Education

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/25

Teacher education is situated within the unit of Curriculum & Instruction (C&I) of the Department of Education, which is resident in the College of Education, Health & Human Development. The pre-service and in-service teacher education programs in the Department of Education have been designed to provide a rich, balanced education, firmly grounded in the liberal arts and contextualized in professional preparation coursework based on current educational theory and praxis.

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Educational Manifest Destiny: Exclusion, Role Allocation, and Functionalization in Reservation Bordertown District Admission Policies
(2019-02) Stanton, Christine Rogers
Towns that border American Indian reservations provide important contexts for studying relationships between educational institutions and marginalized communities. This study applies critical discourse methodologies to evaluate policies from districts bordering reservations, districts geographically distant from reservations, and districts located on reservations. Broadly, the study addresses the question, How do school admission policies perpetuate settler-colonialism? Findings reveal bordertown discourse that excludes Indigenous epistemologies, restricts self-determination, and defines the function of knowledge and peoples to reinforce Eurocentric power structures. The study offers implications for policy makers, district leaders, and community members working to enhance equity, particularly given increased pressure for school choice expansion.
The Digital Storywork Partnership: Community-centered social studies to revitalize Indigenous histories and cultural knowledges
(2018-09) Stanton, Christine Rogers; Hall, Brad; Carjuzaa, Jioanna
Indigenous communities have always cultivated social studies learning that is interactive, dynamic, and integrated with traditional knowledges. To confront the assimilative and deculturalizing education that accompanied European settlement of the Americas, Montana has adopted Indian Education for All (IEFA). This case study evaluates the Digital Storywork Partnership (DSP), which strives to advance the goals of IEFA within and beyond the social studies classroom through community-centered research and filmmaking. Results demonstrate the potential for DSP projects to advance culturally revitalizing education, community connectedness, and identity-development. The DSP offers a model for social studies education that is not only culturally affirming and revitalizing for Indigenous communities, but also holds potential for use in all communities. We conclude with recommendations for educators, scholars, and community members engaged in similar efforts.
Let His Voice Be Heard: A Community's Response to Inclusion of an Indigenous Counter-Narrative in the District Curriculum
(2017-10) McCarthy, Glenda A.; Stanton, Christine Rogers
Curricular counter-narratives can affirm the experiences of marginalized youth, but, given their complexity and unfamiliarity, they can also generate discord between community members. This case study analyzes documents, observations, and interviews to explore ways an Indigenous counter-narrative can create space for multicultural education within a Montana school district. The findings demonstrate both positive and negative community responses to the focus novel, the importance of teaching about context and multiple perspectives, and the potential for student agency and social action. The results also provide cautionary notes about the complexity of critical pedagogy and the importance of community consultation.
Beyond the Margins: Evaluating the Support for Multicultural Education within Teachers' Editions of U.S. History Textbooks
(2015-11) Stanton, Christine Rogers
Although previous research has described analysis of history textbooks in terms of multicultural education, limited attention has been given to teacher only resources, such as the “wraparound features” of teachers' editions. The study highlighted in this article applies critical discourse analysis to explore the potential for teachers' editions to support multicultural education. Teachers' editions of five U.S. history textbooks demonstrate the tendency for textbook authors to position Native peoples as invisible, as the savage Other, and as actors of the past. Additionally, teachers' editions privilege White settler and economically-motivated narratives, which suggests that conflict between Native peoples and settlers was a matter of destiny. Less frequently, wraparound features encourage critical thinking about dominant culture narratives and actors. The results demonstrate that today's teachers' editions frequently marginalize Indigenous peoples, experiences, and histories both spatially and literally through uncritical acceptance of the dominant culture narrative (i.e., “business as usual”) or assimilationist orientations (i.e., “teaching the culturally different” or “human relations”). The article concludes with implications for scholarly practice and classroom pedagogy.
"I Guess I "Do" Know a Good Story": Re-Envisioning Writing Process with Native American Students and Communities
(2012-11) Stanton, Christine Rogers; Sutton, Karl
Listening to the community: Guidance from Native community members for emerging culturally responsive educators
(2010-05) Stanton, Christine Rogers; Jaime, Angela M.
Critical race theory (CRT) emphasizes the importance of listening to the counter-narratives of people from marginalized groups. However, the applicability of CRT in practical settings often remains unclear for educators and scholars. This project offers not only a place for Native community members to share their experiences and ideas, it also provides practical guidance for emerging culturally responsive educators and ways to use themes from narratives to guide future scholarship. As a result of interviews with five Native community members, three themes emerged for non-Native educators working in Native communities: (a) learning from the community, (b) transforming thinking through discomfort, and (c) gaining awareness of positive values. These themes can be used to guide future projects, including reservation-based field experiences and research projects exploring educator thinking in reservation communities.
Confronting Coyote: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in an Era of Standardization
(2008) Stanton, Christine Rogers
The trickster, a crucial character in many cultural histories, often slips into our lives without warning. In the western United States, the trickster frequently manifests himself as Coyote, and is central in the oral traditions of tribal people, ranching families, and outdoor adventurers alike. Coyote is responsible for some missing turkey sandwiches. You won’t believe this, but Coyote snatched my left hiking boot from right outside my tent. Coyote tricked a man out of is best horse. No luck hunting today? Coyote scared away the game. Coyote stole grain from a shed, and then locked the door behind him when he left. Coyote is a complex character that teaches and teases: One moment he shares painful lessons with us and the next he makes us laugh at our ridiculous flaws. In today’s world of educational standardization, Coyote the trickster lurks in the shadows of every classroom. He has crept among the masses in schools under the guise of a democratic model of education. He is so cunning that many educators actually ponder his suggestions associated with no Child Left Behind, despite our simultaneous suspicion of is promises. Sometimes Coyote’s claims are alluring: If we offer the same opportunities—through the same curriculum, instruction, and assessment—it seems we are promoting equity in the classroom. Despite the bitter taste of it all, Coyote presents an enticing case.
Hearing the Story: Critical Indigenous Curriculum Inquiry and Primary Source Representation in Social Studies Education
(2012-10) Stanton, Christine Rogers
Although primary source accounts provide students with direct access to the experiences of historical participants, they can reinforce the dominant culture historical narrative if misrepresented by teachers, curriculum publishers, or scholars. The author demonstrates the importance of adhering to guidelines presented by critical Indigenous scholars when evaluating resources that incorporate primary accounts attributed to Native Americans. To illustrate the potential for critical Indigenous theory to inform curricular decision making, the author analyzed three resources that incorporate Chief Joseph's surrender speech according to: (a) their respect of Native peoples, (b) their recognition of discursive positionality, and (c) their honoring of the complexity of Native knowledge systems. Results demonstrate the potential for social studies resources, even those that include accounts from historically marginalized peoples, to reinforce the hidden curriculum, to position peoples using discourse, and to perpetuate the myth of objectivity in historical inquiry. Implications for scholarship and teaching practice are included.
Crossing Methodological Borders: Decolonizing Community-Based Participatory Research
(2013-10) Stanton, Christine Rogers
To advance socially just research, scholars—including those who utilize qualitative methodologies—must confront the colonizing reputation that frames such work in Indigenous communities. This article explores the potential for Community-Based Participatory Research to guide the re-envisioning of mainstream conceptions of scholarly control to cross epistemological borders between theory and practice. A project that endeavored to engage Native participants throughout the research process provides context for the discussion of ongoing challenges and emerging possibilities. This work holds implications for participatory research design and implementation in cross-cultural contexts, especially as connected to shifting decolonizing theory to practice.
The Curricular Indian Agent: Discursive Colonization and Indigenous (Dys)Agency in U.S. HistoryTextbooks
(2014-12) Stanton, Christine Rogers
In the 1800s and early 1900s, the United States assigned Indian Agents—non-Native employees of the federal government—to coordinate intergovernmental efforts, to encourage the assimilation of Native peoples into European-American society, and to serve as advocates for individual tribes. Although Indian Agents no longer exist in an official capacity in the United States, the potentially contradictory expectations that informed their work continue to influence communities across the country. Instead of decolonizing education, today's curricular agents typically misrepresent the historical and future agency of Native peoples while reinforcing the patronizing, normative, dominant-culture narrative. This article outlines the critical discourse analysis of five widely adopted U.S. history textbooks, as situated within the broader scope of textbook research and emerging educational movements. Findings show that textbook authors and other curricular agents use strategies of exclusion and passivation to control the historical and curricular agency of Indigenous peoples. Given the influence of educational reform efforts such as those related to the Common Core Standards, now is the critical time to retheorize curriculum design and inquiry as dialogic, dynamic, transformational, and agentive processes. The project's conclusions demonstrate the need to confront the biases of curricular agents in order to guide the decolonization of curriculum materials.

Education

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