The Research and Advocacy Group for Hunter Gatherer Education

Abstract

Contemporary hunter-gatherers are among the most marginalized peoples in the world today, and face severe threats to their cultures, their livelihoods, and in many places – their very existence. Although formal education – schooling – is often presented as a solution for marginalized groups, generally social hierarchies are reproduced through such systems, and the extreme marginalization of hunters and gatherers in modern societies is mirrored in their schooling experiences. For most such communities, formal education is simultaneously difficult to access, of poor quality, culturally insensitive, and disconnected from communities’ immediate realities. Their own cultural forms of education are based on knowledge transmission approaches that are deeply integrated into social structures, values and cosmology, and subsistence strategies of the group. These approaches have been highly successful in a hunter-gatherer context. However, these traditional forms of knowledge transmission, though recognized as being highly effective and adaptive, are under threat due to loss of land, climate change, and other factors. As traditional livelihoods and resources are increasingly narrowed, hunter-gatherer communities are seeking other options. Formal education is one route to increased economic opportunities, and ideally provides access to dominant languages and other skills needed to negotiate for their rights. It is also a favored approach of governments and international organizations; g