|
Session Title: Contextualizing Evaluation and Research: Indigenous Peoples Perspectives
|
|
Panel Session 303 to be held in Sebastian Section K on Thursday, Nov 12, 1:40 PM to 3:10 PM
|
|
Sponsored by the Presidential Strand
and the Indigenous Peoples in Evaluation TIG
|
| Chair(s): |
| Joan LaFrance, Mekinak Consulting, lafrancejl@gmail.com
|
| Discussant(s):
|
| Joan LaFrance, Mekinak Consulting, lafrancejl@gmail.com
|
| Abstract:
Evaluators and researchers with experience working with American Indian tribes understand the importance of adapting their practice to honor cultural mores. This panel will discuss how researchers and evaluators have developed frameworks and methodologies that consider cultural values, tribal practices, and Indigenous ways of knowing. The three presenters describe a range of evaluation/research methodologies adapted for their situations. The Blackfoot project is centered within the context of language and traditions of one tribe. The North Dakota project addresses a framework to fit a state-wide program, and American Indian Higher Education Consortium is defining a framework for contextually responsive evaluation for the 36 tribal colleges in the United States. The presentations explore how language, values, and Indigenous ways of knowing influence evaluation and the mediating role these contextual elements play in ensuring meaningful participation and execution on an evaluation or research project.
|
|
Ihto'tsii Kipaitapiiwahsinnoon (Coming From Within): The Blackfoot Project
|
| Iris Prettypaint, University of Montana, dprettypaint@yahoo.com
|
|
This collaborative graduate initiative was initiated by University of Montana's PACE Project and Research Opportunities in Science for Native Americans (ROSNA) in 2007 and includes 49 interested members from the Blackfoot confederacy, over half of whom are women. The purpose of the project is to increase the number of Indigenous students in graduate school, particularly women in science. The Project is interested in doing collaborative tribal community-based research to complete their degree requirements and utilizing Indigenous methods for data collection and analysis. The project identified four core research issues, which includes the rediscovery of Blackfoot inherent values, particularly the Blackfoot language; the acknowledgement of traumatic stress, which permeates the very fabric of Blackfoot families and communities; and the limitations of the Blackfoot Confederacy political system to strengthen the Blackfoot people.
|
|
|
Native American Research Paradigm
|
| Carol Davis, North Dakota State University, carol.davis@ndsu.edu
|
|
Native science is concerned with relationships and the belief that all living organisms are connected. All life shares this correlation, including man. In an effort to engage tribal college students in research that honors this concept, North Dakota EPSCoR promotes the integration of indigenous knowledge with multicultural inquiries that are posed through science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The research task is assigned to ten research teams that consist of a university researcher, one tribal college faculty member, and two tribal college students. The teams designed the North Dakota Tribal College Faculty Research Model: Guiding Undergraduate Student Research to guide investigations and avoid conflict with tribal customs. The studies often integrate Western concepts with indigenous knowledge to arrive at a unique conclusion.
| |
|
Indigenous Evaluation Framework
|
| Richard Nichols, Colyer Nichols Inc, colyrnick@cybermesa.com
|
|
In the American Indian Higher Education Consortium's Indigenous Evaluation Framework, developed under a project funded by the National Science Foundation, context plays a critical role in ensuring that evaluations are culturally responsive to tribal communities, values and traditions. Rather than focusing on generalizability of results, the framework emphasizes the critical importance that qualitative and quantitative evaluation approaches, designs and strategies that integrate tribal concerns in order that results and findings be utilized. Furthermore, Indigenous evaluation methodologies are meant to enhance tribal and personal sovereignty and to empower and build capacity among community stakeholders. Developed over a two-year process of tribal community member consultations, and pilot-testing with Tribal Colleges and Universities, the Indigenous Evaluation Framework represents a research-based approach to conducting evaluations in Indian Country and other Indigenous communities.
| |