Protecting educational rights of the aboriginal and indigenous child, global challenges and efforts: an introduction.

The terms "indigenous" and "aboriginal" are used interchangeably in this issue to refer to original or long-term inhabitants of a geographical area. In this international theme issue, we will adhere to the definition formulated by J. Martinez Cobo (1987), Special Rapporteur for the sub-commission of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations:

Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them.

This issue focuses on the need to design educational programs that address the unique linguistic, geographical, economic, and cultural affiliations, as well as the needs, potentials, and interests, of each individual indigenous child and his/her family and community.

According to the UN, some 300 million indigenous people inhabit more than 70 countries in the world. However, the impact of what some would call social Darwinism has led to the disappearance of many aboriginal communities, prompting concern that if the rights of indigenous people are not protected, many more communities will quickly disappear. Education has been acknowledged as an important human right that is key to the survival and prosperity of indigenous groups, the preservation of cultural values, the elimination of discrimination, and the realization of social justices (Tomasevski, 2003).

MY PERSONAL CONNECTIONS WITH THE THEME ISSUE

The idea for the theme issue stems from my personal experiences with aboriginal cultures in my native country. I grew up in a state in India that is home to a number of aboriginal groups. I have had the opportunity to listen to aboriginal people who worked in my parents' home and learn about their customs and beliefs. I also had the opportunity to teach aboriginal children and interact with parents from these communities. As a teacher, I followed the "assimilation" model of fitting aboriginal children into the dominant group's educational system. I witnessed the plight, struggle, and hardship of the children and their families as they strove to adapt to an unfamiliar and very different culture. I also noticed aboriginal children dropping out of school because of severe corporal punishment (in response to non-attendance and academic failures), academic pressure, and the competitive nature of Indian schooling; practices that were unfamiliar to aboriginal children in their communities. I have supported and mentored aboriginal children in spite of societal perceptions and uncertainty that existed (and still continues) regarding their mental ability and educational future. Because of my own academic interest in and alignment with postmodern thoughts and critical theories, I have engaged myself in reading and reflecting over issues that relate to education of children from marginalized groups across the globe. I strongly believe that the groups that have received the least attention from scholars, policymakers, educators, and educational researchers are the aboriginal communities worldwide. This international focus issue is an effort to reverse this trend.

RATIONALE FOR CHOOSING THE ISSUE'S THEME

The articles for this international focus issue were selected because they: 1) draw attention to the impact of colonization on aboriginal children, 2) share some successful efforts by international organizations and indigenous communities to counter these effects, 3) highlight the uniqueness of various aboriginal cultures, and 4) share diverse educational approaches.

Colonization and Its Impact

In recent years, pressure from national and transnational organizations has forced many governments around the world to adopt economic, educational, and legislative provisions to protect the rights of minority groups within their territories. However, aboriginal peoples continue to suffer the aftereffects of colonization, including blatant human rights violations (Sodoti, 2000). Colonization has had linguistic, cultural, economic, educational, social, political, and physical effects on these small indigenous cultures. From their study based on indigenous people in Latin America, Hall and Patrinos (2005), the authors of a recent World Bank study, report that indigenous people still have less education, being indigenous increases an individual's probability of being poor, the educational outcomes are substantially worse for indigenous learners, and indigenous women and children continue to have less access to basic health services. Researchers report low academic achievement and high dropout rates, depression, and high rates of substance abuse among indigenous youth (Clarke, 2002). Daes (2001) describes these symptoms as a "spiritual erosion" among indigenous youth and traces their roots to indigenous groups' historical experiences with colonization. Educational experts attribute the educational failure of indigenous children to a host of school-related factors, such as cultural discontinuity and omission of aboriginal languages in the curriculum; irrelevant content and pedagogy; and an unavailability of schools for aboriginal children in remote areas in developing countries (Barman, 1996; Mattson & Caffrey, 2001; Ogbu & Simons, 1994; Singh, 1997; Smith, 1999; Sodoti, 2000).

Rays of Hope

Against this bleak scenario stand efforts at various levels to address challenges faced by indigenous communities and children.

UN Intervention. Transnational bodies such as the UN have made numerous efforts to highlight indigenous issues and put pressure on national governments to address them. The UN declared 1993 to be the Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples. That same year, it published the Draft Declaration on the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 1995-2004 as the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People in order to solicit and strengthen international cooperation on problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as human rights, the environment, development, education, and health. While the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, focuses on the rights of all children, Article 30 explicitly recognizes the right of indigenous children to enjoy their traditional culture, practice their own religion, and use their traditional language. In the year 2000, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was established by UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Furthermore, UNICEF has implemented many projects worldwide that focus on health, nutrition, education, rural development, poverty reduction, and improvement of the status of women and children. Although these efforts have raised awareness about indigenous issues, there is still much work to be done.

Successful Educational Initiatives. In recent years, some indigenous scholars and organizations have demanded that state and national governments include the contents of indigenous knowledge, indigenous history, philosophy, and values as integral aspects of their cultural and educational policies and programs for indigenous children. These efforts have led to the creation of some successful culturally appropriate indigenous educational programs across the globe, such as the preschools that originated from the Kohango Reo movement in New Zealand, the Yipirinya School in Australia, and the Bodo language medium schools in India.

Understanding the Uniqueness of Aboriginal Cultures

It is important to make a distinction between aboriginal groups and other minority cultures. Aboriginal people have a special status outlined in the constitutions of many countries. In addition, the historical as well as the contemporary issues, experiences, needs, and aspirations of aboriginal people are very different from other minority groups. In fact, as Mattson and Caffrey (2001) argue, "Policy and practice that is based on multiculturalism may further marginalize aboriginal people, as it obscures the special status of aboriginal people as the original inhabitants of the land" (p. 11). However, non-aboriginal people frequently are unaware of and/or unwilling to accept constitutional provisions made for them.

In addition, non-aboriginal people tend to perceive aboriginal communities as a homogeneous singular entity. Yet tremendous linguistic, historical, cultural, socio-economic, and political diversity exist among and within aboriginal communities.

In recent years, there has been a greater acknowledgment and acceptance of aboriginal knowledge, beliefs, and worldviews. Instead of perceiving aboriginal language, consciousness, and knowledge as irrelevant to modern educational thought and practices, educators now argue that indigenous beliefs on ecological and environmental sustainability will serve the needs of the greater society (Cajete, 1994), and they chart the many unique contributions of indigenous knowledge and practices to modern medicine, agriculture, sociology, and politics.

Diverse Educational Perspectives and Programs

Currently, a wide range of educational perspectives and programs focus on indigenous children. Some aboriginal communities have resisted the mainstream educational models, and have reconceptualized schooling and implemented educational programs that assert their own cultural parameters. Others argue for achieving a synthesis between the traditional informal patterns of education of the aboriginal cultures with more formal and structured approaches. Mainstream education programs around the world have been criticized for their focus on the dominant group's knowledge, beliefs, and practices. In response, many educational institutions in the United States, Canada, and Australia adopted a form of curriculum reform that Banks (1997) dubbed as "additive," and that others refer to as the "cultural tourism" approach. Scholars now argue for replacing this superficial approach to multicultural education with a critical approach (e.g., the "place-based learning" initiative, Smith, 2002) that encourages teachers to perceive curriculum, pedagogy, and literacy as vehicles to understand and challenge the unequal distributions of privilege, power, and domination (Brady & Kanpol, 2000), and that encourages them to integrate minority cultures into all aspects of the curriculum (Jones & Moomaw, 2002).

OVERVIEW OF THE ARTICLES

The issue begins with a keynote speech by Ole-Henrik Magga, the Chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (submitted to Childhood Education by John Gordon Scott, Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Division for Social Policy and Development). The speech acknowledges the challenges faced by indigenous children around the world with regard to educational access and success and discusses strategies to tackle these issues. The speech is a call to the international community to make greater efforts to achieve indigenous education goals. The issue also includes an interview with Dr. Ajit Mohanty, noted Indian psycholinguist, conducted by the guest editor. The interview captures the status of aboriginal languages and cultures in India, successful efforts to revive aboriginal languages through instruction in the mother tongue, and criticisms of state and national governments' language policies in education.

The other articles selected for this issue are organized around some major themes. These articles reflect very well the current discourse on aboriginal and indigenous education around the world. While written within a global discourse and with an international audience in mind, these articles also point to the relationship between the discursive, the structural, and the pedagogical within particular local contexts. More articles were accepted for this issue than we had room to print, so we will be revisiting the topic in upcoming issues of Childhood Education. The themes that are discussed are drawn from all the articles selected for the theme issue.

Continuing Misconceptions and Colonization of Indigenous Children and Communities

Some authors in this issue have addressed the continuing colonization of indigenous children and communities, describing how the dominant cultures use the public education system to colonize indigenous cultures. For example, the article by Behera and Nath vividly captures the failure of the residential schooling initiative undertaken by the state government in Orissa, India, to educate aboriginal girls. The intolerable living conditions, rampant corruption, and violation of human rights inside the dormitories, as well as the regimented curriculum and culturally inappropriate school routines, contribute to a cruel process whereby individual lives lose their relevance. For aboriginal girls, training in the dominant educational system becomes a liability rather than a door for upward mobility and economic advancement.

Too often, teachers and preservice teachers trivialize indigenous cultures instead of deconstructing stereotypes and biases against indigenous communities and giving voice to authentic indigenous cultural beliefs and practices within the school's dominant curriculum. The article by Simpson and Clancy identifies factors that contribute to the marginalization of Aboriginal children in Australia. Simpson and Clancy describe how the dominant literacy practices in educational settings, such as the use of Standard English and incompatible cultural and linguistic practices, seriously challenge the literacy learning of Aboriginal children in preschool settings.

The economic impact of colonization is evident in the extreme poverty among indigenous population worldwide. The 2005 World Bank Study reports that few gains were made in income poverty reduction among indigenous peoples during the preceding decade (Hall & Patrinos, 2005). Inhis article, Singh draws readers' attention to the impact of extreme poverty on the educational processes and outcomes of isiZulu indigenous learners in Durban, South Africa. Singh's article echoes researchers Fiske and Ladd (2004) in his concern that South Africa is still far from creating a racially equitable educational system for its minority children.

Factors That Prevent Aboriginal Children's Academic Success

Some authors focused their discussion on the question, "What prevents aboriginal children's success, either academic or psychosocial, in school?" Children's lack of a smooth transition to school--whether from preschool or from home--has been identified as one of the challenges for academic success, especially for children from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Based on the findings of her research with urban Native American children ages 9 to 18 in the mid-western United States, Powers identifies factors that contribute to underachievement among indigenous children in the upper grades and provides practical suggestions to address these issues. Powers reminds school personnel to perceive urban indigenous children, who have been removed from their tribal homelands for three or four generations, differently than their rural counterparts, who are closer to their cultural roots.

Stories of Survival and Spiritual Regeneration

In contrast to the stories of imposed powerlessness, some authors share stories of collective efforts in indigenous populations to regain possession of indigenous knowledge, scholarship, identity, and destiny by discarding what Blaut (1993) calls the "colonizer's model of the world." As linguists rightly point out, the passion and commitment for language maintenance, revival, and revitalization needs to come from language minority communities themselves (Fishman, 2001). Education is an important means to the survival of small indigenous cultures, and indigenous communities must bear the ownership of designing and implementing appropriate educational processes for their children.

In this issue, the article by Pearce and colleagues very eloquently illustrates Varadharajan's (2000) observation that amidst the experiences of blatant dispossession and deracination, aboriginal history simultaneously entails the story of survival and spiritual regeneration. With a storytelling approach true to aboriginal collective consciousness, the article shares the story of a new aboriginal Charter School, Mother Earth's Children's Charter School, in Western Canada, an example of an indigenous community reclaiming its educational system, implementing culturally appropriate practices, and involving all members of the community in this process. The authors hope that the article may serve as a source of inspiration and wisdom for aboriginal communities around the world.

Co-authors Aquino and Kirylo contribute a story about the revival of the Guarani language in Paraguay. These efforts are based on a strong conviction that the survival of a minority culture depends on the use of its native language, both written and oral, especially by children in school and community settings.

Chang based her article on an ethnographic account of a kindergarten program for the Atayal people in Taiwan. The article discusses five projects that resulted from the Taiwanese government's policy on education of aboriginal children and demonstrates how governmental policies can be very well translated into culturally responsive educational practices in the hands of committed teachers and community members.

Recommended Practices and Successful Approaches

Throughout this issue, the authors make some recommendations for addressing the needs of aboriginal learners.

Culturally Appropriate Educational Practices. Henderson (2000) urges teachers to understand the restrictive nature of the Eurocentric curriculum and its impact on indigenous children and use this knowledge to incorporate aboriginal teachings and traditions into dominant educational contexts. Authors in this issue have suggested that successfully educating indigenous children depends on offering culturally appropriate curriculum and pedagogy. Indigenous scholars unanimously agree that "student achievement and performance in school and pride in aboriginal communities and heritages are directly tied to respect for and support of the students' aboriginal languages" (Battiste, 2000, p. 199).

Literature-based Intervention. Teachers can adopt a literature-based intervention approach to integrate authentic cultural information on indigenous cultures in their curriculum. Quality children's books that provide authentic representations of aboriginal peoples, and appropriate activities based on these books, are invaluable teaching tools.

Community Involvement. The education of aboriginal learners in formal settings has been described as a process that involves recovery, spiritual healing, and rediscovery. Therefore, the role of elders as healers, transmitters, innovators, and purveyors is crucial in the education of aboriginal children (Corbiere, 2000). Elders can expertly incorporate aboriginal healing and teaching strategies to reach aboriginal learners. They have shared their collective wisdom and experiences through storytelling in many educational programs (Meyer & Bogdan, 2001). Elders also can play an important role in promoting resiliency among indigenous children (Heavy Runner & Marshall, 2003).

Teacher Preparation and Indigenous Teachers. Researchers report that culturally responsive teachers play an important role in the sociocultural and academic success of their indigenous learners (Jeffries & Singer, 2003). It is important to note that most teachers of aboriginal children come from non-aboriginal backgrounds. The incongruence between non-aboriginal teachers and their aboriginal students makes it imperative that teacher education programs prepare culturally responsive teachers. To be effective with aboriginal students, teachers must show their commitment to the children through high expectations, cultural sensitivity, reflectivity, commitment to building home-school partnerships, and acquisition of bilingual and pedagogical proficiency. Indigenous teachers offer the following advantages: enhanced learning opportunities for indigenous children when teachers and children share the same language and culture, enhanced teacher-student relationship, increased school retention for indigenous youth, and greater connectivity to indigenous communities (McCarty & Watahomigie, 1999; Swisher & Tippeconnic, 1999).

CONCLUSION

The authors of the 2005 international focus issue of Childhood Education have shared their passion, experiences, and insights on the issue of education of the aboriginal child. As the guest editor, I hope that the issue, with its international focus and human rights mission, will contribute to the continuing global efforts toward realizing the freedom, self-determination, and equal treatment of indigenous people. It also may open up public and political space for transcultural and transnational dialogue/debates and promote advocacy for the education and well-being of aboriginal children around the world.

References

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Jyotsna Pattnaik, Guest Editor Jyotsna Pattnaik is Professor and Director, Early Childhood Education Master's Program, California State University Long Beach.