Hands Back Hands Forward

In conducting my literature review, it became apparent that many terms related to culture are often defined, used differently, and/or conflated within the body of research. Terminology such as tolerance, culturally-sensitive, culturally-centered, and culturally-relevant may all be used to describe how Indigenous cultures could be included in the curricula, but clarification is needed in order to select the research that best supports what the community wants.  Based on my own understandings of these concepts, I began to distinguish between the two broad categories as they might apply to educational practices:

In reviewing the community feedback in the document titled “Reporting on the Vancouver School District, January 2011 Aboriginal Education Forums: Community Responses to Creating a School or Model with an Aboriginal Focus,” several priorities stand out. The feedback from the community suggests a specific understanding of the role of culture within the school and community, specifically, one in which the term Aboriginal-focus suggests “emerging from Aboriginal knowledge, and relevant to Aboriginal peoples.”  For our purposes, this understanding of the role of culture in the school aligns closely with the culturally-relevant and culturally-centered frameworks, and less so with the frameworks of sensitivity or tolerance. Thus, in collecting relevant tools, strategies, and research, the characteristics on the right column be helpful as criteria that ensure that the material is in alignment with community understandings.