Phyllis B. Ngai

Indigenous studies and intercultural education: the impact of a place‐based primary‐school program

The article presents a student‐impact assessment of a model two‐year place‐based intercultural approach to indigenous education. Students at Lewis & Clark Primary School in Missoula, Montana, connected face‐to‐face with tribal educators and members residing in the nearby American Indian reservation. The program’s learning outcomes included impressive gains in knowledge of Montana tribes, fewer stereotypical images, enhanced consciousness about the histories and cultures of the place in which students’ reside, heightened appreciation for and connectedness with Native Americans, and increased cultural awareness. The power of the place‐based intercultural‐education approach is that K‐5 students can acquire cultural knowledge, break stereotypes, and develop new appreciation for, and interest in, diverse peoples and issues by directly experiencing the local context in which diversity resides.

Bilingual Education for All: A Benefits Model for Small Towns

Abstract The Benefits Model set forth in this article aims to satisfy the key requirements of an inclusive approach to bilingual education, while taking into consideration the special conditions and challenges faced by small cities and towns. The suggested curriculum, which combines bilingual education based on local languages with multicultural education based on a global perspective, is designed to prepare students to craft their own niche along the local-global frontier. In terms of implementation, the main advantages of the model are (a) its staffing is self-sustaining; (b) the translation of teaching materials would not be required; (c) the funding required is comparable to a regular mainstream program; (d) it would attract extensive involvement in K–12 education by local community members; and (e) it has the potential to strengthen the vitality of small towns and rural communities by building on a distinctive sense of place.

Grassroots Suggestions for Linking Native-Language Learning, Native American Studies, and Mainstream Education in Reservation Schools with Mixed Indian and White Student Populations.

Indigenous-language education is critical in the rural and small-town communities with mixed native/non-native populations that constitute the headwaters of many dying tongues. Emerging from interviews conducted in 2002 and 2003 on the Flathead Indian Reservation with 89 study participants holding diverse perspectives is the need for a unifying reservation-wide preK-16 language curriculum that will bring about continuous and meaningful connections (1) across Indian-language-education programmes, (2) between Indian-language classrooms and mainstream classrooms, and (3) between native language education and Native American Studies. This paper considers the grassroots suggestions for building such a curriculum encountered among cultural and community leaders, educators and parents, historians and politicians, Indians and non-Indians, and advocates and sceptics of indigenous-language education. The study findings indicate that framing indigenous-language learning as part of place-based multicultural education is a promising approach. Prospects for indigenous-language survival can be enhanced by moving native-language education in a direction that is acceptable to and beneficial for most, if not all, members of mixed communities in a global age.

Intercultural Communication Training for English Language Teachers: A Case Study of an Immersion Program for South Korean Teachers

Little research has been conducted that explores connections between the fields of intercultural communication and English-language instruction. To address this gap, we report on an intercultural communication course delivered as an integral part of a short-term professional development immersion program for English-language teachers from South Korea. Study results indicate that intercultural communication training served to enhance participants’ pragmatics awareness along with sensitivity regarding sociocultural influences on communication that they experienced in situ. After the four-week course, most of the participants expressed desire and readiness to integrate intercultural communication into their teaching in South Korea. Intercultural communication training promises to complement pragmatics instruction aiming at improving English-language learning and teaching.

NGO interpretation of participatory communication for rural Cambodia: what is lost in ‘translation’?

ABSTRACT Although the participatory communication is widely embraced by development agencies, few published studies critically examine how local NGOs interpret and implement the approach at the village level. This article analyses a Cambodian NGO’s attempts to engage grassroots involvement against key tenets of participatory communication for social change. The NGO’s ‘translation’ of the approach is shaped by layers of discourse and replete with paradoxes. Factors hampering fulfilment of the spirit of the participatory model include (1) a lack of deep conceptual understanding of participatory principles among the NGO staff; (2) development strategies supported by international NGOs that are detached from the local context and avoid broader structural issues; and (3) socio-cultural and political deterrents that exist in rural Cambodia. By revealing areas of incongruence between theory and practice and critically examining adaptation of participatory communication in the rural Cambodian context, this case study illuminates localised strategies required for sustainable development and the recurring need for critical analysis of international-development discourse. The author concludes that in order to bring about emancipatory outcomes through rural development, local NGOs and their international partners need to commit to addressing social justice and inequalities as part of the participatory approach.

Indigenous Education for Critical Democracy: Teacher Approaches and Learning Outcomes in a K-5 Indian Education for All Program.

This article focuses on how three dimensions of critical democracy preparation (place-based geographical knowledge, social and political awareness of American Indian history and culture, and orientations conducive to the development of personal connections with American Indians) were impacted by different instructional approaches introduced when implementing an innovative Indian Education for All education program at a K-5 school in Montana. Student-learning outcomes were measured through pre- and post-intervention tests of place-based and social/political knowledge and a short survey of personal orientations. Instructional approaches across first-grade through fifth-grade were identified through interviews and participant observation. In their own ways, participating teachers, working in partnership with Salish tribal educators, demonstrated that Indigenous education contributes to critical-democracy learning. The specific outcomes of the Indigenous-education program varied according to the different instructional approaches teachers elected to pursue. Instructional comparisons showed that combining place-based instruction with guided reflection on personal connections with American Indian people through “boundary-breaking” approaches that aim to bring about critical consciousness ignited the most impressive changes in learners’ orientations. The research findings offer particularly valuable insights for teachers striving for equity and excellence in elementary schools with American Indian populations.