ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to understand and illustrate confl icts between local indigenous knowledges and global knowledges in educational policy and pedagogical practices. It is divided into three sections. The fi rst section offers a brief overview of the theoretical debate around culturalism. The second section takes as an example the context of indigenous education in Brazil, where, in spite of the fact that present offi cial policy purports to valorize and defend local knowledges against previous policies of assimilation and extermination, it encounters what appears to be resistance on the part of indigenous communities. This section proposes a means of understanding this resistance and the profound cultural confl icts and perceptions on which it is based. The last section outlines the implications of the theoretical debates and example of indigenous education in Brazil to educational agendas based on social justice. This section presents the conceptual framework of the educational project “Through Other Eyes” (TOE) as an example of an attempt to address the issues and challenges identifi ed in this chapter.
