An Embedded Case Study of Implementing Educational Curricula Policies: Building Coalitions for Oregon's Tribal History/Shared History

Abstract

Current curricula implementations in K-12 schools pertaining to American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students’ histories and perspectives are commonly inaccurate, reinforces negative stereotypes, and have been created and implemented without appropriate and meaningful engagement with Tribal Nations (NCAI, 2019; Sabzalian, 2019a; Shear, 2019). A recent educational policy mandate passed in Oregon in 2017, Tribal History/Shared History (TH/SH), aims to address these concerning curricula with lessons that honor Tribal Nations’ perspectives. This embedded case study investigated how an Indigeneity Grounded Analysis (IGA) framework (Fleras & Maaka, 2010) and TH/SH’s legal language could inform how to examine the experiences of educators and other key partners involved in the curriculum implementation of TH/SH, and how they may build coalitions to do so; and how to examine what educators’ and other key partners’ perspectives are on the extent to which TH/SH’s curriculum has been implemented with fidelity to its intentions. Key partners identified and involved in TH/SH’s implementation that were interviewed included: district-level administrators such as officials from the state Department of Education (ODE/OIE) and Teacher Standards and Practice Commission (TSPC), school board members, superintendents, and school district administrators; school-based educators such as principals, education specialists, and teachers; and community advocacy groups such as Tribal Nation education directors, teacher unions, teacher preparation programs, youth and family centers, and parents. Some of these key partners were colleagues and contacts made during my year-long internship at the Oregon Office of Indian Education (OIE) where I worked as a curriculum developer together with a coalition built between key partners to create a series of future TH/SH Grade 9 math, English Language Arts (ELA), social science, science, and health/P.E. lessons. Additionally, reports such as those from the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI, 2019) were also analyzed. The five major findings that were elicited from asking three research questions were: educators are experiencing barriers to TH/SH’s curriculum implementation; educators are observing TH/SH’s curriculum implementation as having a “profound” and “powerful” impact on AI/AN students, non-AI/AN students were more “receptive” and were “empathetic” as a result, and teachers and their colleagues were mostly “excited” and “appreciative” of TH/SH’s curriculum implementation; building coalitions across key partners offers support systems to assist in implementing TH/SH’s curriculum; building coalitions with Tribal Nations should be meaningful, reciprocal, and sustained; and TH/SH’s mandate is being implemented with fidelity to its intention of honoring Tribal Nations’ perspectives, but it is not being “fully” (Desimone, 2002) implemented across all grade levels and subject areas as stipulated in the mandate. To date, TH/SH has implemented Grade levels 4, 8, and 10 with an additional 10 grade level curriculum roll outs to be implemented in the near future, thus, it behooves all key partners involved to be informed about its school and classroom level implementation.