NORTH AMERICAN IK LITERATURE PERTAINING TO INDIGENOUS TERTIARY EDUCATION

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CHAPTER 4 FIELD RESEARCH STUDY METHODS & PROCEDURES

 INTRODUCTION

In Chapter 4 the study’s methods and procedures will be described.
Field research on the Big Island Lake Cree Nation included planning and preparatory meetings with the former Chief’s Planning and Development Adviser, informal and formal interviews with Big Island Lake Cree Nation Elders, with First Nations teachers from the Big Island Lake Cree Nation secondary school, (one of whom is the principal) and with the Big Island Lake Cree Nation leadership, represented by the currently re-elected Chief. Further field research included formal interviews with non-Big Island Lake Cree Nation Elders and non-Big Island Lake Cree Nation tertiary faculty-members, experienced in teaching Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in conventional, mainstream institutions. In the first section of this chapter the selection and characteristics of the research approach will be summarized. In the second section the research design will be described. In the third, the research activities will be described. In the fourth, the research methodology will be stipulated. In the fifth, the data collection, inclusive of study context, gaining entry, interviews and field notes will describe the collection of data from Big Island Lake Cree Nation Elders, secondary school staff members and elected Big Island Lake Cree Nation government leaders. This section will also describe interviews with non Big Island Lake Cree Nation Elders as well as non Big Island Lake experienced professors from conventional mainstream institutions. The sixth section will focus on measures taken to assure the integrity and trustworthiness of the research. A seventh section will outline ethical concerns of the study and the eighth section will both summarize this chapter and outline chapter five, describing how the data will be treated. Chapter five, by converging and analyzing the data from chapters two, three and four will provide answers to the study’s two primary questions:

• Can locating the discourse between Saskatchewan Indigenous and Western knowledge systems in an ‘ethical space’ between them contribute to the identification of their complementary diversities, yielding creative interconnections in research, development and teaching relationships that enable each system to preserve its integrity?
• Can a collaborative, multi-venue model, capable of being locally-customised, be developed by Indigenous communities who wish to add a community-based delivery mode, interconnected with others, to the provision of tertiary education for their citizens?

RESEARCH APPROACH

Seeking to achieve an in-depth understanding of the how and why of community tertiary educational decision-making as its primary basis for organizing and reporting results, this study uses a qualitative research approach. It avoids the positivism paradigm of Western science. It seeks to categorize data into patterns as its primary basis for organizing and reporting results. The study holds that cultural and inter-cultural truth is constructed from the ongoing processes of negotiation, and the re-evaluation and refinement of and between knowledges. It therefore uses the constructivist paradigm. This paradigm argues that no knowledge system reflects any external, transcendent realities. For external realities to be considered transcendent, such consideration must be contingent on convention and socio-cultural experience.

RESEARCH DESIGN

In its qualitative approach, this study utilises all three of the major genres yielded in the discussion provided by Gall, Borg and Gall as described by Marshall and Rossman (1999: 3), namely [a) a focus on individual lived experience exemplified by phenomenological approaches and narrative analysis; [b) a focus on society and culture as seen in ethnography and qualitative sociology; and [c) a focus on language and communication expressed by sociolinguistic and semiotic approaches.
Drawing on the precepts of emancipation articulated by Friere (1993: 43-69) and Esteva Suri Prakash (1998: 91-97), this study can also be seen as having some of the characteristics of participatory action research.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Consistent with the participatory action research characteristic of this study, the researcher secured permission, from the former Chief to do fieldwork at Big Island Lake Cree Nation (in mid-2006). He and the Chief then signed the Big Island Lake Cree Nation Code of Ethics, appearing in Appendix A. Next, the researcher held six two-hour preparatory planning meetings with the Chief’s Planning and Development Adviser, a fluently bilingual (Cree and English) Cree Elder with over twenty years experience in many First Nations communities. The Adviser has advised and assisted in the cultural, educational, social, justice, economic and political development of the First Nations communities with which he was involved. He has in-depth perception of the Big Island Lake Cree Nation community priority, planning and policy environment. He was a valuable informant and adviser to the researcher.
The Adviser, in 2005-06, had conducted individual intensive ‘traditional territory’ interviews with forty community Elders (Felix: 2005-06). The purpose was to assess and record Elder perceptions of what the leadership sees as difficulties in maintaining and retaining traditional values, language, culture and way of life (Felix: 2005-06).
The difficulties identified by leadership pertained to nearby non-First Nations agriculture; forestry; hunting; fishing; wild-fur trapping; recreation; commercial exploration and development for crude oil and natural gas; Provincial Park and other activities encroaching upon Big Island Lake jurisdiction and lifestyles. The leadership is particularly concerned with Federal and Provincial government encroachment over Big Island Lake natural resources, traditional lifestyles, community and economic development, community and regional infrastructure, language, education, justice, social services, health services, governance and political jurisdiction.
The Adviser, collaborating with Chief and Council, used the results of his interviews with the Elders to rate them from 1 to 3, with 1 being best, with respect to their cultural knowledge and perception. Eighteen Elders (nine female and nine male) were rated 1. These ratings enabled the researcher to credibly identify Elders rated 1 as what Marshall and Rossman (1999: 113) call Elite interviewees. These eighteen Elder interviewees were identified by the researcher as candidates for combined ethnographic, sociolinguistic and phenomenological reduction intensive interviewing (Creswell 1998: 150). Of these, five (three males and two females) were chosen by the Adviser, with the Chief’s approval, to be formally interviewed intensively by the researcher with the Adviser’s assistance. For the two Elders preferring to be interviewed in Cree, the Adviser served as a credible, capable and trusted interpreter.These interviews enabled the researcher to engage in structural synthesis, involving the imaginative exploration of ‘all possible meanings and divergent perspectives’ with respect to the Indigenous tertiary education phenomenon (Creswell 1998: 150).
In addition to formal interviews, prior informal discussions were held with Elders, as well as the current and former Chief, secondary school staff, parents and other potential interviewees. Following informal interviews, two Indigenous Faculty members from the current Big Island Lake secondary school, one of whom is a school principal, made themselves available, with the Chief’s approval, for formal interviews.

DATA COLLECTION

Prior to the start of the field research, meetings were arranged with the researcher’s co-promoter and two volunteer advisers, both of whom are Ph. D. holders in Education. In addition to having extensive research and planning experience in Indigenous areas, the co-promoter and advisers all have significant experience, teaching both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in conventional, Canadian and U.S.A. mainstream tertiary institutions. During the meetings, the researcher’s proposed interview schedule, using all three of the ethnographic, sociolinguistic and phenomenonological styles was discussed. Using the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the Alaska Native Knowledge Network, the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative, Mpambo and others from chapter three as support sources, the researcher had prepared a draft initial interview schedule. On the basis of these meetings and discussions, the researcher developed a revised draft schedule.
Following further discussions with the co- promoter and advisers, another revised draft was introduced to the researcher’s UNISA promoter. Following her commentary, the schedule was revised and returned.
Subsequent to the promoter’s further commentary, a final draft was reviewed with the Planning and Development Adviser of Big Island Lake Cree Nation who offered his and the Chief’s recommendations. The final interview schedule, appearing in Appendix B, was used in 2006-07.

CHAPTER 1 ORIENTATION and RESEARCH PLAN
1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE PROBLEM
1.2 INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING
1.3 DESCRIPTION OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
1.4 INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IS DISTINCT
1.5 COMPLEMENTARY DIVERSITY AND CREATIVE INTERCONNECTIVITY
1.6 TIME FOR INNOVATIVE ENHANCEMENT?
1.7 CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
1.8 PERSPECTIVES FRAMING THE STUDY
1.9 PROBLEM STATEMENT
1.10 PRIMARY QUESTIONS EXAMINED
1.11 AIMS OF THE STUDY
1.12 OBJECTIVES
1.13 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1.14 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1.15 DELIMITATIONS
1.16 LIMITATIONS
1.17 DEFINITION OF TERMS
1.18 CONCLUSION
1.19 CHAPTER DIVISION OF THE STUDY
CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF SELECTED GLOBAL IK LITERATURE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 COMPLEMENTARY DIVERSITY
2.3 INDIGENOUS AND WESTERN KNOWLEDGE DISTINCTIONS
2.4 ACOMMODATING KNOWLEDGES’ CONTEXTS
2.5 MULTIPLE KNOWLEDGE CENTRES
2.6 ENDOGINISATION of PLURALISM
2.7. ACADEMIC IMPERIALISM and COLONIALISM
2.8.0 ASYMMETRICAL KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS
2.9. A MODEL for TRANSFORMING PRACTISE
2.10 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 3 NORTH AMERICAN IK LITERATURE PERTAINING TO INDIGENOUS TERTIARY EDUCATION
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 SHEDDING COLONIAL COGNITIVE TRAPPINGS
3.3 SPANNING WORLDVIEWS IN INDIGENOUS TERTIARY EDUCATION
3.4 COMPLEXITY AND CHAOS IN INDIGENOUS TERTIARY EDUCATION
3.5 CONTRASTING WORLDVIEWS AND EPISTEMOLOGIES
3.6 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 4 FIELD RESEARCH STUDY METHODS AND PROCEDURES
4.1. INTRODUCTION
4.2. RESEARCH APPROACH
4.3. RESEARCH DESIGN
4.4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
4.5. DATA COLLECTION
4.6. RESEARCH INTEGRITY (trustworthiness)
4.7. ETHICAL CONCERNS
4.8. CONCLUSION
4.9. TREATMENT OF DATA
CHAPTER 5 DATA ANALYSIS
5.1. INTRODUCTION
5.2. ‘ETHICAL SPACE’ BETWEEN INDIGENOUS AND WESTERN KNOWLEDGES
5.3. SUMMARY OF FORMAL INTERVIEW INFORMANT RESULTS
5.4. CONVERGENCE AND EMPOWERMENT
5.5. INDIGENOUS TERTIARY INITIATIVES
5.6. DECOLONISING INDIGENOUS STUDIES
5.7. INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND ITS KEEPERS
5.8 CRITICAL EMANCIPATORY PEDAGOGY
5.9 CULTURALLY-KNOWLEDGEABLE STUDENTS
5.10. FORGING AN INNOVATIVE INDIGENOUS/WESTERN TERTIARY EDUCATION OPTION
5.11 CREATING A CANADIAN INDIGENOUS MULTIVERSITY
5.12 INITIATING A CANADIAN INDIGENOUS MULTIVERSITY
5.13 PARALLELS WITH INDIGENOUS CONTEXTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS
5.14 WORLDVIEW OF A PROPOSED CANADIAN INDIGENOUS MULTIVERSITY
5.15 PROPOSED OPERATIONAL OBJECTIVES 0F A CANADIAN INDIGENOUS MULTIVERSITY
5.16 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 6 SUMMARIES, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1 INTRODUCTION (OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY)
6.2 OVERALL STUDY SUMMARY
6.3 SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT FINDINGS OF THE STUDY
6.4 CONCLUSIONS
6.5 ESTABLISHMENT OF A MULTIVERSITY’S LANGUAGE OF ARTICULATION
6.6 RECOMMENDATIONS
6.7 CONCLUDING REMARKS
6.8 QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY 
7.1 BOOKS
7.2 JOURNAL, ONLINE AND TEXTBOOK ARTICLES, JOURNALS, PAPERS, and INTERVIEWS
APPENDICES
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CONVERGING INDIGENOUS AND WESTERN KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS: IMPLICATIONS FOR TERTIARY EDUCATION