In this article, Teresa L. McCarty and Tiffany S. Lee present critical culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy as a necessary concept to understand and guide educational practices for Native American learners. Premising their discussion on the fundamental role of tribal sovereignty in Native American schooling, the authors underscore and extend lessons from Indigenous culturally based, culturally relevant, and culturally responsive schooling. Drawing on Paris's (2012) and Paris and Alim's (2014) notion of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP), McCarty and Lee argue that given the current linguistic, cultural, and educational realities of Native American communities, CSP in these settings must also be understood as culturally revitalizing pedagogy. Using two ethnographic cases as their foundation, they explore what culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy (CSRP) looks like in these settings and consider its possibilities, tensions, and constraints. They highlight the ways in which implementing CSRP necessitates an “inward gaze” (Paris & Alim, 2014), whereby colonizing influences are confronted as a crucial component of language and culture reclamation. Based on this analysis, they advocate for community-based educational accountability that is rooted in Indigenous education sovereignty.

This Forum provides a range of voices on the Language Gap, as our aim is to shed light on the need for more critical dialogue to accompany the proliferation of political initiatives, policymaking, educational programs, and media coverage. We highlight some relevant background on the Language Gap and describe some of the research used to support the concept. The diverse slate of Forum contributions that we have assembled approach the Language Gap topic from a range of linguistic anthropological perspectives-theoretical, empirical, political, ethnographic, personal, and experiential. Based on an acknowledgment of the need to improve educational access for economically and culturally diverse students, the subsequent discussions provide a range of perspectives designed to move away from denouncing and altering home language skills as a panacea for academic woes and social inequity. Linguistic anthropology's focus on language learning ecologies, and the sophistication therein, provides a novel perspective on the Language Gap. The contributions included below problematize existing ideologies, demonstrate the wealth of resources within various communities, and propose new directions for school practices and policymaking in an effort to bridge the "language gap" toward a more inclusive and discerning view of linguistic practices across diverse groups. [Language Gap, poverty, education, language socialization] bs_bs_banner

The lessons of American Indian education—a grand experiment in standardization—can lead to a more equitable educational system for all U.S. citizens. While masquerading as a tool for equal opportunity, standardization has marginalized Native peoples. We argue for diversity—not standardization—as a foundational value for a just multicultural democracy, but diversity is feared by some as a threat to the nation’s integrity. Critical historical analysis of the apparently contradictory policies and practices within American Indian education reveals a patterned response to cultural and linguistic diversity, as the federal government has attempted to distinguish “safe” from “dangerous” Native practices. Examples of the contest between Indigenous self-determination (rooted in internal sovereignty) and federal control illustrate the profound national ambivalence toward diversity but also the potential to nourish “places of difference” within a healthy democracy.

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The educational literature continues to characterize Native American children as nonanalytical, nonverbal learners. Applied to educational practice, these generalizations downplay the use of questioning, "speaking up," and analytical or inquiry-based pedagogics. Here we report on the introduction of an experimental Navajo bilingual-bicultural curriculum emphasizing open-ended questioning, inductivelanalytical reasoning, and student verbalization in both small-and large-group settings. The critical elements influencing students' and teachers' positive response to this curriculum are examined as they relate to natural learning-teaching interactions outside the classroom, and to an articulated Navajo philosophy of knowledge. These findings challenge conventional characterizations of holisticlanalytical and verballnonverbal teaching and learning "styles," which, when applied to educational practice, can perpetuate patterns of learned dependence that extend well beyond the classroom to the reproduction of structural relations within the wider society. NATlVE NATIONS AMERICAN LEARNlNG STYLES, "MICRO" A N D "MACRO" EXPLA-"But Navajo students won't respond to questioning!"That was the reaction of many on the staff of the Rough Rock Demonstration School in northern Arizona when a new bilingual-bicultural curriculum, based on inquiry and structured questioning, was introduced there in 1983. Indeed, a substantial body of literature seemed to support that claim. "There is considerable agreement," John wrote in 1972, "that the Indian children of the Southwest are visual in their approaches to the world" (John 1972:333). John's observations of Navajo children-many from Rough Rock-led her to conclude that Navajo children are "doers" rather than "talkers," and to recommend greater emphasis on "nonverbal" curriculum approaches (1972:334, 339).Subsequent research shows that the behaviors behind these observations are a function of subtle, but systematic and context-specific