This past summer Faculty and students of the International and Comparative Education (ICEd) Program organized and participated in multiple research projects across a wide range of educational topics. To highlight their work, we have published two stories about Transitional Justice and Education in Colombia and Ubumwe: Exploring Arts for Education and Psychosocial Support with Refugee Children and Youth in Uganda. To close our summer 2023 project series, we are dedicating a story about one of the most recent works by Professor Regina Cortina, who is a Professor of Education in our program.
Education Policy Research By, For, and With Indigenous Peoples in Canada, Mexico, and the United States is a publication project by scholars Dr. Teresa McCarty, Dr. Angelina Castagno, Dr. Regina Cortina, Dr. Michelle Pidgeon, and Dr. Lorena Sanchez Tyson. This collaboration will be published by the American Education Research Association in the Handbook of Education Policy Research, 2nd Volume (forthcoming) edited by Dr. Lora Cohen-Vogel, Dr. Janelle Scott, and Dr. Peter Youngs.
This collaborative research project offers a critical analysis of education policy research by, for, and with the 34 million Indigenous Peoples in the vast region occupied by Canada, Mexico, and the United States (US). In each of these countries, Indigenous Peoples have persisted despite colonial and state-sponsored oppression. Education Policy Research By, For, and With Indigenous Peoples centers on growing Indigenous language, culture, and education resurgence movements. It does this by considering the current policy moment and paths forward in education policy research, practice, and praxis involving Indigenous Peoples in Canada, Mexico, and the US.
In addition to the publication, alongside the University Seminar on Indigenous Studies at Columbia University, chaired by Professor Pamela Calla (NYU) and Professor Elizabeth West Hutchinson (Barnard College), the research will be presented on Thursday, October 19 by two of the project scholars: Dr. Pidgeon and Dr. Cortina. Our ICEd Doctoral student, Sara Pan Algarra, serves as rapporteur of the University Seminar on Indigenous Studies, and has been co-leading the organization of this significant event.
- Date: Thursday, October 19
- Time: 4:00 - 5:30 PM
- Location: Faculty House, 64 Morningside Dr, New York, NY 10027
The presentation will be primarily on Canada and Mexico based on Dr. Pidgeon’s and Dr. Cortina’s contribution to this collaborative work. Amanda Earl, PhD Candidate in our ICEd program will be the respondent and discussant during the talk.
Learn more about Dr. Pidgeon’s background!
Dr. Pidgeon (Mi’kmaq ancestry) is passionate about higher education, student services, and Indigeneity. Theoretically and methodologically, her work is guided by an Indigenous wholistic framework with the intentional goals of 1) transforming the educational system for Indigenous peoples and 2) empowering the cultural integrity of all students. As a scholar with international reputation, she has over 35 publications ranging from peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, research reports, and has done 34 keynote addresses and other invited presentations.
Her latest project, Understanding Indigenous ethics and wholism within academic and Aboriginal community research, was awarded a 2018 SSHRC Insight Grant for $270,000 over 5 years. She is a faculty supporter/mentor of SAGE (Supporting Aboriginal Graduate Enhancement) network in BC and across Canada. She served as the inaugural Associate Dean, Indigeneity ʔək̓ʷstənəq ts'up'new̓ásentas (2020-2023) and currently is a Professor and Associate Director, Centre for Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (CSELP) in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada.
Learn more about Dr. Cortina’s background!
Dr. Cortina is Professor of Education in our ICEd program at TC. She has edited a Teachers College Record (October 2022) Special Issue on Teachers College and the Rise of Public Education in Latin America, examining the significant impact of TC on the development of public systems of education in Latin America. Her Presidential Address for the Comparative and International Education Society, entitled “‘The Passion for What is Possible’ in Comparative and International Education,” was published in the Comparative Education Review in November 2019. Dr. Cortina’s teaching and publications are advancing the field by focusing on Decolonial Theories in Comparative Education. Two of her articles were published in 2019 and 2020 in Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.
Dr. Cortina’s book published in 2017, Indigenous Education Policy, Equity, and Intercultural Understanding in Latin America, is a comparative study of policies designed to increase the educational opportunities of Indigenous students, protect their rights to an education inclusive of their cultures and languages, and improve their education outcomes. Her earlier book, The Education of Indigenous Citizens in Latin America (2014), examines unprecedented changes in education across Latin America that resulted from the endorsement of Indigenous people’s rights through the development of bilingual intercultural education.
Dr. Cortina’s other areas of expertise are gender and education, the education and employment of teachers, public policy and education, and the schooling of Latinx students in the United States. Among her other major publications are Women and Teaching: Global Perspectives on the Feminization of a Profession (Palgrave, 2006), Immigrants and Schooling: Mexicans in New York (Center for Migration Studies, 2003), and Distant Alliances: Promoting Education for Girls and Women in Latin America (Routledge, 2000). She has a Ph.D. in Education, a master’s degree in international and Comparative Education, and a master’s degree in political science, all from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Dr. Cortina is past president of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES).
Learn more about Earl’s background!
Amanda Earl is a Ph.D. Candidate in the ICEd program at TC. Her research interests converge around educational policies and teaching practices that affect culturally and linguistically diverse students, particularly Indigenous students in Latin America and recent immigrant students in the US. Amanda’s dissertation research examines the work being done to promote Indigenous languages and knowledges at an Intercultural University in Mexico. She has worked as an educator in a variety of settings, including as a language teacher (grades 6-12) in Philadelphia, and in college access for recent immigrant high school students in New York City.
Event Details
Dinner Invitation
After the event, there will be a dinner held in the same venue (Faculty House at Columbia University) from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Dinner is optional and separate from the talk itself. The full-course dinner’s price is $30 per guest for non-students and $20 for students. Payment can be made with a credit card, US bank checks, or cash. Checks should be made payable to "Columbia University," and the following should be written on the memo line: “[Indigenous Studies] Dinner Payment."
Contact Details
To learn more about this talk and collaborative research project, please contact Dr. Cortina at cortina@tc.columbia.edu or Sara Pan Algarra at sara.panalgarra@tc.columbia.edu.