Indigenous Knowledge Systems/Alaska Native Ways of Knowing - 0 views
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This article seeks to extend our understanding of the processes of learning that occur within and at the intersection of diverse world views and knowledge systems, drawing on experiences derived from across Fourth World contexts, with an emphasis on the Alaska context in particular
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Until recently there was very little literature that addressed how to get Western scientists and educators to understand Native worldviews and ways of knowing as constituting knowledge systems in their own right, and even less on what it means for participants when such divergent systems coexist in the same person, organization or community.
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issues on a two-way street, rather than view them as a one-way challenge to get Native people to buy into the western system.
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While western science and education tend to emphasize compartmentalized knowledge which is often de-contextualized and taught in the detached setting of a classroom or laboratory, indigenous people have traditionally acquired their knowledge through direct experience in the natural world.
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The incongruities between western institutional structures and practices and indigenous cultural forms will not be easy to reconcile
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The complexities that come into play when two fundamentally different worldviews converge present a formidable challenge.
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As a concept, indigenous knowledge benchmarks the limitations of Eurocentric theory — its methodology, evidence, and conclusions — reconceptualizes the resilience and self-reliance of indigenous peoples, and underscores the importance of their own philosophies, heritages, and educational processes. Indigenous knowledge fills the ethical and knowledge gaps in Eurocentric education, research, and scholarship (2002:5).
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The study of indigenous knowledge systems as it relates to education falls into three inter-related research themes: documentation and articulation of indigenous knowledge systems; delineating epistemological structures and learning/cognitive processes associated with indigenous ways of knowing; and developing/assessing educational strategies integrating indigenous and western knowledge and ways of knowing.