“Look It, This is how You Know:” Family Forest Walks as a Context for Knowledge-Building About the Natural World

ABSTRACT

This case study focuses on a Native American family's experience on a walk in an urban forest preserve. Drawing on interaction analysis traditions, we analyze video data and transcript data to characterize how learning unfolds in place, in this case an urban forest. We build on this analysis, as well as the work of Indigenous scholars, to theoretically develop walking, reading, and storying land as a methodology for making sense of physical and biological worlds.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all of the community members and families who participated in this work. Thank you to the reviewers, whose insightful comments helped us to craft a stronger manuscript. The first author was supported by an Institute for Education Sciences predoctoral training grant (#R305B080027) to Northwestern University and a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. This work was also supported by a Graduate Research Grant from The Graduate School at Northwestern University and a collaborative research grants from the National Science Foundation (Award Numbers 1109210 and 1205758). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent IES or NSF.

Notes

1 We use the terms “Indigenous epistemologies” and “Indigenous education” to refer to the broad body of work that has been done to articulate both distinct and commonly held worldviews among various Indigenous societies and peoples. Indigenous epistemologies are informed by knowledge systems which are dynamic, tribally specific, diverse, and complex (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005; Brayboy & Maughn, 2009; Richardson, 2008).

2 From this point forward we use gender-preserving pseudonyms for all participants.

Additional information

Funding

Institute of Education Sciences [R305B080027]; National Science Foundation [1109210,1205758]; Northwestern University [Dissertation Year] Fellowship,Graduate Research Grant.