Building a school profile for Indigenous students to achieve equitable educational outcomes

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to underscore critical tensions between Indigenous youth, members of school communities and communities at large, which inspired an initiative, Stewards Observing and Advocating Responsive Relationships (SOARR) to develop a community–school–university collaborative to identify and address challenges in one Southwestern North American public high school. Design/methodology/approach: A team of educators aimed to co-construct a critical inquiry at this specific high school drawing on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy of Relations (CRPRs) with a leadership team, staff and community members committed to education. This initiative focused on a team collaboratively engaging in evidence-based inquiry to improve the educational outcomes for indigenous students specifically and all students generally. The team pondered the question, “How do we address current educational disparities for Indigenous students?” This research paper focuses on reporting on one of the three phases in the initiative, profiling surveys that promoted consciousness-raising within and among the team members. Findings: Some tensions that existed included the impact of tenuous relationships between students, staff, parent/guardians and community members and the interrelationship that it has on student achievement. Other tensions highlighted the inability to recognize the cultural capital of minority students reflected in schools, which provides a disconnect for a number of minority students. The educational outcomes for Indigenous students focused on academic achievement that simultaneously embraces cultural identity. This included a shift from assessing educational achievement by Indigenous to the more complicated space of educational achievement as Indigenous. Originality/value: This paper describes the first phase of an initiative. The intent of this work was to create a culture shift using a CRPR framework that would both address the experiences of Indigenous students as well as more broadly recognize indigenous epistemologies as a source of knowledge.