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Article scientifique

Indigenous ways to go to school: Exploring many visions.

Indigenous schools are sites of negotiation between cultures in contact, and evidence cultural creativity in an unpredictable diversity of educational designs which defy accepted theoretical and methodological packages. Among other world contexts, Canadian Inuit and Mohawk situations illustrate this meeting of formal and traditional educational models, and suggest the dangers in oversimplified ‘learning style’ dichotomies. The meeting of formal and traditional learning and teaching is very significantly played out in the evolution of new and complementary language forms in indigenous schools. The western cultural package of standard literacy practice, schooling, and abstract thought is being opened up and challenged. As the focus expands from ‘what’ (content) to ‘how’ (process) and to ‘why’ (values and meaning), there is reason for optimism over the cultural negotiation of indigenous education. Emerging ‘third cultural realities’ offer paths to cultural survival beyond assimilation, isolation, or anomie.