Culture-Based Education: Lessons from Indigenous Education in the U.S. and Southeast Asia

Abstract Cultured–based pedagogy has been positively related to students’ socio-emotional well-being, civic engagement, school motivation and higher academic outcomes, particularly with culturally-diverse students is concerned. This paper examines the benefits of culture-based education in the context of indigenous education in the United States as well as in communities in Southeast Asia. It also demonstrates the possibilities that may arise when communities are able to guide the education of their children and ensure meaning to their lives.


CULTURE-BASED EDUCATION
Despite the early recognition of the centrality of culture to education, the ethnocentrism of the dominant groups persists in the form of assimilation programs even to the present time. It has most recently been manifested in the United States in various anti-bilingual education initiatives passed in California, Arizona and Massachusetts in the past two decades (Cushner, McClelland, & Safford, 2012;Garcia, Skutnabb-Kangas, & Torres-Guzman, 2005;Espinoza-Herold, 2013).
Many recent publications on CBE reflect an increasing concern over the Native student achievement gap and the apparent cultural disconnections among teachers, students and schools (Klinger et al., 2005;Garcia, Skutnabb-Kangas, & Torres-Guzman, 2005;Nieto, 2010). While others emphasize cultural revitalization, honoring a rich heritage and attending to a host of other social and economic issues that arose primarily from more hegemonic, colonial approaches to education. For them, CBE can have a healing impact on Indigenous communities through addressing issues particular to students and their families (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012;Saifer, 9 CULTURE-BASED EDUCATION Barnhardt and Kawagley (2005) reiterate the concern over the mismatch between the processes of mainstream schooling and educational needs of Indigenous children in the United States. They note that the teaching methods of mainstream schools have not recognized or appreciated Indigenous knowledge systems that focus on inter-relationships and interconnectivity. They point out: "Indigenous knowledge is not static; an unchanging artifact of a former life way. It has been adapting to the contemporary world since contact with "others" began, and it will continue to change" (p. 12).

Indigenous Culture-based Education in the United States
On the other hand, Miranda Wright (2010)  In considering Culture-Based Education (CBE), attention should be given to "cultural difference theory" that posits one source of learning difficulties for culturally-diverse students emanate from a cultural mismatch between students home culture and the culture of the school (Demmert & Towner, 2003) .
The critical pedagogy research field also supports the concept of CBE. It requires that teachers learn about students' lives and encourage them to become self-directed learners who think for themselves about issues they and their fellow community members encounter in their lives. Teachers must work towards understanding to the best of their ability the culture and home backgrounds of their students because cultural-misunderstandings can create tensions between teachers and students. However, these conflicts can be significantly reduced by educators establishing working partnerships with families with the explicit purpose of gaining better understanding of students' culture (Gay, 2010;Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012;Nieto, 2010;Saifer, Edwards, Ellis, Ko, & Stuczynski, 2011).
In their extensive review of tribal critical-race theory in the CBE field, Castagno and Brayboy (2008) argue that "The increased emphasis on standardization and high-stakes accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 seems to have resulted in less, rather 11 CULTURE-BASED EDUCATION than more gains, leaving behind culturally-diverse children in our school systems" (p. 942). They further note that there are only two dominant models of Indigenous education in the U.S.; The assimilative model and the culturally responsive model. By referring to research studies on assimilative model, they conclude that "there is no evidence that the assimilative model improves academic success; there is growing evidence that CBE does, in fact, improve academic success for American Indian/Alaska Native children" (p. 937).
A growing body of research sustains that CBE is an approach to teaching and learning that facilitates critical consciousness, engenders respect for diversity and acknowledges the importance of relationships, while honoring, building on, and drawing from the culture, knowledge, and language of students, teachers, and local community. It is both a means of attending to prominent educational issues, and a pledge to respond to the specific needs of students, their families, and their communities (Garcia, Skutnabb-Kangas, & Torres-Guzman,

Practices and Prejudices of Culture-based Education
Despite the diversity of student population in today's schools, students from nonmainstream communities are still expected to adapt to the monolithic culture in which the processes and knowledge base of the schools are embedded. These students operate from two worldviews and often have two or more cultures to contend with (Banks & Banks, 2010;Kottak & Kozaitis, 2012;Nieto, 2010;Saifer, Edwards, Ellis, Ko, & Stuczynski, 2011). Thus, incorporation of discourse and cultural learning styles is an empowering and practical strategy for teachers to show that all their students are equally valued and treated.
It can be inferred that the one of the strengths of CBE is its attention to students' culture and experience, as it provides a framework for transforming education for culturally-diverse CULTURE-BASED EDUCATION students and their teachers (Banks & Banks, 2010;Cushner, McClelland, & Safford, 2012;Gay, 2010;Garcia, Skutnabb-Kangas, & Torres-Guzman, 2005). Likewise, McAlpine and Crago (1995) argue that conflict between classroom culture and home culture may make it difficult for children to participate in class or force children to deny their family and heritage in order to succeed in a culturally alien school. Kaiwi and Kahumoku (2006) found that the introduction of a Native Hawaiian approach to analyze literature, by acknowledging and validating students' perspectives, really empowers them by demonstrating a sustained connection to ancestors, greater appreciation for parents and grandparents, and an increased desire to learn. Other researchers contend that CBE has also an emancipatory nature; it guides students in understanding that no single version of "truth" is total and permanent (Banks & Banks, 2010;Gay, 2010). However, for this, teachers should make authentic knowledge about different ethnic groups accessible to students, including increased concentration on academic learning tasks, insightful thinking; more caring, concerned, and humane interpersonal skills; better understanding of interconnections among individual, local, national, ethnic, global, and human identities; and acceptance of knowledge as something to be continuously shared, critiqued, revised, and renewed (Gay, 2010, p. 37).
Thus, to increase student success, it is imperative that teachers help their students to bridge the discontinuity between home and school cultures and contexts (Allen&Boykin, 1992). ACBE environment minimizes the students' alienation as they attempt to adjust to the different "world" of school. To this effect Skutnabb-Kangas et al., (2009) suggest: "Marginalized peoples who undergo culturally and linguistically appropriate education are better equipped both to maintain and develop their cultures and to participate in the wider society" (p. xvii). It means that CBE is empowering because it enables students to be better human beings and more successful 13 CULTURE-BASED EDUCATION learners.
In recent times, some Indigenous scholars and activists also reiterated that one key to the regeneration of the political power of their people and culture lies in a reorganization of political structures and educational systems to reflect Indigenous knowledge and ways of learning. Banks and Banks (2010) argue that if education is to empower marginalized groups, it must be transformative. For them, being transformative involves helping students to develop the knowledge, skills, and values needed to become social critics who can make reflective decisions and implement their decisions in effective personal, social, political, and economic actions. In this respect, Gilbert (2011) argues that CBE is mostly absent from current national curriculum and pedagogy because it has been assumed that if native language and culture is incorporated, then it must be delivered separately from other content areas which would require additional time and resources. It is important to note that sometimes teachers develop their own ethnocentric attitude towards students of a particular ethnic group and treat them differently, based on preoccupied notion of stereotyping. Pai and Adler (2001) emphasize the need for educators to be cognizant about other cultural beliefs and practices, writing: It is essential for educators to know how or at what point the values held by the various ethnic groups may come into conflict with school goals…Navajos are said to prize group harmony and hence conformity to the group norm…a Navajo child may be helped to learn function differently in school and in the Navajo community. (p. 171) So it can be suggested that it is imperative for teachers to understand not only how student's ethnicity shapes students' learning experiences, but also how the teachers' own ethnicity shapes and determines how they categorize children as well as their classroom practices. Culture-based education is not only means of attending to prominent educational