Here Today, Gone Tomorrow--Is Global Climate Change Another White Man’s Trick to Get Indian Land? The Role of Treaties in Protecting Tribes as They Adapt to Climate Change

Indian Tribes are at the tip of the spear when it comes to climate change. Their dependence on their homelands for subsistence and cultural sustenance has made them vulnerable to climate-driven changes like sea level rise, shoreline erosion, and drought. As climate change makes their land less suitable for the animals and plants they depend on, tribes are facing increasing pressure to move to survive. Complicating any such move is its effect on tribal treaties that grant tribes sovereignty over their traditional land and their members. If tribes are forced to sever themselves from their homelands, will that affect their sovereignty; can their treaties migrate with them as they move to new land; where can tribes move to that will enable them to survive as distinct political sub-units in our federal system of government; and will these treaties make their assimilation into any new community impossible? This Article looks at these and many other questions in an attempt to understand how climate change may affect tribes as we know them today and begins to answer some of them. However, there are too many questions to answer in a single article. Therefore, this Article’s major contributions are identifying the problem and related questions and then proposing an analytical framework that separates legal from moral questions, and practical from constitutive ones, and contextualizes these questions in a rapidly changing physical world. Developing and applying this framework may help identify which institutions should try and answer the various questions raised in the Article, what tools they might be expected to use, and in what order the questions should be addressed

Is change on the horizon for Maori and Pacifica female high school students when it comes to ICT?

This paper explores some of the factors that discourage the participation of Māori and Pacific girls in ICT in New Zealand. Despite many ICT job opportunities, there has been a steady decrease in the percentage of girls, especial Māori and Pacific girls entering into ICT study, and pursuing ICT careers. This study used a modified version of the conceptual framework designed by Bernhardt (2014) based on the 'STEMcell' model. The STEMcell framework was used to explores the factors that discourage participation in ICT through such concepts as cultural, social, structural and social IT that contribute to the likelihood of student’s career choice in ICT. An online questionnaire gathered data from year 11 students studying at high schools within Wellington, New Zealand. The findings indicated that Pacific girl’s more than Māori girls reported that their family members were seen as role models, which could impact on their future career choices. The statistical results also show that stereotypes are still alive in both Māori and Pacific year 11 student’s perceptions and that both Pacific and Māori girls from year 11 are unlikely to follow a career in ICT. Currently, the number of Māori and Pacific girls enrolling in ICT subjects at secondary school is still substantially below that for boys and, until changes are made, Māori and Pacific girls going into the industry will be in the minority

Moving Mountains in the lntercultural Classroom

Today many Alaska Natives are seeking a higher education; however due to subtle differences in communication styles between the Native Alaskan student and Euro-American instructor, both students and educator frequently experience communication difficulties. This paper examines the differences in non-verbal communication, the assumption of similarities, stereotyping, preconceptions, and misinterpretations that may occur between Alaska Native and Euro-American cultures. University classrooms are becoming increasingly multicultural, and one teaching style may not be effective with all students. Those involved with education need to promote flexibility and awareness of cultural differences in order to achieve successful communication in the classroom

Dialogical identities in students from cultural minorities or students categorised as presenting SEN: How do they shape learning, namely in mathematics?

Portuguese schools are multicultural. Diversity is their main characteristic. Portuguese policy documents assume inclusive principles (Ainscow & César, 2006). Students categorised as presenting Special Educational Needs (SEN) attend mainstream schools. Multiculturality and diversity are challenges to the educational system. We assume that teachers need to (re)construct the curricula, conceiving it as a mediating tool (César & Oliveira, 2005). Collaborative work facilitate students’ knowledge appropriation, the development of competencies (Elbers & de Haan, 2005), and the emergence of a learning community (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Students can be empowered and (re)construct their identities, including students whose voices are usually silenced. Identities are conceived as dialogical and conflictive (Hermans, 2001), particularly when the students’ cultures are far away from the school’s cultures, and transitions between them are difficult (César, 2003). These data are from the Interaction and Knowledge project whose main goal was to study and promote collaborative work in formal educational settings. It lasted 12 years, including classes all over the country (5th - 12th grades, 9/10 - 17/18 years old). It had two levels: (1) quasi experimental studies where different types of dyads were studied (César, 1994; Carvalho, 2001); (2) action-research studies based on interpretative/qualitative approaches, inspired in ethnographic methods; collaborative work was implemented during at least a school year (César & Santos, 2006). A ten years follow up was implemented. The cases in discussion were from two 9th grade classes, in two schools near Lisbon. Participant observation (different observers, including external evaluators; audio and/or videotaped), questionnaires, interviews, instruments inspired in projective tasks, students’ protocols and several documents were the data collecting instruments. The data analysis was a systematic and recurrent content analysis. The inductive categories and the interpretations that emerged were then discussed among the participants and by the project research group. The results illuminate that collaborative work and being part of a learning community can be powerful tools that allow students to (re)construct their identities, namely their identity as (mathematics) students. Collaborative work empowered students and had an impact in their life paths even many years after leaving the project. The participants’ accounts illuminate the role of teachers’ practices in their identities, as well as the conflicts these students had to face, namely the ones related to their cultures and to the experiences related to their categorisation as presenting SEN. Learning how to deal with these conflicts is an essential step to school achievement and to avoid exclusion

Whose Context Is It Anyway?

(Excerpt) Music shapes the worshiping assembly week by week The liturgy we sing becomes both praise and proclamation in the mouths of the gathered congregation. So how are we to know what it is we should sing? Our worship books are now filled with music from around the globe, from perspectives not even known to most of us just a generation ago. Is that music part of our local expression, and if not, how are we to make it so? This address will outline a process, responsive contextualization, which invites a local assembly to enter into the process of engagement with worship materials from a variety of cultures and contexts

Play Selection in the Department of Speech and Drama at Pan American University in the 1970s and 1980s: Twenty Years of Excluding Latino Plays

The theatre program at the University of Texas-Pan American has a long history of excluding Latino plays from its production seasons, even though the university is located near the Mexican border and the majority of its students are Mexican American. The regional population served by this publicly-funded school, which has been state-funded since 1965, is predominantly Mexican American and Spanish speaking. Furthermore, as reflected in its name, the school’s mission has included for more than half a century a commitment to advance the “blending” of the North American and Latin American cultures. This article reviews the school’s production record over a twenty-year period, from 1970 to 1990, when more than one hundred and fifty full-length plays were produced by its theatre program, not one of which was about Mexican Americans or Mexico. Selected background information is provided to help illuminate the historical context in which the school’s theatre faculty decided year after year to exclude Latino plays from their theatre on the Mexican border

Challenges in cross-cultural/multilingual music information seeking

Understanding and meeting the needs of a broad range of music users across different cultures and languages are central in designing a global music digital library. This exploratory study examines cross-cultural/multilingual music information seeking behaviors and reveals some important characteristics of these behaviors by analyzing 107 authentic music information queries from a Korean knowledge search portal Naver (knowledge) iN and 150 queries from Google Answers website. We conclude that new sets of access points must be developed to accommodate music queries that cross cultural or language boundaries