Desettling History: Non-Indigenous Teachers’ Practices and Tensions Engaging Indigenous Knowledges

Abstract

Background/Context:

For educators committed to unraveling racism and colonial bias in world history courses, challenges persist—particularly with Indigenous peoples and knowledges. Typical history curriculum, standards, and instructional tools misrepresent Indigenous peoples and knowledges in damaging and inaccurate ways. In cities, where Indigenous peoples and the natural world are often presumed distant, teachers may especially struggle to disrupt these patterns.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study:

This study explores the efforts of two experienced urban secondary teachers nominated by local Indigenous educators, asking: How do teachers craft globally-oriented history instruction that engages Indigenous knowledges in historical inquiry?

Population/Participants/Subjects:

Both participants were experienced social studies teachers in or near West Coast cities, in public schools with strong racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity. Julie (a white woman in her late 50s) taught in a small alternative middle school, while Teacher X (a Xicano/Latino man in his early 40s) taught in a large comprehensive high school.

Research Design:

This qualitative comparative case study relied on teacher interviews, class observations, and document analysis. Student and colleague interviews supported triangulation.

Findings/Results:

Findings indicate three teaching practices for desettling expectations (Bang et al., 2012) in historical inquiry: (1) strengthening context for Indigenous knowledges and sovereignty to counter colonial patterns of erasure; (2) using historiographical counter-narratives to show how interpretations of history are situated in colonial power relations; and (3) offering experiential and place-based learning with Indigenous knowledges beyond the classroom. Although both teachers worked to desettle expectations in these ways, only one showed consistency with centering Indigenous knowledges in observed practice.

Conclusions/Recommendations:

Personal resonance with relational and place-based learning appears crucial for teaching Indigenous historical perspectives meaningfully, which may prove challenging for teachers who identify as “urban” in ways perceived as distant from the natural world. Combined with the three practices above, teachers’ ongoing, reciprocal relationships with Indigenous peoples and homelands shaped their effectiveness in engaging Indigenous knowledges as valid and generative for historical inquiry, offering implications for practitioners and scholars in global historical inquiry and teacher education.