Roles of Urban Indigenous Community Members in Collaborative Field-Based Teacher Preparation

Abstract

This qualitative case study explored a community–university partnership for teacher preparation with an urban Indigenous community organization. The study examined the roles of Indigenous community partners as co-teacher educators working to better prepare teachers for the needs of urban Indigenous children and communities. The author collected data through focus groups with Indigenous participants before and after engagement with the partnership, direct observations of partnership activities where Indigenous participants interacted with teacher candidates and university faculty, and offered individual interviews for all participants. Indigenous Postcolonial Theory (IPT) guided this research and offered a lens to examine the perspectives of urban Indigenous community members engaged as co-teacher educators in field-based teacher preparation. This study held implications for continued development of Indigenous community–university partnerships and furthering the role of community leaders in teacher preparation to advance efforts of Indigenous postcolonialism through self-education.

Professional development for cultural diversity: the challenges of teacher learning in context

“…May 2013, Souto-Manning 2017, Wiggan and Watson-Vandiver 2017), 4) redefine relationships within the whole school community including teacherstudent-community relationships towards trustworthy, respectful, equal partnerships to learn from and with each other and improve school together (e.g. Read et al 2015, Lees 2016.…”

Using modelling to make culturally responsive pedagogy explicit in preservice teacher education in Finland

“…Specified strategies include group discussions, critical reflection, field experiences, writing autobiographies and dialogic conversations (see e.g. Rodriguez, ; Acquah & Commins, , ; Aba‐Elkader, ; Lees, ).…”

Art education as a way of preserving the traditional ethnocultural identity of indigenous minority peoples from the North, Siberia and the Far East

“…In order to know exactly how to best implement educational strategies, the researchers J. P. Preston, T. R. Claypool, W. Rowluck, B. Green [20], E. Milne [18] [19]) or sociological ones (J. Sikora, N. Biddle [25], A. Lees [12]). Considering the appeal and suggestions of indigenous peoples themselves, it may be possible to obtain a positive educational experience.…”

“…Researchers A. Lees [12], E. Milne [18] report that educational support has a huge potential. G. A. Cajete [3] considers the education of indigenous peoples not only as a way of their acquiring new knowledge and skills, but also as a means of socialization in a cultural environment, a tool for acquiring ethnic identity.…”