Liberating Sovereign Potential: A Working Education Capacity Building Model for Native Nations

Abstract

With culturally sustaining pedagogies gaining momentum in our evolving educational landscape, the political backdrop of sovereignty and the pursuit of self-determination through education for Indigenous peoples creates a truly unique leadership context. The purpose of this conceptual article is to introduce a working model for educational leaders in Native nations to liberate educational sovereignty by engaging in broad and dynamic systems thinking that centers on their nation’s cultural and governance systems. From this positionality, this model then calls for leaders to engage in the iterative work of (a) assessing the educational landscape and identifying community assets, (b) fostering professional growth across systems, and (c) engaging in ongoing systems development and alignment advocacy. Furthermore, this model calls for leaders to incorporate critical Indigenous education frameworks and philosophies into these efforts, as well as foster a healthy community of practice across all systems of education to cultivate conditions for ongoing learning and connectivity among professionals. Through these efforts, over time leaders in Native nations can increase their ability to liberate educational sovereignty by creating an army of change agents working to (re)center systems of learning around Native nation’s cultural and governance systems, and pull learning systems away from the assimilationist trajectory found in the status quo of settler-colonial education.