesizing and pulling out patterns from the large body of scholarship on CRS. Our guiding thesis throughout this discussion is that truly culturally responsive learning for Indigenous youth is a highly complex endeavor that requires systemic change within and across a number of levels in our schooling system. We offer seven areas of analysis i...

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