Decolonizing Agency: A Framework for an Inclusive Co-Design of Behavioral Support Systems in Indigenous Land

Abstract

Racial disproportionality in special education and school discipline remains a persistent social justice issue in the U.S. education system. Drawing from a 4-year-long school-community-university partnership within an Anishinaabe Band of Ojibwe in northern Wisconsin, we propose a theoretical and practical framework called decolonizing agency to address racial disproportionality through systemic transformation. Decolonizing agency transcends the recognition and utilization of others’ support in solving wicked education problems. It requires policy actors to draw from the historical legacies of oppression, racism, and systemic racial violence embedded within everyday schooling routines. It also entails surpassing epistemic ignorance to understand inequity problems, shifting from an individual approach to a systemic one. Lastly, the decolonizing agency demands that policy actors and educators center the epistemology, ontology, and value system of families, communities, and students from historically marginalized backgrounds as the knowledge producers. Informed by data and theory, we suggest six dimensions of decolonizing agency as core principles that educators and policy actors across decision-making levels can adopt to address their unique inequity issues.