Search

This article addresses critical issues of how Indigenous (Diné/Navajo) youth construct meaning of their racial, cultural, and linguistic identities within the historical, political, and socio-cultural contexts of the United States of America as a racialized, settler/colonial society. Using Tribal Crit theory, the author, a member of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, shares insights about Diné youth's perspectives that reaffirm Indigenous-centered understandings of identity in resistance to dominant racialized discourse and white supremacy. In discussing the different ways Diné youth make meaning of multiple identities, the author postulates the need for Diné communities to articulate Diné-centered counter narratives about what it means to be Diné for the benefit of the youth. Key implications include the need for Diné communities to engage in critical dialogue about race, race relations, nationhood, language, and identity using Indigenous-centered perspectives.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho Department of Education (CADOE) functions as a tribal education department (TED) in western rural Oklahoma, situated within a tribal government that has a total membership of 13,212; 3,160 of whom are ages 3-18 years. CADOE has supported and advocated for equal opportunity and access for Cheyenne and Arapaho families and students since its inception. The purpose of this article is to utilize the Liberating Sovereign Potential framework to illustrate how CADOE continues to employ tenets from the model to liberate their sovereign potential, often serving students and families in rural contexts. While significant literature addresses Indigenous education, a gap still exists when considering the unique perspectives of TEDs and how they serve their rural tribal communities. Our goal is not only to improve educational outcomes for Cheyenne and Arapaho families and students, but also to assert our sovereign rights in educational systems. Here we outline various programs and efforts we have undertaken as we work to liberate our sovereign potential as Cheyenne and Arapaho people.

The 2023 Tribal Leaders qualitative study is an emergent perspective from twelve Tribal leaders on education, Tribal sovereignty, leadership, and change presented as a poster session at the 2023 NRMERA conference in Omaha, Nebraska. This conceptual paper presents a review of literature acknowledging a lack of research inclusive of the voice of Tribal leaders as well as research, particularly in the areas of Tribal-specific/Native-centered leadership models and change frameworks. The research findings are presented across the four focus areas and of note: In education, Tribal leaders indicated the need for Tribal voices to be heard, accurate American History to be taught, adequate funding to be provided, and more culturally relevant instruction provided inclusive of language and cultural teaching were among the more significant findings. In the area of Tribal sovereignty, Tribal leaders indicated that Tribal sovereignty was something they wanted. They were not convinced that Tribal sovereignty was something in reality that could be achieved and, once achieved, could be held onto. In terms of leadership, Tribal leaders indicated a preference for Servant Leadership and did not specify any specific Tribal leadership definitions, models, or frameworks. With regard to change, Tribal leaders discussed change with no specific Tribal leadership models or frameworks. The findings are discussed and interpreted through a TribalCrit lens (Brayboy, 2022), with a conclusion and next steps presented.

Healthy Indigenous child development is grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Attachment theory has been influential in understanding the significance of parenting for infant development in Western science but has focused on child-caregiver bonds predominantly within the parent-child dyad. To bring forth Indigenous perspectives regarding understandings of parenting, the attachment bond, and the well-being of Indigenous children, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 members of a Northwest tribal community (21 female) in spring and summer 2020. Themes included Community caregiving, Family value systems, Bonding, Traditional teachings, and Historical trauma. The need to expand the lens of attachment theory beyond the dyad is clear. Implications for improving the child welfare system and prevention programs within Indigenous communities are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the essential experiences and skills required for successful and effective leadership at Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) in the United States. Utilizing Weick's seven properties of sensemaking as a framework, this study examines how participants developed their sensemaking abilities regarding their presidencies at TCUs. To conduct this research, a phenomenological qualitative research method was utilized, analysing 11 interviews with TCU presidents. The themes identified in this study included developing a vision plan that the Tribal community supports; learning to communicate with diverse stakeholders; understanding Tribal and non-Tribal politics for fundraising and accreditations; and eliciting mentors from Tribal leaders and other TCU presidents. These findings have vital implications for individuals interested in pursuing leadership positions at TCUs, as they highlight emic perspectives on the skills and experiences necessary for success in these roles.

Researchers seeking to engage in projects related to Tribal communities and their citizens, lands, and non-human relatives are responsible for understanding and abiding by each Tribal nation's research laws and review processes. Few studies, however, have described the many diverse forms of Tribal research review systems across the United States (US). This study provides one of the most comprehensive examinations of research review processes administered by Tribal Research Review Boards (TRRBs) in the US. Through a systematic analysis, we consider TRRBs' online presence, online documentation, and themes across documents, for five entity types: Tribal nations and Tribal consortiums, Tribal colleges and universities, Tribal health organizations, Indian Health Services, and other Tribal organizations. Results include an assessment of online presence for 98 potential TRRBs, identification of 118 publicly available online documents, and analysis of 41 themes across four document types: Tribal research codes and TRRBs' guidelines, applications, and post-approval documents. Altogether, this research provides a macro-level analysis of the most common types of TRRBs in the US in an effort to increase researchers' understanding of these important processes as they prepare to ethically engage Tribal communities in research. These results aim to empower Tribal decision makers as they align their TRRBs' online visibility and documentation with community priorities and strengthen their protections for the rights and wellbeing of their citizens and community. Ultimately, by expanding our knowledge of TRRBs across the US, this contribution seeks to uphold Tribal sovereignty in research and promote ethical approaches to research with Indigenous communities.

As global concerns about climate change deepen, Australian sustainability curriculum plays an increasingly significant role in the way students relate to concepts of home, belonging, and the future. Such futures are imagined in a local context shaped both by ongoing colonial processes and the continued presence of First Peoples, in which invader-settler futurity is the dominant force. As such, a global emphasis on Education for Sustainability raises questions of what types of relationships to place and country are produced through policy and curriculum, and what the implications are for students' investments in the future of place and unceded Country. As a white invader/settler writing from the Country of the Kulin Nations (Melbourne, Australia), in this paper I offer an analysis of UN Education for Sustainability Declarations from the past five decades, alongside Australian national curriculum documents and its translation into state-level curriculum. In doing so, I reveal the ways that sustainability policy and curriculum works to collapse place and Country into the concept of 'environmental resource', largely oriented towards the future of the nation. I argue that in the global policy context, resources are framed to deliver equal distribution "across" nation states, functioning to obscure the operation of patriarchal white sovereignty "within" states such as Australia. I further identify that the ways this problem of resource management is deployed as a virtuous state policy through local curriculum, which functions to solidify invader-settler use of disembodied Indigenous knowledges, to secure futurity.

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) sought to end the forced removal of Native children from their tribes. Decades later, American Indian children are still placed in foster and adoptive care at disproportionately high rates. Drawing on forty years of archival data, this study examines the role of administrative burden in reproducing these inequalities and the system of domination from which they arise: settler colonialism. Focusing on three arenas--notice, meeting and hearing involvement, and foster family certification--this article illuminates the burdens imposed on tribal governments that serve as mediating institutions in ICWA implementation. Findings suggest that burdens have particularly strong consequences for inequality when they fall on third-party organizations. They also demonstrate how administrative burden operates as a mechanism for the reproduction of settler-colonial domination.

In this article, I explore a pedagogical approach grounded in Native feminist theories and their commitments to place, to relations, to lands, and to more sustainable, just futures. In approaching college history instruction from a place informed by Native feminist teachings, I offer that the college-level classroom can be a space for students to imagine and work towards anticolonial futures as they process hard histories from where they stand. To do so, I draw on self-reflection and an examination of student reflections on their relationships with tribal sovereignty, their perceptions of ethical commitments to Indigenous people, and their understandings of academic collaborations toward Indigenous priorities. This analysis reveals how a pedagogy that embraces "pausing" and contributions to Native nation building can create a classroom space for students to process histories of genocide, build habits of relationality and civic engagement, and work toward more just futures.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions of Smiths legacy in Indigenous methodologies and to show how her interventions encourage and facilitate meaningful research relationships with Indigenous communities. It is also a practical guide for future Indigenous researchers who aim to work with their communities. Design/methodology/approach: This article outlines the legacy and interventions from Linda Smith that have influenced my research and pedagogy work with my community--the Navajo Nation. I weave together a Kejnrj story and theory to show how Smith's predominant legacy has taught me how to create, maintain and safeguard relationships with horses, humans and knowledge while working within a Western institution. Findings: I discuss the navigation of research relationships before, during and after official research and the implications this has for increasing indigenous sovereignty in partnership with research. It also describes the process of researcher reflexivity required for Indigenous methodological work. Originality/value: This paper outlines one Navajo researcher's individual story with research on community. This adds value to researchers who intend to do research/pedagogy work with Native communities.

Schooling has been a site of harm for Indigenous people in settler colonial contexts, as a tool of dispossession, assimilation and separation from country and kin. However, schools have simultaneously been sites to work against this and build alternatives to settler colonial systems that nourish Indigenous futures. This article centers the connections between Indigenous labour, land, sovereignty and schooling. It focuses on the Strelley mob's innovative remodelling of schooling during the first phase of national Australian government policies of Indigenous self-determination and self-management between 1972 and 1983. Working with Indigenous-authored texts and oral histories, I explain how the Strelley mob and supporters worked to exploit and reshape schooling to bring together and sustain their communities on their land, developing a practice of local control over repossessed country with an Indigenised schooling system at the heart. I show how the tensions centred on five 'zones of contest' where the Strelley mob clashed with norms of settler state governance in schools. I suggest these zones - political economy; school sovereignty; knowledges, technologies and temporalities; language and linguistic power; and spaces and lands - may provide an analytical tool for situating contests over Indigenous schooling within wider contests over land, labour and sovereignty.

Histories are important, and as such this article begins with a look into how the ClimeTime network, a Washington State science education network, came to learn from (and with) Indigenous partners to design climate education that honors Native climate expertise. The article focuses first on grandmother and mother networks, listening sessions, local histories, and the relational commitments that ground this work. Then, to show how this work spread across the network and is unfolding, we offer one long case study of what is happening at the Tribal School Chief Leschi, followed by several shorter examples to create a more complete image of how non-tribal classrooms and teachers are also being guided to take up this work. Together the examples offer a much-needed vision of how to design climate learning that honors the different types of Indigenous Knowledge and practices our youth and world need.

This collaboration between the Nez Perce Tribe and the University of Idaho aimed to address the unique needs and perspectives required for Tribal Natural Resources Management (TNRM). TNRM involves the governance and caretaking of the land and waters, emphasizing the recognition of cultural significance, sovereignty, self-determination, and traditional knowledge systems. A workforce development program was created, focusing on Fisheries, Forestry, and Fire Management, while being grounded in Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous STEM identities, and culturally sustaining pedagogy. The philosophical foundations of the program emphasized the importance of integrating Indigenous knowledge and learning approaches alongside technical skills. By broadening the conceptions of "what counts" in science, students were encouraged to recognize the value of Indigenous knowledge and develop a sense of responsibility toward caring for the Land and waters. Data collected from the program revealed its success in helping students connect Indigenous ways of knowing to their understanding of STEM. Students found meaning in Indigenous knowledge as a means to perpetuate Nimiipuu lifeways, while also recognizing the utility of Western STEM. The involvement of Elders and Native professionals as teachers in the STEM curriculum highlighted the importance of intergenerational knowledge transmission. By combining Indigenous ways of knowing with technical skills, the program successfully laid the groundwork for students to become future leaders in Tribal Natural Resources Management, equipped with the necessary cultural, environmental, and scientific expertise to caretake Lands and waters effectively.

Researchers and practitioners in social studies education have not often taken up responsibilities to Indigenous communities on whose Lands they work and live. Drawing on Indigenous research methodologies, along with specific Indigenous stories and artwork, four authors of varied positionalities, contexts, and regions offer conceptual and methodological insight into disrupting settler colonial research habits and sustaining commitments with Indigenous Communities. Through vignettes describing our own research practices, we propose three attributes of anticolonial participatory research responsibility in social studies. We emphasize the need for Indigenous leaders to drive research processes and planning; integrated, relational views of theory, practice, research, and policy to transcend binary understandings and colonial outcomes of social studies education; and long-term, reciprocal partnerships with community members, to center Indigenous community practices and Knowledges in order to expand possibilities for social studies education. The article explores these features, their demands, and implications for all readers as educators on Indigenous Lands.

As Indigenous-led education mandates proliferate globally, understanding how educators teach Indigenous perspectives and sovereignty remains urgent. Learning and integrating such knowledge proves difficult for non-Native teachers, given their lengthy participation in settler colonial schooling and society. What does learning to implement Native sovereignty curriculum entail? Codesigned with eight Native education leaders, this qualitative study examines five non-Native K-12 teachers' learning processes with Washington's Since Time Immemorial curriculum across three schools, using interviews, observations, and other data. Findings indicate six themes of learning supporting meaningful implementation, one potential catalyst for overall growth, and two distinct learning trajectories that suggest outward, rather than inbound, directionality. Implications for teacher education and educational leadership clarify needed steps for teacher learning and curriculum implementation.

There is a conflict between the claims of Maori sovereignty and the imposition of State legislation on Maori children. This conflict of interest has been given very little consideration in the public sphere. This research-informed article speculates that despite legislation ensuring that education attendance is fixed as a legal obligation for all Primary and Secondary aged children, there is urgency to address if conceivably this is a deeply flawed assumption as it contradicts notions of tribal sovereignty. Cautiously, this article does not romanticise past positioning of Maori peoples, nor makes claims to indigenous righteousness, rather moves to suggest that State-led education belongs part of positive outcomes for Maori, however there must be negotiation to the terms and expectations for education attendance. This paper is a catalyst for future orientated discussion aiming to broaden what education can move to become in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Post-secondary institutions have a critical role to play in addressing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action through indigenization strategies (TRC, 2015) but, to date, it has proven challenging. In this study, the research lens was expanded to focus on First Nations-affiliated post-secondary institutions, since these come closest to providing authentic approaches to indigenization. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how social support affects the academic persistence of First Nations and Métis students at a First Nations-affiliated post-secondary institution. The findings revealed that administrative and pedagogical practices, consistent with Indigenous ontologies, enabled students to respond to challenges stemming from the generational effects of colonization, and promoted individual and familial advancement, cultural growth and identity formation, community development, and Indigenous sovereignty. It is concluded that mainstream institutions can benefit from the findings as First Nations-affiliated post-secondary institutions provide valuable understandings of potential transformations toward indigenization.

As Indigenous scholars committed to Indigenous education in Oklahoma, we use a decolonizing approach to consider how the 39 Indigenous Nations in Oklahoma assert educational sovereignty to sustain Indigenous high school students' linguistic and cultural identities. Seeking to promote education models that sustain and revitalize Indigenous languages, we ask: 1) How do Indigenous Nations in Oklahoma engage in language planning and liberate educational sovereignty through policies, programs, and services to their high school students? and 2) How do Indigenous Nations navigate Oklahoma state education language-in-education policies that may support or restrict Indigenous language education in public high schools? We consider the function of Oklahoma public high school classrooms as sites of Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation. We discuss how Indigenous educational sovereignty to support language revitalization occurs in interaction with overlapping and often competing language-in-education policies imposed by the state of Oklahoma. A goal of this article is to share knowledge with Indigenous Nations, educators, and policy makers who are involved in language planning. We conclude with recommendations of ways to support culturally sustaining and revitalizing education models for Indigenous students, communities, and languages in Oklahoma.

For many American Indian citizens, especially those in rural reservation communities, a number of circumstances diminish the standard of living and the prospects for cultivating Native ways of knowing for a better future. One possible pathway to ensure that future is through a partnership between tribes, universities, and tribal colleges and universities (TCUs). Successful outcomes in such partnerships can motivate tribes to work alongside TCUs to increase tribal revenues. The authors offer the following as guidelines to engage in critical reflection, dialogue, and the production of transformative actions: (1) Building tribal organizational capacity that provide tribes with a wide range of powers to develop culturally responsive administration, new governance structures, and political bodies; (2) Policy self-examination that critically examines the mission, philosophy, goals, and organizational structure to determine if it is prepared, both philosophically and practically, to assume a partnership role that these relationships require; (3) Adhering to the government-to-government principle rather than government-to-dependent relations; and (4) Maximizing tribal control of programs to promote economic development and enhancing tribes' experience in the business of self-governance.

Context: This study examines how urban American Indian high school students negotiate their civic identities within the settler colonial structures of urban American public schools. Research Question: How do urban American Indian students negotiate civic identities in spaces where civic concepts are taught, such as American history classes in an urban public high school and a Native Youth Council (Native YC)? Research Design: This critical participatory ethnographic study examines the negotiation of civic identity by 11 urban Indigenous students in social studies classes, a Native YC, and a school in Washington State, where the STI curriculum is taught. Safety zone theory and tribal critical race theory were used to understand students' experiences and their stories from observations, participant interviews, and focus groups, which were employed as data. Conclusions/Recommendations: The study found that the social studies classes and Native YC were zones of sovereignty (ZoS), forwarding survivance and self-determination for Native students. Students learned about the Indigenous civic constructs of sovereignty, self-determination, dual citizenship, tribal self-government, and federal Indian policy inside and outside of school, all of which supported Native students in civic identity development. Recommendations on teaching Indigenous civic constructs to all students as part of teaching for critical democracy in public schools as a component of social studies classes and extracurricular activities are discussed.

This paper explores the process of developing a continuing education program for tribal land professionals working in tribal land offices across the United States. Born from discussions surrounding the need to professionalize careers in tribal land offices, the National Tribal Land Association developed a certification program for land office staff and tribal citizens interested in careers in tribal land offices. This program consists of 12 courses ranging from beginning/foundation courses to advanced/applied courses in land management and planning, land acquisition, general realty, and real estate practices and procedures.

To support the calls for Indigenous education sovereignty by the National Indian Brotherhood (1972) and the Assembly of First Nations, (1988), in this paper we explore Indigenous education as envisioned by six educators and knowledge holders in northwestern Ontario. Educators from six different schools and programs who took part in a national project called the National Centre for Collaboration in Indigenous education shared their descriptions and visions of Indigenous education. Findings reveal Indigenous pedagogies that align with Lee and McCarty's (2017) theoretical framework of culturally sustaining and revitalizing pedagogies to promote and support Indigenous education sovereignty. Their visions include pedagogies grounded in the need for equitable education; Indigenous-led instruction for land-based teachings, traditional practices and languages; and, community-based accountabilities. Their visions illustrate that a deeper understanding of the localized and nationhood contexts of Indigenous sovereignty over education is missing and needed in the ongoing movement towards educational sovereignty.

Over a decade ago, in early 2011, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Montana initiated a series of conversations with Northern Cheyenne traditional elders and officials at Chief Dull Knife College (CDKC) regarding ways to enhance resource management cooperation between the federal agency and the tribe. The BLM wanted to adjust--and in some ways reinvent--their conventional approach to the tribal consultation requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (NEPA). Typically, federal land management agencies consult with tribal officials on a case-by-case basis. The BLM Montana office wanted to understand entire ecosystems from the perspective of the Indian tribes that have occupied North American landscapes for millennia, and whose traditional knowledge concerning cultural and natural resources could inform future land-use planning initiatives. In 2013, after nearly two years of formal and informal planning, a supporting tribal resolution, and the development of a detailed scope of work, BLM leadership in Washington, DC, approved funding for a multi-year pilot project entitled the Northern Cheyenne Ecoregional Ethnographic Assessment (NCEEA), which was completed in May 2024. It was intended to provide the BLM with a computerized planning tool containing tribally sourced information and simultaneously to furnish the Northern Cheyenne tribe with a custom database they could use to store cultural and environmental information. CDKC agreed to host the project and provide management and administrative support.

For several years there has been a movement to protect Chaco Canyon from the effects of fracking, yet it was not until 2022 that Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland imposed a ban on fracking within a 10-mile radius of Chaco. But Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and a coalition of Navajos who own land allotments within the 10-mile fracking ban zone have come out against the protections. Under the ban, Navajo land allottees can no longer lease their lands for development; the ban effectively limits the economic opportunities for the allottees and their families. The Navajo Nation has expressed concern over the impact of the ban on the economic development of the allotted portion of the reservation. This creates a novel situation for Indigenous communities: Native peoples resisting the protection of an Indigenous sacred site because of economics. These are some of the topics researched and discussed in "Sacred Places, Sacred Rights," an upper-division, Indigenous liberal studies course at the Institute of American Indian Arts. The course examines "human and land-based characteristics that create a sacral quality. Legal issues relating to protection and access of sacred sites will be explored." The core reading is Deloria's "God Is Red," with further commentary from both Indigenous and non- Indigenous writers on the nature of the sacred and sacred sites. Through the course, students also look at laws, policies, and court cases that impact sacred sites. The first half of the semester covers the nature of sacred places. After midterms, the course materials move into legal matters based on court cases, policy papers, and direct-action reports.

This case study of undergraduate early childhood education pre-service teachers in an international field experience examines living, working, and studying in a sovereign nation while still "at home" within the United States. In our various roles (researcher, pre-service teacher, faculty mentor), we explored the impact of colonization as we lived and worked with people who are Anishinaabe. We viewed the larger issues that tribal sovereignty brings to education in terms of federal and state standards. Our research focuses on the impact of this cross-cultural field experience on the pre-service teachers' understanding of self as related to cross-cultural teaching. We employed a reflective multilayered process before, during, and following the field experience, and used qualitative emergent coding methods. Pre-service teachers developed an awareness of their individual comfort zones, recognized the power in strengths-based versus deficit-based approaches, and gained clarity on the cultural role of education and the role of culture in education. With this new knowledge, teachers may be better able to create culturally relevant curriculum and pedagogies in ways that allow for more meaningful connections with students and their families.

The years following the end of martial law and the democratization of Taiwan have been marked by sizable political and social reform. In the interests of increasing social participation and decreasing direct state control of economic and social development programs, public-private partnerships (PPP) have been emphasized as the primary means to provide public services. Through an investigation into the functioning of a landmark project in the newest wave of educational reform orientated toward the localization and indigenization of elementary school educational materials, this paper will investigate the role that private entities have taken in the provision of education services. The extent that the privatization of education services serves to meet the goals and standards of Indigenous education will be discussed using a theoretical framework developed through the application of Tribal Critical Race Theory and Culturally Responsive Schooling. Semi-structured interviews with administrators, teachers, artists, and editors tasked with developing Indigenous centered learning materials problematize and question the procedural norms, conflicts of interest, and structural bias exacerbated by the increased presence of private entities. Through the experiences and counter narratives of participants, the issues of local alienation, limited consultation, and restricted Indigenous participation are revealed to be core issues in promoting Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, tackling racism, and engaging with Indigenous epistemologies. This rare evaluation of the means by which multicultural education projects are realized by market-based forces acts to highlight the obstacles and practical limitations of PPP in the provision of essential public services in Indigenous areas.

With schools known to be sites of harm for many Indigenous peoples, both historically and currently, this paper re-considers 'doing' education another way. As a Gamilaroi woman, educator and researcher, I contemplate the ways Indigenous sovereignty is conceptualised and enacted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the country now known as Australia. This provides the foundations to apply broader understandings of sovereignty to the notion of education sovereignty. Using narrative and storytelling, I aim to "show" education sovereignty before considering potential elements involved in "doing" education sovereignty. I identify six interconnected elements that underpin education sovereignty, including: Pattern Thinking; Country; Time; Relationality; Intergenerational Reciprocity; and Agency. These elements provide a deeper understanding of what education sovereignty could look like, and therefore another way of 'doing' education for all students, grounded in Indigenous axiologies, ontologies and epistemologies.

The protection and recognition of customary rights of Customary Law Community is a constitutional imperative according to the implementation of Article 18B of the 1945 Constitution. In order to minimize the conflict between government, employers and the community, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of customary rights of each tribe in Papua, and legitimize them as local legal products in order to accelerate the development and welfare of the community. This research, conducted in Manokwari during 2008-2009, determined the existence of customary rights of the Arfak Customary Law Community. The purposive sampling technique was used to identify 52 respondents from Arfak Indigenous natives. This research adopted normative-empirical methods in order to review and analyze the descriptive data collected from the respondents. The results of the research indicate that: (1) Implementation of the protection and recognition of communal land rights in Tanah Papua has been accommodated in Law Number 21 Year 2001 and it is realized in Special District Regulation Number 23 Year 2008 namely: customary law community rights recognized and protected by the State, Government, Provincial Government, District / City, which is implemented through customary rights research on indigenous and tribal peoples committed by the committee, and accommodated in the decision of the Regent / Mayor. (2) Arfak Customary Law Community owns customary right of Arfak tribe, sub tribe that is Hatam, Moile, Sougb, Meyah., Mnu custom right, customary right of Kerek level and family, and arrangement and utilization customary right arranged by each-Mananir according to its level.

We propose that the Indigenizing framework of land education in teacher professional development offers an opportunity to engage the epistemological constraints of white settler teachers. Building off the work of teacher education researchers who examine settler epistemic formations in teachers and document the gaps between euroamerican epistemic understandings of place and Indigenous understandings of place we identify axiological innovations in program design that help unsettle teachers' sense of place towards an indigenized framework of relationality. We draw from pre and post survey data collected from teachers that participated in a land education teacher professional development (LETPD) workshop conducted in partnership with a local tribal nation. We identify how settler epistemic positions are expressed, the epistemic gaps produced by settler teachers that prevent them from accessing the full scope of LETPD, and document teacher resistance to relational PD as well as beginning efforts toward transformation. Finally, we propose that future LETPDs work towards encouraging epistemic responsibilities that require deep observation, a disinvestment in western science as the single mode of knowledge, valuing non-western expertise, and a shift from nature as external to being in relation to.

In this essay, Gerardo R. López, a non-undocumented immigrant scholar, who has done extensive research with undocumented immigrant communities, has a conversation with Alonso R. Reyna Rivarola, an undocumented immigrant scholar with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), who writes and researches issues of how undocumented immigrant students experience schooling from a critical situated stance. Their conversation explores a range of topics that interrogate the problematic nature of researching the self/other, while simultaneously examining the broader purpose(s) of research in the academy.

This article details a national study of U.S. K-12 civics and government state-mandated standards, drawing specific attention to how Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty are represented. Utilizing QuantCrit methodologies informed by Tribal Critical Race Theory, this study makes visible colonial logics embedded within state civics and government standards that normalize the erasure of Indigenous nationhood, or that subtly and discursively erase Indigenous nationhood in other ways. Additional attention is also given to states that explicitly affirm contemporary Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty within the standards. By examining the ways state standards erase and/or affirm Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty, our hope is to support Indigenous and allied educators in their collective efforts to transform standards in their respective states to more responsibly reflect and support Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty.

Supporting Indigenous youth, their parents, and communities continues to challenge school districts and the school psychologists who serve them. In this article, the authors suggest that understanding Indigenous sovereignty and identity will contribute to enhancing that interface, and to advocating on behalf of those students and their communities. Although multiple factors must be considered in the support of Indigenous youth, sovereignty is perhaps the one least well understood by educators. Sovereignty is complex in meaning, and culturally centered. Because it is likely not a familiar concept to most school psychologists, the authors have chosen to expand on its roots, definitions, and implications in ways they hope will hold meaning for the field of practice.

Federal agents, church officials, and education reformers have long used schooling as a weapon to eliminate Indigenous people; at the same time, Indigenous individuals and communities have long repurposed schooling to protect tribal sovereignty, reconstitute their communities, and shape Indigenous futures. Joining scholarship that speaks to Indigenous perspectives on schooling, this paper offers seven touchpoints from Native nations since the 1830s in which Indigenous educators repurposed "schooling" as a technology to advance Indigenous interests. Together, these stories illustrate the broad diversity of Native educators' multifaceted engagements with schooling and challenge settler colonialism's exclusive claim on schools. Though the outcomes of their efforts varied, these experiments with schooling represent Indigenous educators' underappreciated innovations in the history of education in the United States.

With culturally sustaining pedagogies gaining momentum in our evolving educational landscape, the political backdrop of sovereignty and the pursuit of self-determination through education for Indigenous peoples creates a truly unique leadership context. The purpose of this conceptual article is to introduce a working model for educational leaders in Native nations to liberate educational sovereignty by engaging in broad and dynamic systems thinking that centers on their nation's cultural and governance systems. From this positionality, this model then calls for leaders to engage in the iterative work of (a) assessing the educational landscape and identifying community assets, (b) fostering professional growth across systems, and (c) engaging in ongoing systems development and alignment advocacy. Furthermore, this model calls for leaders to incorporate critical Indigenous education frameworks and philosophies into these efforts, as well as foster a healthy community of practice across all systems of education to cultivate conditions for ongoing learning and connectivity among professionals. Through these efforts, over time leaders in Native nations can increase their ability to liberate educational sovereignty by creating an army of change agents working to (re)center systems of learning around Native nation's cultural and governance systems, and pull learning systems away from the assimilationist trajectory found in the status quo of settler-colonial education.

Tribal Colleges and Universities fulfill the vision of tribal higher education that is rooted in cultural knowledge and builds tribal nations. Indigenous cultural knowledge and practices are essential to building the health and wellness of tribal communities. Tribal Colleges and Universities play a critical role educating a skilled workforce in cooperation with tribal government and tribal entities. The history of education among Indigenous people since the arrival of Europeans in North America in the late 1400s to present-day is fraught with failed policies and political misdeeds. Tribally controlled education is a remedy for those failures. Among the characteristics of tribally controlled education are curriculums derived from Indigenous ways of knowing; multigenerational teaching (particularly finding ways for elders to bring their knowledge into schooling); inclusion of ceremonial, social, political, and economic knowledge and practices throughout the educational process; and, most important, a focus on restoration of tribal languages, cultural practices, and relationship with the land. This is nation-building--upholding the values and traditional knowledge and practices of each unique tribal nation, contributing to the development of leaders and administrators, and ensuring that all tribal citizens know their history and advocate for and serve as activists for tribal sovereignty. This article emphasizes that the support of tribal leadership development and effective governance practices are an important contribution of Tribal Colleges and Universities to tribal nation-building.

The institutional logics of Western academic research often conflict with the epistemologies and goals of Indigenous peoples. Research sovereignty is a right but still an aspiration for many Indigenous peoples. National funding agencies and Western universities have sought to resolve these conflicts through various institutional and organizational settlements. We combined a systematic literature search with critical content analysis and synthesis to compare the prospect for Indigenous research sovereignty in Australia, Canada, the United States, and New Zealand. Our comparison of the strategies used to resolve conflicts between competing institutional logics highlights the limitations of segmentation and segregation as well as other barriers to truly blended, or reconciled, institutional logics in colonial government and Western university research institutions and organizations.