(2015). Multiculturalism Is a Condition of the Heart: White Voices inside the Walls of Southern Universities. Multicultural Learning and Teaching, v10 n2 p255-267 Sep. Multiculturalism was founded after the genocide of the Holocaust to ensure acts of annihilation toward a people group never again occurred. Fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, diverse faculty and diverse students are still underrepresented in universities. In absentia and expecting more diverse faculty, how can White faculty effectively promote moral multiculturalism?… [Direct]
(2018). Identification and Critique of the Values Education Notion Informing the "Itorero" Training Program for High School Leavers in Post-Genocide Rwanda. Interchange: A Quarterly Review of Education, v49 n1 p111-132 Feb. While the academic literature is replete with affirming that 'values-explicit' citizenship education programs are biased and indoctrinatory, there is scant attention to substantiate this claim. The present paper fills this gap; it investigates the values education notion informing "Itorero," a non-formal citizenship education platform for high school leavers (HSLs) in post-genocide Rwanda. The research reported here used a survey questionnaire, focus groups and interviews. The article engages with character education, care ethics, cognitive moral development and values clarification approaches to highlight the values education notion deemed preferable to competing concepts. It is revealed that in educating HSLs for values, "Itorero" is vehemently committed to character education. I argue that the overreliance on this approach raises serious concerns particularly because values education as it is done in "Itorero" seems like the cultivation of supportive… [Direct]
(2023). Healing, Empowering, Engaging, Learning, and Decolonizing through Culture: Living Wellness, Resilience, and Resurgence in the Classroom through Creative Arts. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, v38 n1 p86-104 Mar. Art and Indigenous culture are inseparable. From the immaculately decorated lodges and war shirts of thousands of years to contemporary mixed and digital media images, Indigenous arts are expressions of survivance. Creative arts have sustained Indigenous ways of knowing, being, doing, and healing through attempted cultural genocide. Research has shown that art engages youth in life skill-building, learning, emotional regulating, and spiritual healing, supporting art as an intervention for wellness. Culturally-based artistic expression and the process of creating promotes wellness among Indigenous youth. As primary sites of assimilation and colonialism, educational institutions have a responsibility to enact reconciliation through culturally-rooted arts-based approaches to wellness. School psychologists are wellpositioned to support these approaches. This study took place in Kainaiwa in Southern Alberta and explored Niitsitapi artists' and educators' perspectives on the impacts of… [Direct]
(2016). Teachers as Agents of Change: Promoting Peacebuilding and Social Cohesion in Schools in Rwanda. Education as Change, v20 n3 p202-224. Education is seen to play a crucial role in the reconstruction of post-conflict countries, particularly in transforming people's mindsets and rebuilding social relations. In this regard, teachers are often perceived as key agents to bring about this transformative change through their role as agents of peace. This paper seeks to understand how teachers are positioned to promote peacebuilding and social cohesion in Rwandan schools in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The paper draws on data collected for an on-going broader study researching the role of teachers in peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts of Rwanda and South Africa. The methods used for data collection were semi-structured interviews, focus-group discussions, questionnaires and classroom observations. Theoretically the paper is informed by the broader research framework on sustainable peacebuilding in post-conflict situations, using the four dimensions of "recognition",… [Direct]
(2015). Exploring Sensitive Subjects with Adolescents: Using Media and Technology to Teach about Genocide. American Secondary Education, v43 n2 p4-17 Spr. This paper discusses potential strategies and sources for approaching uncomfortable topics and reviews the challenges facing teachers who choose to do so with the topic of genocide as an example. Using a variety of techniques, including graphic organizers, political cartoons, comic books and graphic novels, films, children's and young adult literature, paintings and photographs, podcasts/audio files, exhibitions, Web Quests, and game-based learning, teachers enable students to develop multiple perspectives about tragic events. A section on reparations and transitional justice suggests some positive ways to conclude such a unit…. [Direct]
(2021). Trauma as a Social Justice Issue: Foundational Knowledge. Communique, v50 n3 p1, 31-33 Nov. Empirical investigations have found trauma to be disproportionately concentrated in and experienced by minoritized communities (Gherardi et al., 2020; Muldoon et al., 2021). Although trauma also occurs as a result of natural disasters or accidental events, the effects of these traumas tend to be less severe than those resulting from events of human design (Muldoon et al., 2021). The genocide of Indigenous people and the colonization of their lands, the legacy of chattel slavery and ongoing state-sanctioned violence against Black people, the gendered interpersonal violence against women and LGBTQ people, the forced sterilization of disabled people, and chronic poverty are all reflections of a White supremacist, ableist, gendered, and materially exploitative system that has traumatized many. Thus, a commitment to trauma-informed practice necessitates reckoning with the social conditions which produce and perpetuate trauma. In Part 1 of the National Association of School Psychologists… [Direct]
(2019). Guatemalan Ixil Community Teacher Perspectives of Language Revitalization and Mother Tongue-Based Intercultural Bilingual Education. FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education, v5 n3 p84-104. Recent scholarship indicates several benefits of mother tongue education (MTE) in supporting student learning. Within one Mayan community in Guatemala, Ixil is the mother tongue spoken at home and faces extinction due to Indigenous oppression and genocide. This qualitative case study highlights efforts of 13 teachers and administrators at one primary school that took up the dual task of offering MTE and revitalizing the Ixil language. In order to gain a better understanding of Indigenous teachers' perceptions of language, culture, and MTE, this research was guided by the following questions: (1) How do teachers perceive their own understanding of attitudes and beliefs about language and culture? (2) How do they perceive their role in MTE and language revitalization? (3) Are teachers critical in their understanding of the importance of language revitalization and best practices for language pedagogy? Data was collected via site observations and surveys, then analyzed using constant… [PDF]
(2018). "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas": Critical Analysis of a Film Depiction of the Holocaust. Social Studies, v109 n6 p294-308. Film depictions of the Holocaust have become a ubiquitous part of social studies education, as many states have mandated Holocaust or genocide curricula in recent years; however, the quality of such curricula varies greatly, as does the level of teacher preparation for Holocaust-based instruction. Given the increase in mandates and the lack of more rigorous content knowledge expertise, many teachers turn to films, such as "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," to represent, for students, the horrors of the Holocaust. The film, however, is deeply problematic in several ways–historical inaccuracy, questions of agency and gender, and an overarching message that represents a potentially dangerous interpretation of responsibility for the greatest crime in human history. This article explores the failings of "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" and proposes strategies that teachers may use to mitigate the film's shortcoming and to provide for a valuable learning experience for… [Direct]
(2018). Incorporating Campus-Based Cultural Resources into Humanities Courses. Liberal Education, v104 n1 Win. In this article, the authors reviewed one effort to deepen students' connections to the humanities through the use of campus-based cultural resources at Queensborough Community College (QCC) of the City University of New York (CUNY), a minority-serving institution in one of the most diverse counties in the United States. Focusing specifically on the 2015-16 colloquia series "Gender, Mass Violence, and Genocide," organized by the first author through the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) matching support, the authors outlined and compared the findings of a two-phase exploratory research protocol designed to assess students' aligned learning. While phase one measured that learning against the dimensions of the AAC&U Global Learning Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) Rubric, phase two used content analysis to parse the meaning and evidence of each dimension from a… [Direct]
(2015). An Initial Exploration of the Therapeutic Impact of Music on Genocide Orphans in Rwanda. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, v43 n5 p559-569. The 1994 Rwandan Genocide murdered over a million and brought on incalculable distress to survivors. An non-governmental organisation, "Network for Africa," has a music programme to rehabilitate orphans in Kigali, now entering adulthood. This naturalistic study investigated whether music had transformational meaning for participants. Thirteen participants, (F = 7; M = 6) formed two brief focus groups to explore how music making changes them. Responses were audio recorded, analysed qualitatively by an iterative process to derive initial and then overarching themes. Three major themes emerged: music changes my past, music gives me a safe place in the present including fellowship and prayer and music provides me with personal resource to face an uncertain future. The themes resonate with cognitive therapy elements in managing post-traumatic problems, including grounding and processing the past. Implications of music making for traumatised communities are explored and… [Direct]
(2018). Global Discourses and Local Practices: Teaching Citizenship and Human Rights in Postgenocide Rwanda. Comparative Education Review, v62 n3 p385-408 Aug. In postgenocide Rwanda, education is viewed by the national government as crucial for shaping a new, unified civic identity but also as a tool to address the past genocide. Drawing on Rwanda as a case study, this article analyzes national curriculum documents, school textbooks, and interviews with teachers and students in order to understand the following questions: To what extent does the Rwandan state integrate global rights discourses within the civics curricula and textbooks? How do teachers and student engage with these global discourses in the classroom? I find that while the national civics curriculum intends to inculcate a traditional notion of citizenship, emphasizing patriotism and loyalty to the state, the curriculum also includes global norms oriented toward human rights and global citizenship. However, divergent discourses are evident in the classroom among students and teachers where only some aspects of the global models are embraced. This points to an inherent tension… [Direct]
(2017). A Deeper Understanding of Cultural Safety, Colonising and Seating in a Teacher Education Program: a Preliminary Study. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, v46 n2 p182-189 Dec. This preliminary study considers the implications of where students of Aboriginal descent sat in a teacher education classroom, its significance in relation to the space of the classroom, the importance of the place to the individual and its links to creating a climate of cultural safety in the classroom. Six students from two cohorts of varying sizes were interviewed as to why they sat where they did in the classroom and why the place where they sat remained relatively stable. The study uses quotations from the students and reflectively seeks to understand their experience in the class. Risking themselves in a university context which itself is the product of the very colonisers who created the conditions for cultural genocide through residential schools. It is tentatively concluded that where First People sit in the classroom maybe reflective of the territory to which they belong…. [Direct]
(2019). Dealing with the Devil: The Triumph and Tragedy of IBM's Business with the Third Reich. History Teacher, v53 n1 p171-193 Nov. Innovation and invention drive the world forward and thrive off a free market that rewards individuals and companies that can tap into supply and demand. During tragedy, especially wartime, this can take a dark turn when the triumph of invention and profit is gained from human tragedy. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) saw warfare as an opportunity to capitalize off of both sides. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany. Hitler implemented many racial laws that prohibited Jews from public living. IBM's business with Germany began when the United States entered World War I, and IBM's property was seized by the German government for being owned by an international adversary. The profits made from Germany between 1933 and 1945 lifted IBM out of America's "Great Depression" and surged the company to its best performing decade. IBM's business with the Nazis is a stain on American business and a reflection on how far some are willing to go… [PDF]
(2017). Institutional Microaggressions at a Hispanic Serving Institution: A Din√© (Navajo) Woman Utilizing Tribal Critical Race Theory through Student Activism. Equity & Excellence in Education, v50 n3 p275-289. From private to public, from small to large, campus protests and demonstrations have risen across the country to address institutional racism regarding a range of issues including offensive Halloween costumes, university/college seals, lack of faculty color, and racist vandalism. One such example occurred at Southwest University where Native American students were protesting the university seal, which represents settler colonialism and genocide. In this article, we provide a case study of Joy, a Din√© (Navajo) young woman, and describe her student activism in regards to the seal and how she utilizes it to connect to her culture, language, and identity. We utilize critical race theory (CRT) and tribal critical race theory (TribalCrit) to analyze the institutional microaggressions that Joy experienced on campus. Our main conclusions explain how student activism enables students to address systemic racism and provides a vehicle to create better conditions on university campuses…. [Direct]
(2020). Beyond Borders: Trans-Local Critical Pedagogy for Inter-Asian Cultural Studies. Educational Philosophy and Theory, v52 n11 p1162-1172. This paper challenges the apparatus of knowledge in the reproduction of the nationalist narrative of historical trauma that leads to the making of exclusive nationalism and unequal citizenship, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. I take the case of the 1965-66 genocide in Indonesia as an example to illustrate how the cultural trauma that took place in the Cold War Era had marked the turning point for follow-up nation-building and the cooperative distortion of the past through the politics of denial. This phenomenon does not happen only in Indonesia but also in other countries in the Northeast and Southeast Asia. The post-event juridical reform after these historical traumas established the foundation of national constitutions and planted the seeds of unequal citizenship in these countries. The legal practices of the post-colonial modern states repeat colonial strategies, and technique of governmentality reproduces itself through the education system at all levels. I want to… [Direct]