| Abstrakt: |
There are an estimated 300 million indigenous people worldwide, roughly 5% of the world΄s population (UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2004). Despite this significant presence, national schooling systems have ignored, minimized, or ridiculed their histories pre- and post-Western contact, as well as their cultural contributions toward social and environmental sustainability. Only since the 1960s have ministries of education around the world, regional entities, and community-based groups set up education programs that seek to rescue and protect the values, practices, languages, and knowledge systems of indigenous groups, including their relationship to local ecosystems; social relationships within each group; subsistence-based production, such as agricultural, pastoral, and hunting and gathering techniques; and lang-u-age, art, games and other cultural aspects (e.g., Barnach-Calbó Martínez, 1997; Hernández, 2003; May, 1999; May and Aikman, 2003; Neil, 2000). These educational efforts have sought to recover indigenous peoples΄ own history and identity to help them resist the pressure to assimilate into the surrounding dominant societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
