About the Book
This book brings attention to the understudied and often overlooked question of how curricula and classroom practices might inadvertently reproduce exclusionary discourses and narratives that omit or negate particular cultures, histories, and wisdom traditions.
With a focus on representations and classroom practices related especially to ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions and cultures, it includes unique contributions from scholars studying these questions in various contexts. The book offers a range of important studies from various contexts across the Americas, including Canada, the various member nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Puerto Rico, and the United States. The various chapter contributions address and discuss nuances of each of the contexts under study. The contributions also help highlight some key commonalities across these contexts, including how dominant discourses and various forces have historically shaped—and continue to shape and reproduce— such omissions, misrepresentations, and marginalization. In addition to seeking to reconcile with some of these ancient and Indigenous wisdom traditions and cultures, the book charts a path forward toward more holistic analytical frameworks as well as more inclusive and balanced representations and classroom practices in these aforementioned geographic contexts and beyond.
It will appeal to scholars, researchers, undergraduate, and graduate students with interests in Indigenous education, curriculum studies, citizenship education, history of education, religion, and educational policy.
Table of Contents:
Introduction – Historical and Living Indigenous Wisdom Traditions in Contention: Why This Edited Volume? 1. Revitalizing Indigenous Belief Systems: Implications for Curriculum 2. ReStorying Matricultures 3. Indigenous Epistemic Interventions for State Curriculum: Moving Beyond the Abrahamic Covenant of Manifest Destiny 4. Morality and Indigenous Knowledge: Exploring Canadian Educational Contexts 5. Curricula or Local Relationships and Knowledge: Which Is the Chicken and Which the Egg? 6. History Education at the Anishinaabeg Serpent Mounds 7. Eurocentric Critiques of Eurocentricism: The Portrayal of Taíno Religious Beliefs in Social Studies and History Textbooks in Puerto Rico 8. Religion and Regionalism: Constructing the Ideal Caribbean Person Through Abrahamic and Non-Abrahamic Religious Education in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) 9. Decolonial Restorying: Interrupting Christian Coloniality of Relations in Canada 10. Conclusion – Towards More Balanced Curricular Representations and More Holistic Analytical Frameworks
About the Author :
Ehaab D. Abdou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada.
Theodore G. Zervas is Professor in the School of Education at North Park University, USA.
Review :
“Ancient and Indigenous Wisdom Traditions in the Americas: Towards More Balanced Curricular Representations and Classroom Practices offers a timely vision of pluriversalism. The editors’ approach, long overdue, will be welcomed given the systematic sidelining of non-Abrahamic sources of knowledge and practice (notably, Indigenous ones) and the light such knowledges can shed on ecological, socio-economic, political and educational crises. Each chapter critically engages with a wisdom tradition’s epistemic groundings, its misrepresentation (especially in textbooks), and alternatives. Abdou and Zervas’ volume will be invaluable in prompting scholars, educational leaders, teachers and students to confront and redress curricular omissions, working collectively towards actualizing a more rightful balance.” - Dr. Teresa Strong-Wilson, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
“Abdou & Zervas offer a superbly curated conversation that brings critical, postcolonial and postmodernist perspectives to bear on the understudied curriculum of Indigenous Peoples’ wisdom traditions. The chapters in this pedagogically useful, theoretically rich book work together to analyze, understand and critique—with ethical eyes wide open—the curricular representations, histories and contributions of Indigenous Peoples and their wisdom traditions alongside histories of educational violence—epistemological, ontological and corporeal. Without trying to replace one tradition with another, this important volume asks readers to do the same with a complexity that advances postcolonial, decolonial and anticolonial perspectives in curriculum studies and beyond. I have waited some time for a book that does what this volume does so exquisitely and can’t wait to think my way through it again, this time with students.” - Dr. Laura Jewett, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, Texas, USA
“This important volume charts a difficult path beyond the so-called "World Religions" paradigm toward a more nuanced, appreciative account of diverse Indigenous traditions and life-ways. A worthy contribution, for classroom and study alike." - Dr. Reid B. Locklin, St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
“In this rich and well researched book, Ehaab Abdou and Theodore Zervas make a compelling case for both the need for, and benefit of, highlighting long-neglected marginalized religious identities in different national communities. Each chapter contributes to the book's premise in its own unique way, providing readers with an engaging variety of methodologies, cultures, data, and analyses. I would particularly recommend it for graduate students (as well as undergraduate students in specialized, upper-level seminars) in diverse disciplines and fields ranging from anthropology, history, Indigenous studies, religious studies, social studies content and methods courses, as well as any other courses addressing diversity and inclusion issues.” - Dr. Jeremy Jiménez, State University of New York (SUNY), Cortland, USA
“Ehaab D. Abdou and Theodore G. Zervas have produced a cutting edge, invaluable resource for those committed to the task of decolonizing education. Ancient and Indigenous Wisdom Traditions in the Americas calls for educational and religious institutions to ethically engage both living and extinct wisdom traditions in a way that displaces simplistic binaries serving dominant religions and that exposes dangerous generalizations enabling hegemonies. This important book envisions a pluriversalism in service of the common good that delineates prosocial and inclusive interpretations of the religions for the flourishing of all creation. This incredible resource deserves a wide reading.” - Dr. Allen Jorgenson, Martin Luther University College, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
“It is often asserted that history is crafted by the victors. The educational materials brought in or imposed by colonizers, particularly those pertaining to history or religion, solidified this hierarchical relationship over the colonized. Consequently, the cultural heritage of the colonized was consistently portrayed as uncivilized, wild, or pagan. Hence, the timely significance of this volume, which scrutinizes curricular representations of Indigenous Peoples' contributions and histories, whether formulated by contemporary populations or past colonizers. The meticulous editorial efforts of Ehaab D. Abdou and Theodore G. Zervas, alongside their contributing authors, have successfully illuminated the role of Education, employing postcolonial and postmodernist perspectives, in ushering in a new era of knowledge production that advocates tolerance and respect for diversity. The volume is poised to receive acclaim from various disciplines, including Postcolonial and Cultural Studies, Comparative Religious Studies, Comparative Education, and Post-Eurocentric Studies.” - Dr. Hany Rashwan, United Arab Emirates University, UAE & University of Birmingham, UK
"These two volumes do an excellent job of holding up a problem for careful scrutiny from as many sides as possible. Looking at the various ways that diverse knowledge traditions come into contact, conflict and collaboration in educational settings, these chapters range widely yet also form a coherent conversation that readers are warmly welcomed into.” - Dr. Noah W. Sobe, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
“These volumes provide important and useful contributions to Dr. Pinar’s curriculum theorizing series. Curriculum work is both global in reach and local in its implementation and context. Herein lie some challenges to the field, which can be both too broad and myopic. The two volumes stand together well, with a strong conceptualization, and that demonstrate excellent scholarship.” - Dr. Theodore Christou, Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
“These two edited volumes present an original and thoughtful approach to teaching practices and curricula worldwide, addressing silences, omissions, and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples. The contributors aim to heighten critical awareness regarding the prevailing canon of Western wisdom, encouraging educators and students to cultivate inclusive, multi-perspective, and tolerant attitudes. They prompt reflection on ancient, pre-Abrahamic wisdom traditions as a means of overcoming Eurocentrism and reconciling with our past. In a world grappling with multiple crises such as the climate crisis, poverty, war, racism, and authoritarian regimes, schools play a crucial role in educating democratic citizens transcending national borders. Abdou and Zervas provide a work that responds to the demand for an ecumenical pedagogy that both respects and integrates diversity.” - Dr. Christina Koulouri, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece
“The collection of essays found in these volumes arrives at a time when faith in the old social, political, and economic orders are vanishing, yet there seems to be no consensus around where new directions might be found. The strength of these volumes lies in the ecumenical way they respond to our current historical moment. Readers will find deep and considered engagements around what a range of wisdom traditions, including those rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems and pre-Abrahamic traditions, might bring to questions of curriculum and pedagogy. These volumes will be of interest to anyone looking for inspiration around how the project of education might work in service of new ways of storying our place in the world, and our relations with one another and the ecological systems that give us life.” - Dr. David Scott, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
