Leilani Sabzalian
Biographic Data
| ID | 195374 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Leilani Sabzalian |
| GIVEN NAMES | Leilani |
| FAMILY NAME | Sabzalian |
| SIGNATURE | SABZALIAN L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oregon |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6002-2776 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
You can't cram for this kind of education: Centering Indigenous Elder pedagogy to reclaim respectful and socially just education
Disrupting harmful legacies of Western education by honoring the living heritage of Indigenous knowledge systems
Indigenous peoples have knowledge systems that have sustained cultural teachings and lifeways for thousands of years. Settler colonial logics and systems have disrupted and threatened Indigenous knowledge systems through multiple forms of oppression, including land dispossession, linguicide, and disrupting traditional kinship relationships. Western education systems are central and foundational to this violent process; our paper describes efforts…
Indigenous Futurities in Curriculum
SPECIAL ISSUE with an exercise that brings our ancestors and us together as we engage our thinking and action around Indigenous futurities in curriculum.We ask, "What land or water do you carry with you today?Who do you bring with you?" 1 I (Hollie) carry with me, Tsoodzi.This is one of the sacred mountains of the Din that is located between Gallup and Albuquerque, New Mexico.My mother and matrilineal line is from an area west of Tsoodzi.I bring …
Settler Social Studies: On Disappointment and Hope for the Future
Indigenous Genealogies of Relational Knowledge: Cedar Tree and Gray Squirrel as Important Relatives and Teachers
Indigenous peoples have education systems thousands of years old that have sustained our peoples in respectful relation with place. The backbone of our education systems is our stories and storytelling traditions. Beyond mere intellectual or analytical “texts” or “literature”, our stories place us in webs of relationships with sacred responsibilities. In this article, we discuss the importance of Indigenous genealogies of knowledge from both pers…
Centering Indigenous Brilliance in 'The Stories We Tell'☆
Indigenous stories are the backbone of Indigenous education systems. While Indigenous communities are still grappling with settler colonial-imposed violence, many Indigenous Nations are engaging in what Leanne Betasamosake Simpson describes as Indigenous resurgence. In our paper, we draw from our own Indigenous communities' teachings and discuss our peoples' ongoing storytelling traditions as important forms of resurgence, which contribute to a p…
“We should have held this in a circle”: White ignorance and answerability in outdoor education
This critical ethnography highlights an ongoing research partnership between two Indigenous studies scholars and their effort to prepare outdoor educators to support Indigenous students more effectively in their programs. After a listening session at the Oregon Indian Education Association annual conference where Indigenous educators and community members urged the Oregon State University Outdoor SchoolFootnote1 program to address how outdoor edu…
Standardizing Indigenous erasure: A TribalCrit and QuantCrit analysis of K–12 U.S. civics and government standards
This article details a national study of U.S. K–12 civics and government state-mandated standards, drawing specific attention to how Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty are represented. Utilizing QuantCrit methodologies informed by Tribal Critical Race Theory, this study makes visible colonial logics embedded within state civics and government standards that normalize the erasure of Indigenous nationhood, or that subtly and discursively erase I…
The Urgent Need for Anticolonial Media Literacy
In this article, we advocate for anticolonial media literacy as an important complement to critical race media literacy. Given the pervasive misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in media, teachers must explicitly learn to challenge colonizing and dehumanizing representations of Indigenous life and help their students to do the same. By outlining several Native studies theories, we forward anticolonial media literacy to help teachers detect and…
Halloween Costumes and Native Identity
This chapter documents a high school Native youth group’s organizing around issues of cultural appropriation, including a critical literacy activity in which students write a collaborative letter to Spirit Halloween store condemning their sale of Indian costumes. This story then follows one student as she attempts to bring her new knowledge on this topic to her classroom, only to be shut down by her teacher, Sharon, who doesn’t understand “what t…
Native Sheroes and Complex Personhood
This chapter builds on the themes of identity and authenticity. This survivance story describes a Native student’s experience with a social studies unit in which she has the opportunity to research a contemporary Native leader. While highlighting the promising pathways this curriculum offered her to learn about a Native shero and bring her own cultural identity into the classroom, this story also draws attention to the complexity of Indigenous id…
Education on the Border of Sovereignty
This chapter moves beyond the classroom and school to consider the possibilities that emerge when teachers, schools, and districts welcome Indigenous knowledges and share power with Indigenous communities. First focusing on a classroom presentation by two Native educators, the story illustrates the ways colonial ideologies are often projected on Indigenous peoples, and how Indigenous peoples refuse such containment—in this case, the educators’ re…
Pilgrims and Invented Indians
This chapter opens with Zeik, a 2nd grade Native student, who resists the classic settler Thanksgiving narrative of hardworking pilgrims and welcoming Indians. By documenting how Zeik courageously speaks up in class to address what he considers a stereotypical portrayal of Indians, this survivance story highlights the unnecessary pressures stereotypical representations place on young children. Moreover, this story demonstrates that Native student…
Little Anthropologists
This chapter describes a Native American unit taught in a 5th grade classroom. While the survivance story focuses on the curriculum and teaching of two teachers in particular, the structure of the curriculum is broader in scope. At this particular school, a public pedagogical component of this unit in which 5th grade students present their findings to the rest of the kindergarten through fourth grade student body, elevates the scope of curriculum…
Native Heritage Month
This chapter focuses on curriculum at the institutional level. For the first time in its history, an elementary school in the district formally acknowledged Native Heritage Month as a school. To do so, the principal invited a Native dancer to perform at a schoolwide assembly. While the performance may have provided a culturally relevant experience for Native students, the performance also invited the broader student population’s stereotypical pri…
Conclusion
This chapter summarizes some of the more general insights and recommendations that emerge from the survivance stories for schools and districts, teacher education programs, educational policy, and research. Its central argument is that Indigenous education is a shared responsibility and that support for Indigenous education must become institutionalized. Further, this chapter advocates for in-service and preservice teacher education that cultivat…
The tensions between Indigenous sovereignty and multicultural citizenship education: Toward an anticolonial approach to civic education
Indigenous studies complicates and advances existing notions of citizenship education, in particular, by making visible ongoing legacies of colonialism and foregrounding Indigenous sovereignty. In this article, the author examines how the erasure of Indigenous citizenship, nationhood, and sovereignty permeates multicultural citizenship education. Theories of ignorance are then used to discuss various interests that underlie these erasures. By foc…
We Need to Make Action NOW, to Help Keep the Language Alive”: Navigating Tensions of Engaging Indigenous Educational Values in University Education
Despite centuries of contact and conquest, Indigenous communities persist in maintaining their cultures and psychologies. Key to this success in cultural survival is the maintenance of Indigenous languages, which contain distinct worldviews. However, Indigenous languages are at risk, with fewer and fewer fluent Elder speakers. Fortunately, there remain committed groups of community educators who carry out Indigenous language education. Current ma…
Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education
Michelle M. Jacob, Virginia R. Beavert, Regan Anderson, Leilani Sabzalian, Joana Jansen, Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education, Feminist Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2-3, Indigenous Feminisms in Settler Contexts (2019), pp. 290-311
Indigenous Children's Survivance in Public Schools
Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools examines the cultural, social, and political terrain of Indigenous education by providing accounts of Indigenous students and educators creatively navigating the colonial dynamics within public schools. Through a series of survivance stories, the book surveys a range of educational issues, including implementation of Native-themed curriculum, teachers’ attempts to support Native students in their…
Curricular standpoints and native feminist theories: Why native feminist theories should matter to curriculum studies
In this article I provide a brief overview of feminist standpoint theories, as well as how Native feminist theories complicate and enrich this political and epistemic tradition. Following this overview, I introduce Wayne Au’s conception of curricular standpoint theory as a contemporary and productive use of feminist standpoint theory to address the politics of curriculum. After outlining the affordances and enactments of curricular standpoint the…
The Gift of Education: How Indigenous Knowledges Can Transform the Future of Public Education
This article advocates for the necessity of Indigenous Knowledges in furthering Indigenous self-determination in public schools, as well as furthering the broad aims of public education. Drawing attention to past efforts across the United States to transform the public school curriculum and analyzing data from testimonies given at Oregon State Legislature Hearings, we argue that Indigenous Knowledges offer an important resource for educating all …
Indigenous Children's Survivance in Public Schools
Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools examines the cultural, social, and political terrain of Indigenous education by providing accounts of Indigenous students and educators creatively navigating the colonial dynamics within public schools. Through a series of survivance stories, the book surveys a range of educational issues, including implementation of Native-themed curriculum, teachers’ attempts to support Native students in their…
Standardizing Indigenous erasure: A TribalCrit and QuantCrit analysis of K–12 U.S. civics and government standards
This article details a national study of U.S. K–12 civics and government state-mandated standards, drawing specific attention to how Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty are represented. Utilizing QuantCrit methodologies informed by Tribal Critical Race Theory, this study makes visible colonial logics embedded within state civics and government standards that normalize the erasure of Indigenous nationhood, or that subtly and discursively erase I…
The tensions between Indigenous sovereignty and multicultural citizenship education: Toward an anticolonial approach to civic education
Indigenous studies complicates and advances existing notions of citizenship education, in particular, by making visible ongoing legacies of colonialism and foregrounding Indigenous sovereignty. In this article, the author examines how the erasure of Indigenous citizenship, nationhood, and sovereignty permeates multicultural citizenship education. Theories of ignorance are then used to discuss various interests that underlie these erasures. By foc…
The Gift of Education: How Indigenous Knowledges Can Transform the Future of Public Education
This article advocates for the necessity of Indigenous Knowledges in furthering Indigenous self-determination in public schools, as well as furthering the broad aims of public education. Drawing attention to past efforts across the United States to transform the public school curriculum and analyzing data from testimonies given at Oregon State Legislature Hearings, we argue that Indigenous Knowledges offer an important resource for educating all …
We Need to Make Action NOW, to Help Keep the Language Alive”: Navigating Tensions of Engaging Indigenous Educational Values in University Education
Despite centuries of contact and conquest, Indigenous communities persist in maintaining their cultures and psychologies. Key to this success in cultural survival is the maintenance of Indigenous languages, which contain distinct worldviews. However, Indigenous languages are at risk, with fewer and fewer fluent Elder speakers. Fortunately, there remain committed groups of community educators who carry out Indigenous language education. Current ma…
Curricular standpoints and native feminist theories: Why native feminist theories should matter to curriculum studies
In this article I provide a brief overview of feminist standpoint theories, as well as how Native feminist theories complicate and enrich this political and epistemic tradition. Following this overview, I introduce Wayne Au’s conception of curricular standpoint theory as a contemporary and productive use of feminist standpoint theory to address the politics of curriculum. After outlining the affordances and enactments of curricular standpoint the…
Disrupting harmful legacies of Western education by honoring the living heritage of Indigenous knowledge systems
Indigenous peoples have knowledge systems that have sustained cultural teachings and lifeways for thousands of years. Settler colonial logics and systems have disrupted and threatened Indigenous knowledge systems through multiple forms of oppression, including land dispossession, linguicide, and disrupting traditional kinship relationships. Western education systems are central and foundational to this violent process; our paper describes efforts…
Indigenous Genealogies of Relational Knowledge: Cedar Tree and Gray Squirrel as Important Relatives and Teachers
Indigenous peoples have education systems thousands of years old that have sustained our peoples in respectful relation with place. The backbone of our education systems is our stories and storytelling traditions. Beyond mere intellectual or analytical “texts” or “literature”, our stories place us in webs of relationships with sacred responsibilities. In this article, we discuss the importance of Indigenous genealogies of knowledge from both pers…
Centering Indigenous Brilliance in 'The Stories We Tell'☆
Indigenous stories are the backbone of Indigenous education systems. While Indigenous communities are still grappling with settler colonial-imposed violence, many Indigenous Nations are engaging in what Leanne Betasamosake Simpson describes as Indigenous resurgence. In our paper, we draw from our own Indigenous communities' teachings and discuss our peoples' ongoing storytelling traditions as important forms of resurgence, which contribute to a p…
The Urgent Need for Anticolonial Media Literacy
In this article, we advocate for anticolonial media literacy as an important complement to critical race media literacy. Given the pervasive misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in media, teachers must explicitly learn to challenge colonizing and dehumanizing representations of Indigenous life and help their students to do the same. By outlining several Native studies theories, we forward anticolonial media literacy to help teachers detect and…
Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education
Michelle M. Jacob, Virginia R. Beavert, Regan Anderson, Leilani Sabzalian, Joana Jansen, Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education, Feminist Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2-3, Indigenous Feminisms in Settler Contexts (2019), pp. 290-311
Curricular standpoints and native feminist theories: Why native feminist theories should matter to curriculum studies
In this article I provide a brief overview of feminist standpoint theories, as well as how Native feminist theories complicate and enrich this political and epistemic tradition. Following this overview, I introduce Wayne Au’s conception of curricular standpoint theory as a contemporary and productive use of feminist standpoint theory to address the politics of curriculum. After outlining the affordances and enactments of curricular standpoint the…
The Gift of Education: How Indigenous Knowledges Can Transform the Future of Public Education
This article advocates for the necessity of Indigenous Knowledges in furthering Indigenous self-determination in public schools, as well as furthering the broad aims of public education. Drawing attention to past efforts across the United States to transform the public school curriculum and analyzing data from testimonies given at Oregon State Legislature Hearings, we argue that Indigenous Knowledges offer an important resource for educating all …
Halloween Costumes and Native Identity
This chapter documents a high school Native youth group’s organizing around issues of cultural appropriation, including a critical literacy activity in which students write a collaborative letter to Spirit Halloween store condemning their sale of Indian costumes. This story then follows one student as she attempts to bring her new knowledge on this topic to her classroom, only to be shut down by her teacher, Sharon, who doesn’t understand “what t…
Native Sheroes and Complex Personhood
This chapter builds on the themes of identity and authenticity. This survivance story describes a Native student’s experience with a social studies unit in which she has the opportunity to research a contemporary Native leader. While highlighting the promising pathways this curriculum offered her to learn about a Native shero and bring her own cultural identity into the classroom, this story also draws attention to the complexity of Indigenous id…
Education on the Border of Sovereignty
This chapter moves beyond the classroom and school to consider the possibilities that emerge when teachers, schools, and districts welcome Indigenous knowledges and share power with Indigenous communities. First focusing on a classroom presentation by two Native educators, the story illustrates the ways colonial ideologies are often projected on Indigenous peoples, and how Indigenous peoples refuse such containment—in this case, the educators’ re…
Pilgrims and Invented Indians
This chapter opens with Zeik, a 2nd grade Native student, who resists the classic settler Thanksgiving narrative of hardworking pilgrims and welcoming Indians. By documenting how Zeik courageously speaks up in class to address what he considers a stereotypical portrayal of Indians, this survivance story highlights the unnecessary pressures stereotypical representations place on young children. Moreover, this story demonstrates that Native student…
Little Anthropologists
This chapter describes a Native American unit taught in a 5th grade classroom. While the survivance story focuses on the curriculum and teaching of two teachers in particular, the structure of the curriculum is broader in scope. At this particular school, a public pedagogical component of this unit in which 5th grade students present their findings to the rest of the kindergarten through fourth grade student body, elevates the scope of curriculum…
Native Heritage Month
This chapter focuses on curriculum at the institutional level. For the first time in its history, an elementary school in the district formally acknowledged Native Heritage Month as a school. To do so, the principal invited a Native dancer to perform at a schoolwide assembly. While the performance may have provided a culturally relevant experience for Native students, the performance also invited the broader student population’s stereotypical pri…
Conclusion
This chapter summarizes some of the more general insights and recommendations that emerge from the survivance stories for schools and districts, teacher education programs, educational policy, and research. Its central argument is that Indigenous education is a shared responsibility and that support for Indigenous education must become institutionalized. Further, this chapter advocates for in-service and preservice teacher education that cultivat…
The tensions between Indigenous sovereignty and multicultural citizenship education: Toward an anticolonial approach to civic education
Indigenous studies complicates and advances existing notions of citizenship education, in particular, by making visible ongoing legacies of colonialism and foregrounding Indigenous sovereignty. In this article, the author examines how the erasure of Indigenous citizenship, nationhood, and sovereignty permeates multicultural citizenship education. Theories of ignorance are then used to discuss various interests that underlie these erasures. By foc…
We Need to Make Action NOW, to Help Keep the Language Alive”: Navigating Tensions of Engaging Indigenous Educational Values in University Education
Despite centuries of contact and conquest, Indigenous communities persist in maintaining their cultures and psychologies. Key to this success in cultural survival is the maintenance of Indigenous languages, which contain distinct worldviews. However, Indigenous languages are at risk, with fewer and fewer fluent Elder speakers. Fortunately, there remain committed groups of community educators who carry out Indigenous language education. Current ma…
Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education
Michelle M. Jacob, Virginia R. Beavert, Regan Anderson, Leilani Sabzalian, Joana Jansen, Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education, Feminist Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2-3, Indigenous Feminisms in Settler Contexts (2019), pp. 290-311
Indigenous Children's Survivance in Public Schools
Indigenous Children’s Survivance in Public Schools examines the cultural, social, and political terrain of Indigenous education by providing accounts of Indigenous students and educators creatively navigating the colonial dynamics within public schools. Through a series of survivance stories, the book surveys a range of educational issues, including implementation of Native-themed curriculum, teachers’ attempts to support Native students in their…
The Urgent Need for Anticolonial Media Literacy
In this article, we advocate for anticolonial media literacy as an important complement to critical race media literacy. Given the pervasive misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in media, teachers must explicitly learn to challenge colonizing and dehumanizing representations of Indigenous life and help their students to do the same. By outlining several Native studies theories, we forward anticolonial media literacy to help teachers detect and…
Standardizing Indigenous erasure: A TribalCrit and QuantCrit analysis of K–12 U.S. civics and government standards
This article details a national study of U.S. K–12 civics and government state-mandated standards, drawing specific attention to how Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty are represented. Utilizing QuantCrit methodologies informed by Tribal Critical Race Theory, this study makes visible colonial logics embedded within state civics and government standards that normalize the erasure of Indigenous nationhood, or that subtly and discursively erase I…
“We should have held this in a circle”: White ignorance and answerability in outdoor education
This critical ethnography highlights an ongoing research partnership between two Indigenous studies scholars and their effort to prepare outdoor educators to support Indigenous students more effectively in their programs. After a listening session at the Oregon Indian Education Association annual conference where Indigenous educators and community members urged the Oregon State University Outdoor SchoolFootnote1 program to address how outdoor edu…
Indigenous Futurities in Curriculum
SPECIAL ISSUE with an exercise that brings our ancestors and us together as we engage our thinking and action around Indigenous futurities in curriculum.We ask, "What land or water do you carry with you today?Who do you bring with you?" 1 I (Hollie) carry with me, Tsoodzi.This is one of the sacred mountains of the Din that is located between Gallup and Albuquerque, New Mexico.My mother and matrilineal line is from an area west of Tsoodzi.I bring …
Settler Social Studies: On Disappointment and Hope for the Future
Indigenous Genealogies of Relational Knowledge: Cedar Tree and Gray Squirrel as Important Relatives and Teachers
Indigenous peoples have education systems thousands of years old that have sustained our peoples in respectful relation with place. The backbone of our education systems is our stories and storytelling traditions. Beyond mere intellectual or analytical “texts” or “literature”, our stories place us in webs of relationships with sacred responsibilities. In this article, we discuss the importance of Indigenous genealogies of knowledge from both pers…
Centering Indigenous Brilliance in 'The Stories We Tell'☆
Indigenous stories are the backbone of Indigenous education systems. While Indigenous communities are still grappling with settler colonial-imposed violence, many Indigenous Nations are engaging in what Leanne Betasamosake Simpson describes as Indigenous resurgence. In our paper, we draw from our own Indigenous communities' teachings and discuss our peoples' ongoing storytelling traditions as important forms of resurgence, which contribute to a p…
You can't cram for this kind of education: Centering Indigenous Elder pedagogy to reclaim respectful and socially just education
Disrupting harmful legacies of Western education by honoring the living heritage of Indigenous knowledge systems
Indigenous peoples have knowledge systems that have sustained cultural teachings and lifeways for thousands of years. Settler colonial logics and systems have disrupted and threatened Indigenous knowledge systems through multiple forms of oppression, including land dispossession, linguicide, and disrupting traditional kinship relationships. Western education systems are central and foundational to this violent process; our paper describes efforts…
Sociology (15 works) · Indigenous (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy (7 works) · Pedagogy (7 works) · Geography (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Biology (5 works)