ABSTRACT

Current efforts to reform Indigenous education in the United States seek to include tribal communities into decision-making processes over curricular and policy matters, promoting an inclusive conversation. An inclusive conversation brings tribal communities and mainstream educators together into dialogue for the purpose of finding common ground. This chapter argues that inclusive conversations are insufficient to reform Indigenous education. Because of colonization, inclusive conversations fail to account for how mainstream educators and tribal groups stand in unequal relations. Rather than inclusive conversations, this chapter proposes a decolonizing conversation for Indigenous education reform, which directly and explicitly addresses colonization and its enduring effects. This chapter develops a meaning of decolonizing conversations by analyzing key concepts in the politics of reconciliation. The concept of survivance is utilized with reconciliation to show what is required for these groups to productively reform Indigenous education. The integration of reconciliation and survivance leads these groups to a more equal relationship.