TribalCrit, Curriculum Mining, and the Teaching of Contemporary Indigenous Issues

Abstract

Dominant discourses in U.S. History are typically engaged through a settler-colonial framework. Informed by the ubiquity of commercial presentations, cultural tropes, and caricatures—movies, consumer products, and names—the “presentation” of Native Americans tend to focus on incomplete representations that are cast in the past. This article conceptualizes how teachers can engage anti-colonial perspectives through the practice of curriculum mining and the use of the Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit) framework in the teaching of contemporary realities of Native Americans. It also traces the presentation of Native peoples in curriculum and the function of traditional narratives. Included in the article is a sample lesson template on contemporary Indigenous issues that is applicable for middle schoolers. A resource section at the end of the article provides supplemental resources that focus on various Indigenous curricula, and news outlets so educators can more adeptly explore contemporary issues via social, historical, and cultural contexts in their pedagogical practice by utilizing the process of curriculum mining and theoretical framework of TribalCrit when exploring how to more critically engage curriculum standards.