Ancient and Indigenous Wisdom Traditions in the Americas Towards More Balanced and Inclusive Curricular Representations and Classroom Practices Studies in Curriculum Theory Series

This book brings attention to the understudied and often overlooked question of how curricula and classroom practices might inadvertently reproduce exclusionary discourses and narratives that omit or negate particular cultures, histories, and wisdom traditions.

With a focus on representations and classroom practices related especially to ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions and cultures, it includes unique contributions from scholars studying these questions in various contexts. The book offers a range of important studies from various contexts across the Americas, including Canada, the various member nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Puerto Rico, and the United States. The various chapter contributions address and discuss nuances of each of the contexts under study. The contributions also help highlight some key commonalities across these contexts, including how dominant discourses and various forces have historically shaped?and continue to shape and reproduce? such omissions, misrepresentations, and marginalization. In addition to seeking to reconcile with some of these ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions and cultures, the book charts a path forward towards more holistic analytical frameworks as well as more inclusive and balanced representations and classroom practices in these aforementioned geographic contexts and beyond.

It will appeal to scholars, researchers, undergraduate, and graduate students with interests in Indigenous education, curriculum studies, citizenship education, history of education, religion, and educational policy.

Introduction – Historical and Living Indigenous Wisdom Traditions in Contention: Why This Edited Volume? 1. Revitalizing Indigenous Belief Systems: Implications for Curriculum 2. ReStorying Matricultures 3. Indigenous Epistemic Interventions for State Curriculum: Moving Beyond the Abrahamic Covenant of Manifest Destiny 4. Morality and Indigenous Knowledge: Exploring Canadian Educational Contexts 5. Curricula or Local Relationships and Knowledge: Which Is the Chicken and Which the Egg? 6. History Education at the Anishinaabeg Serpent Mounds 7. Eurocentric Critiques of Eurocentricism: The Portrayal of Taíno Religious Beliefs in Social Studies and History Textbooks in Puerto Rico 8. Religion and Regionalism: Constructing the Ideal Caribbean Person Through Abrahamic and Non-Abrahamic Religious Education in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) 9. Decolonial Restorying: Interrupting Christian Coloniality of Relations in Canada 10. Conclusion – Towards More Balanced Curricular Representations and More Holistic Analytical Frameworks

Ehaab D. Abdou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada.

Theodore G. Zervas is Professor in the School of Education at North Park University, USA.