Indigenous core values and education: Community beliefs towards sustaining local knowledge

Abstract

This article highlights core values linked with Indigenous ways of conceptualizing community and education. In doing so, this work explores Indigenous tensions with restrictive historical policies that have resulted in reconciliation with mainstream education, local perceptions of the need for adaptation, and the convergence of multiple epistemological survival strategies. Drawing from narratives shared by Pueblo Indian peoples participating in multiple approaches to educational development while sustaining local knowledge, the article examines the relationship between values and local knowledge priorities that may have significance for the ways in which education is conceived in and out of schools and with Indigenous peoples.

Keywords:

• Indigenous education
• indigenous core values
• Pueblo education

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the following individuals for their support and advisement during the production of this article. Merlyna Lim, Tessie Naranjo, Angela Gonzales, Beth Swadener, Antonia Blatchford, Chitra Aiyar, Bryan Brayboy, and June Lorenzo for her careful read of the manuscript, and the editors and reviewers of this journal. Our heartfelt thanks to the LI staff, Institute participants, and to Pueblo and Indigenous community members working to provide teachings foundational within our respective cultures and languages. This article is dedicated to all those who have passed on but whose wisdoms remain – In loving memory of Dr. Rina Naranjo Swentzell and Jo Ann Harris (1933–2014), an advocate of justice everywhere: “I am the first person in my whole family that ever went to college…I sensed in my mother a real fear that would be a disconnect that would never reconnect. I’ll never forget what she said to me when I went off to school—she said, ‘Jody, You keep giving because giving is the way you learn.’” (Jo Ann Harris, personal communication, 2012).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This timeline has been shared with other organizations and Pueblo-serving institutions like the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, which launched a permanent exhibit and a New Mexico school curriculum project as a result.

2 Cultural practices are not the focus of this article and are not appropriate to discuss outside of Pueblo communities, including ceremonies. Due to research exploitation, any mention of these is omitted. For more literature on appropriate research, see Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies (1999) and Dozier Enos’s “With respect” (2017) in the edited volume, Indigenous innovations in higher education: Local knowledge and critical research.

3 This collection of essays is edited by Secombe and Zajda (1999) (see References section), and some essays were previously published, as in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1988, Vol. 11(4).

4 Co-directors and co-founders of the LI are Dr. Carnell Chosa (Jemez) and Regis Pecos (Cochiti).

5 The LI senior researcher is the corresponding author for this article, [Author X] (tribal affiliation), and she served in this capacity from 2008 to 2017.

6 The authors acknowledge the many LI researchers, colleagues, and program evaluators, including Dr. Dave Warren, Dr. Anya Dozier Enos, Dr. Michael Foster, Aaron Sims, and Lia Abeita-Sanchez for co-constructing and exchanging ideas that contributed to the development of LI frames and other visual representations of LI work.

7 The presentation of narratives is ordered staring with females then males and not chronologically.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

The Leadership Institute (LI), based at the Santa Fe Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was established in 1997 to create a space for discourse on a wide range of public policy and tribal community issues challenging the vitality and spirit of the 22 Tribal Nations in New Mexico.

Elizabeth Sumida Huaman

Elizabeth Sumida Huaman (Wanka/Quechua) is Associate Professor in Comparative International and Development Education at the University of Minnesota. Her work focuses on the link between Indigenous lands, languages, and cultural and educational practices in the US, Canada, and Peru.