Education Studies 244 - Indigenous and Decolonizing Education

How has compulsory education been used to perpetuate colonialism and its associated discourses, like racism, cisheteronormativity, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, ableism, and Indigenous dispossession? Conversely, how can radical and ancestral approaches to teaching and learning insurrect subjugated knowledge and unite people in a shared struggle for liberation? This Native American and Indigenous Studies foundation course introduces students to the critical study of education through the historical examination of colonial schooling, as well as Indigenous efforts to reclaim Land+, languages, and lifeways through community-sustaining pedagogy. Transnational in scope and interdisciplinary in approach, we will discuss and engage with scholarship, art, films, documentaries, and narratives from Turtle Island/Abya Yala (the Americas), moana nui-a-kiwa (Oceania), Africa, and Southeast Asia to gain a global understanding of issues and debates in Indigenous and decolonizing education. Course materials also emphasize Indigenous queer, two-spirit, intersectional, feminist, and Global South perspectives, as well as studies of colonial schooling in Dawnland (New England). 

Pending Faculty Approval