The COVID-19 pandemic intensified existing systemic inequities in educator mental health, particularly in rural and remote Indigenous communities. Educators faced sudden shifts to remote learning, limited access to technology, and challenges supporting students' well-being while adapting pedagogical practices. This qualitative longitudinal, citizen science study explored culturally grounded digital engagement tools to support Indigenous educators' mental health during the pandemic in a prairie province of Canada. Eighteen educators from an on-reserve school participated in baseline focus groups in 2020 (n = 18) and follow-up discussions in 2021 (n = 6). Digital tools, including virtual focus groups and a custom mobile application, enabled inclusive participation despite geographic and pandemic-related barriers. Thematic analysis using NVivo 12 revealed six baseline themes: emotional toll of lockdown, teaching challenges, student concerns, community support, school reopening barriers, and resilience strategies. Three follow-up themes emerged: sustained mental health impacts, adaptation to online teaching, and evolving coping strategies. Across both phases, 'Two-Eyed Seeing', integrating Indigenous and Western knowledge, supported mental well-being, culturally grounded teaching, and community resilience. Findings highlight the need to strengthen digital access, provide culturally informed mental health supports, and deepen collaboration with Indigenous communities to better protect educator well-being during crises. Culturally responsive and technology-enabled approaches are both feasible and meaningful for supporting Indigenous educators' mental health, thereby enabling more inclusive and resilient school health systems.

ABSTRACT This article presents a systematic analysis of Intercultural Education in Brazil, reviewing academic production on intercultural education courses since 2010 and highlighting the various domains in which they have been implemented, as well as their significant perceptions. Currently, 26 undergraduate programs for Indigenous teachers are offered at Federal and State Universities, Federal Institutes, and some private institutions. We examine the defining characteristics of these courses and the educational outcomes of their implementation. The study follows the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines to conduct a systematic literature review. Findings indicate limited debate on the methodological and pedagogical approaches adopted and on which practices have proven most effective in advancing Indigenous intercultural education.

This qualitative case study examines how Café Sem Troco, a rural public school near Brasília in Brazil’s Central West region, supported Warao Indigenous refugee students from Venezuela through translanguaging and trauma-informed, culturally sustaining pedagogy. Data were collected in 2024 and 2025 through five in-depth interviews with teachers, the school leader, and a Warao community leader; analysis of participant-generated photographs and short videos; and extensive participant follow-up. Guided by a critical, qualitative, and community-based research approach, we used thematic analysis to interpret interviews and visual artifacts. Findings identify three areas: educator responses to forced displacement; the schooling effects of poverty, food insecurity, and nutritional trauma; and acculturation pressures shaping students’ self-esteem. Educators built a multilingual, relational classroom where Warao, Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) coexisted. Translanguaging functioned as an emotional, cultural, and instructional foundation, as well as a social justice-based practice that affirmed students’ and families’ identities, reduced anxiety, and strengthened belonging. Daily practices such as community food gathering, oral storytelling, and collective care resisted assimilation and honored Warao epistemologies and funds of knowledge. This study advances scholarship on Indigenous education and educational responses to forced migration, trauma, and hunger. It provides recommendations for policies, practices, and processes in public education, and outlines directions for future research.

ABSTRACT This historiographic article reviews Indigenous education and the recruitment of Indigenous teachers in selected African, Pacific and white settler British colonies from the early nineteenth century, and identifies parallels but also distinct differences regarding the situation in Australia. Indigenous school teachers were employed by Christian missions and held subordinate positions in their raced and gendered hierarchies around the British Empire, and they were foundational to the expansion of state schooling in Africa and the Pacific throughout the twentieth century. Such was not the case in the Australian colonies, later states, where state school systems focused exclusively on white settler students and teachers. Amidst ongoing debates about Aboriginal educability, Indigenous schools were managed by other administrations until the 1950s. Furthermore, Australian education administrators and teacher education institutions until the late 1970s ignored precedents for the training of Indigenous teachers in the pre-independent African and Pacific colonies.

The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) positions India at a transformative moment in its educational history by advocating holistic, multidisciplinary, and culturally grounded learning ecosystems. Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) encompassing classical philosophical traditions, indigenous ecological practices, and embodied pedagogies offer rich epistemic and ethical resources that align with NEP 2020’s vision for curricular reform, experiential learning, and value-oriented education. This paper critically examines the intersections between IKS and NEP 2020, drawing on classical sources such as the Nyāya Sūtras, the Upaniṣads, Ayurveda, and the Arthashastra, as well as contemporary research in decolonial theory, indigenous pedagogy, and cognitive science. It evaluates the opportunities and challenges associated with integrating IKS into higher education, highlighting institutional constraints, teacher preparedness, and ethical considerations. The paper proposes a framework for responsible and research-driven integration that upholds academic rigor, epistemic pluralism, and equity in line with NEP 2020’s transformative goals.

Through the dissemination of knowledge, socialization, and moral development, folktales serve as a foundation for indigenous African education and are essential in forming values, beliefs, and cultural identity. This study investigated the function of folktales in reviving indigenous learning systems by looking at their philosophical underpinnings, cultural importance, and pedagogical integration in contemporary education. The study used ethnographic methodologies, narrative analysis, and interviews with elders, teachers, and storytellers from specific African groups. It was grounded in Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory, which emphasizes learning through social interaction and cultural tools. The results showed that folktales are abundant sources of indigenous knowledge that promote social ideals, environmental awareness, and resilience. However, their use in official curriculum has been restricted due to colonial legacies and Western educational domination. The study suggests educating instructors in oral storytelling, creating indigenous educational resources, and incorporating folktales into instructional materials. It also suggests regulatory changes to support indigenous content, community storytelling initiatives, and cooperation between cultural guardians and educational institutions. The study concludes by emphasizing the value of knowledge transfer between generations and the development of culturally grounded learning environments that support African identity while meeting modern educational demands. These efforts aid in curriculum decolonization and the affirmation of African epistemologies.

Mandatory Indigenous education courses in teacher education have a large task to fill by asking to fit in a millennia’s worth of knowledge into a 13-week course, also using a western colonial approach to teaching it as well. Looking at the research in this field of mandatory Indigenous education courses, studies have found a large gap in teacher’s knowledges, understandings, and pedagogies, to teach Indigenous history, pedagogies, and knowledges’ in the classroom. This work will look at how Indigenous pedagogies and specifically eight threads of Indigenous pedagogy can help support preservice educators in learning about Indigenous education and how they can teach Indigenous eduction in their future classrooms.

Teacher education programs have taken the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action seriously (TRC, 2015), with many adding a mandatory Indigenous education course to their programs as well as weaving Indigenous knowledges into other courses. Still, there appears to be a disconnect between learning about Indigenous Peoples and integrating this knowledge into the classroom. This study examines the self-reported efficacy of pre-service teachers’ understandings and application of Indigenous knowledges at various stages in their program. Drawing upon a decolonizing theoretical approach and mixed methods methodology, data from a survey and personal autoethnographies are utilized to shed light upon the disconnect. Findings indicate that while the mandatory Indigenous education course led to an increase in efficacy, the explicit weaving of Indigenous knowledges in other courses needs to be made visible. The lack of time to both decolonize pre-service teacher thinking and consider how this knowledge can be applied in the classroom, points to the necessity of an additional Indigenous education course as part of teacher education programming.

In this article, we examine Indigenous responses to educational integration in British Columbia through the 1974 “Native Conferences” held by the Royal Commission on Family and Children’s Law. In the 1950s, Canadian policy on Indigenous education shifted from segregation to integration and by the late 1960s organizations such as Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and the Native Indian Brotherhood rejected both approaches, demanding Indigenous control over schooling. The royal commission, chaired by Justice Thomas Berger, provided Indigenous communities across BC a platform to articulate how public schooling harmed their youth and families. Although the commission’s findings have received scant attention from historians of education, its consultations with Indigenous people through Native Conferences held in the spring and summer of 1974 reveal valuable insights into Indigenous demands for better educational support. These demands aligned with those made by the Native Indian Brotherhood in Indian Control of Indian Education, yet colonial governments largely ignored them for decades. We introduce the concept of “settler stalling” to describe colonial governance that promises reform while deferring meaningful, Indigenous-defined change. Though integration promised equality following the 1951 Indian Act amendments, it failed to address colonial structures, curriculum, and racism within schools, points clearly articulated by Indigenous participants of the conferences.

ABSTRACT How are Black and Indigenous education in the US related? How are antiBlackness and settler colonialism interconnected? This essay addresses these questions, reexamining the history of one of the only US schools to educate both groups: Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. To explore the contemporary legacies of Hampton, we bring together a race-centered historical methodology and Black and Indigenous studies perspectives. We argue that three enduring legacies – subhumanity, genocide and self-determination – with roots in the school itself frame the present, collective struggle for Black and Indigenous justice in education. This focus provides both historical and current insights with global relevance on Black and Indigenous education in analyzing the post-US Civil War era to the early twentieth century. To conclude, we highlight implications for educational stakeholders related to building interracial coalitions for racial justice and recognizing how settler colonialism and antiBlackness have historically been and continue to be intertwined in contemporarily revealing ways.

ABSTRACT The Education Department of Western Australia advocates for culturally responsive schools. Aboriginal Indigenous Education Officers (AIEOs) are employed by schools to facilitate and enable the potential for Aboriginal school children to thrive in school settings. This article describes the values that AIEOs, parents, and teachers emphasized as being important in responding to Aboriginal students, through yarning circles organized in the first year of the Moombaki Study with three urban-based primary schools in Perth, Western Australia. The study aims to honor and reconnect grassroots Aboriginal knowledges to primary school education. AIEOs, parents, and teachers who participated in this study detailed essential attributes needed to ensure a respectful and safe space for Aboriginal primary school students. These values are established from the perspective of the local Noongar culture, the lived experiences of AIEOs, shaping a worldview, including trust, respect, sharing, and compassion. The research demonstrates how these values are embodied by AIEOs and serve as the foundation for approaches that prioritize and support the well-being of Aboriginal children, moving away from the deficit assumptions of Western educational approaches.

ABSTRACT While scholars in the fields of language planning and comparative education have explored transnational migration in bilingual education, less attention has been given to how internal migration reshapes Indigenous families’ educational and linguistic decisions. The Yucatan Peninsula is not exempt from this process of migration, as Indigenous families move to the Riviera Maya for employment in the tourism industry, impacting the conditions under which Maya is learned. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic work, this article describes how parents navigate their economic survival, creating linguistic dynamics that affect the revitalization of Maya and the broader Indigenous education system-including early childhood settings. As migration disrupts intergenerational relationships, language use shifts – not through direct prohibition, but through structural constraints. Rather than a linear process of language shift, this study highlights how tourism-driven migration reconfigures Maya in a context where economic forces reduce the spaces where Maya is spoken and learned.

South Africa’s musical arts and culture have historically faced systemic marginalisation, first under colonial rule and later during apartheid from 1948, when the government dismissed indigenous musical traditions as primitive, ungodly, and lacking artistic merit. Despite political independence in 1994, post-apartheid educational policies have struggled to fully redress these historical imbalances, particularly in higher education, where curricula continue to prioritise Western classical and global popular music. Indigenous music, a vital component of South Africa’s cultural heritage, remains peripheral and often silenced in formal teaching and learning. This systematic review examines the positioning, exclusion, and resistance of indigenous music within South African university curricula, drawing on scholarly literature, policy documents, and empirical studies. Findings highlight the persistent privileging of non-indigenous repertoires, reflecting broader socio-cultural hierarchies and epistemic biases that constrain recognition of local knowledge systems and limit students’ cultural expression. The review further identifies strategies of resistance employed by educators and students, including curriculum adaptation, integration of community-based musical practices, and advocacy for institutional reform. Gaps remain in research, particularly regarding indigenous pedagogies, teaching resources, and assessment practices that affirm cultural identity. By foregrounding marginalisation, silencing, and resistance, this study contributes to debates on decolonising higher education and promoting epistemic diversity in music programs. The review concludes with recommendations for policy, curriculum reform, and professional development, advocating for culturally responsive, inclusive approaches that celebrate South Africa’s unique musical heritage while empowering educators and students alike.

Indigenous education: an examination of online curriculum resources

ABSTRACT This study examines how national curriculum frameworks in South Africa, India, and Brazil engage with decolonial imperatives in education and promote indigenous education. Drawing on decolonial theory, the research investigates how these postcolonial states negotiate epistemic sovereignty through curriculum reform. Using document analysis, key policy texts were coded across four themes: Indigenous knowledge systems, language and identity, pedagogical philosophy, and globalization. The analysis reveals that South Africa demonstrates the most coherent decolonial reorientation, embedding Indigenous values, multilingualism, and learner-centered pedagogy. Brazil reflects a negotiated approach, balancing Freirean ideals with global standards, while India’s curriculum, though rhetorically rooted in national heritage, remains structurally aligned with neoliberal frameworks. Findings suggest that symbolic inclusion alone is insufficient for epistemic justice; structural transformation of curricular assumptions is essential. The study underscores curriculum as a critical site of resistance and calls for sustained, context-specific efforts to decolonize knowledge production in the education systems of Global South.

ABSTRACT This article advocates for Indigenous-led mobile experiences in teacher education as an effective strategy for preparing teachers to disrupt settler colonialism. Using qualitative methods, we analyze a summer institute that took 25 in-service teachers on a journey led by Indigenous educators along the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. The teachers’ embodied movement across diverse urban, rural, and reservation landscapes connected past and present settler-colonialisms and revealed the endurance, complexity, and creativity of Indigenous life. The institute exposed teachers to Indigenous traditions of mobile learning that they drew upon to redesign their curriculum and pedagogy after the institute: Teachers guided students in recognizing colonial bias in textbooks; created new lessons on contemporary Indigenous art, culture, and political resistance; designed mobile experiences for their own students, such as field trips and games; and began to challenge settler colonialism and anti-Indigenous racism in their school districts and professional associations.

ABSTRACT This article reports on an interpretivist study aimed at understanding the perspectives of volunteer teachers of young Orang Asli children within informal community classrooms in remote Malaysian village settings. Teacher perspectives on the use of their mother tongues in the classroom were sought through the use of semi-structured interviews, which were conducted in their classrooms in remote areas of Malaysia. Grounded theory methods of analysis were employed, and four themes were generated that described participants’ commitment to using the mother tongue in the classroom alongside Bahasa Malaysia to maintain cultural heritage, facilitate learning, prepare students for formal schooling and mainstream society, and highlight the value of Orang Asli culture and identity in society. The findings will be useful in informing education policy for indigenous education in Malaysia and in other settings where mother tongue is used in the classroom, particularly where volunteer teachers without formal qualifications are involved.

The purpose of this study was to learn from a Tsuut’ina Elders' perspective of land-based learning, teaching, and educational practices and how Tsuut’ina ninisha (way of life) should be recognized as an equal and legitimate way to educate Tsuut’ina children and youth within Tsuut’ina Nation schools. The primary research question is: What does land-based learning mean to Tsuut'ina Elders? Indigenous Métissage creates a space for braiding and weaving boundary crossing, funds of knowledge, and Tsuut'ina ninisha in a respectful, reciprocal, and relational way, where educators become responsible for creating relevant and meaningful curricula. Using Indigenous Métissage as a research praxis to braid and weave Tsuut’ina Elders’ stories, western theories of funds of knowledge and boundary crossing, and personal experiences as an Indigenous educator to find ways of validating Tsuut’ina ninisha as a respected, honoured way of knowing, being, and learning within Tsuut’ina Nation schools. The results of this study have substantial implications for systemic changes in education for Indigenous students in reserve schools and provide new insights into boundary crossing from an Indigenous perspective. From my time with Tsuut’ina Elders, I have identified four main components of land-based learning: creating community, experiential learning, learning to care, and spiritual guidance. Community creates a sense of belonging, uniting people and harnessing everyone's knowledge and strengths. Community is identity. Experiential learning is the way Tsuut’ina elders were taught. Experiential learning connects people to the land. Learning to care creates responsibility. Spiritual guidance maintains balance and harmony with self, others, and the environment.

This paper expands Prasenjit Duara’s proposal that Asian religions and philosophies offer hope for a sustainable future. After outlining Duara’s sociology of history that describes the crisis of global modernity in terms of three global changes, namely the rise of non-western nations, the crisis of climate change, and the decline of religious or transcendent sources of authority, Duara proposes that grassroots organizations coupled with Asian religious and philosophical beliefs and practices offer different ways of understanding the relationship between the person and the environment, and between our universal-planetary interests and our national interests. Drawing from Asian and Pacific indigenous teachings, I propose a type of depth ecology called “existential parity” that all things and creatures have value, generating a moral corollary called the “existential commitment” that humans take responsibility for the environment and each other. The existential commitment offers an environmental ethics that promotes sustainable agriculture to feed the world’s population. Pacific agroforestry practices can be implemented in urban settings to help mitigate climate change and food shortages.

Among the Ollo community of Tirap District, the Paang (dormitory) has long stood as more than a physical space it has functioned as a living institution through which masculinity, discipline, skill, and collective identity were shaped. Traditionally, boys entered the Paang at around ten years of age when they were considered physically fit, beginning a phase of life marked by training, instruction, and social responsibility. Drawing on fieldwork, interviews, participant observation, and available secondary sources, this paper traces the historical role of the Paang, its continuing relevance, and the gradual decline of its earlier functions. The Paang once operated as a centre of indigenous education where young boys learned basketry, wood carving, and the making of bamboo mats, alongside wrestling, war techniques, games and sports, folk songs, and folk dances. Under the supervision of the Paangsoongvang, the dormitory also transmitted customary laws and maintained discipline, ensuring that knowledge was not merely taught but lived through daily practice. In contemporary times, however, the Paang has increasingly shifted from a training institution to a ceremonial and administrative space, used mainly during festivals such as Worang and Dongshot, and for community announcements and decision-making. This paper argues that the changing role of the Paang reflects broader transformations in Ollo society, where modern social influences have altered traditional systems of learning while leaving behind institutions that continue to carry cultural memory and symbolic authority.