When Indigenous and Modern Education Collide in the Global Culture

Indigenous education has been heralded as an effective pedagogical strategy for perpetuating and reinvigorating the history, culture, and language of indigenous groups globally. In this chapter, we present the case that the specific goals and practices of indigenous education, with an indispensable particularistic approach, find opposite hegemonic counterparts in national systems of education, which end up diluting and weakening its intended purpose. By exploring the curricular and pedagogical issues, relationship between children and nature, connections between school and community, promotion of certain languages above others, and commodification of education, this chapter analyzes the common tensions that arise from the divergent epistemologies of indigenous and Western, modern education in the global culture. The chapter concludes that if indigenous education is to be successful, it must continuously re-invent itself to ensure that it honors the basic cultural tenets of the ethnic groups that it serves, recognizes the hybrid nature of many indigenous practices, and uses learning as a springboard to foster social and environmental integrity both locally and globally.