We Voyage For The Earth in McKinely Smith

We Voyage for the Earth: Cultural
Advantage as a Global Education 57

Framework
Shawn Malia Kanaʻiaupuni
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1138
Shifting the Paradigm: Cultural Advantage as an Educational Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1140
Behind the Stage: Sociopolitical Context, Tensions, and Dilemmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1141
Building the Toolkit: Education as Individual and Collective Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1142
Sharpening the Focus: Cultural Advantage and Indigenous Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1146
Improving Practice: Research on CBE and Student Educational Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1149
Bringing It Home: Culture-Based Education and Native Hawaiians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1150
Navigating for Global Impact: CBE and Mālama Honua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1155
Continuing the Voyage (Conclusion and Future Direction): A Call to Action for
Learning and Self-Determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1158
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1160
Abstract
Contrasting the harmful policies and approaches of Western assimilationist
agendas, Indigenous education aims to build on and enhance the linguistic,
cultural, cognitive, and affective strengths possessed by Indigenous students.
Indigenous culture-based education (CBE) often includes efforts to revitalize
languages, knowledge, practices, and beliefs lost or suppressed through coloni-
zation or occupation. These approaches are consistent with the concept of cultural
advantage, revealing “funds of knowledge” where others have only seen deficits.
Reframing Indigenous identities as cultural advantage creates counterhegemonic
opportunities by giving voice to the expertise of elders and other cultural sources
of community, familial, and individual strengths. This study presents Mālama
S. M. Kanaʻiaupuni (*)
Strategy & Innovation Group, Kamehameha Schools, Honolulu, HI, USA
e-mail: shkanaia@ksbe.edu
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 1137

E. A. McKinley, L. T. Smith (eds.), Handbook of Indigenous Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3899-0_6
1138 S. M. Kanaʻiaupuni
Honua Worldwide Voyage as a powerful application of indigenous knowledge to

inspire and catalyze positive change on a global scale for the earth now and for
our future.
Keywords
Cultural advantage · Culture-based education · Hawaiian · Mālama Honua
Introduction
In the early Spring of 2017, the traditional Hawaiian sailing canoe, Hōkūleʻa,
traveled from Panama to the Galapagos Islands. It was year 3 of a 4-year endeavor
to circumnavigate the globe, called Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage (see www.
hokulea.com). The entire 4-year ocean voyage, across more than 60,000 nautical
miles, was performed without any modern navigational tools, guided only by
indigenous knowledge of celestial navigation, using stars, sun, winds, swells, and
other natural elements. There were no sextants, no compasses, no GPS, computers,
or cell phones used to navigate the canoe around the earth. As crew member and
educator on the canoe, our arrival to the Galapagos islands represented a significant
milestone on this journey, reflecting the deep interconnections between science,
humanity, and culture playing out in this unique environmental landmark.
Stepping back, the Mālama Honua voyage is a story of Indigenous education,
bringing people together across the globe on a journey to learn and care for “island
earth.” It recognizes the value and need for both indigenous and modern science,
wisdom, and technology to solve the most complex issues of contemporary society
today and tomorrow. Mālama Honua translates most simply to caring for the earth in
Hawaiian language. This commitment is guided by ancestral values-based knowl-
edge and practices developed through keen observation about island living. It calls
people together to learn about the relationships between each other, our oceans, our
lands, and everything in or on them. The lessons from life on a canoe are the same as
those necessary to surviving on remote islands in the Pacific, whether it’s working
collaboratively, using natural resources wisely, or applying ancestral and modern
knowledge and science to solve complex problems like how to navigate across
thousands of miles of unfamiliar oceans and build relationships with unknown
places and peoples. These same skillsets, mindsets, and values are those needed to
create a healthier future for the earth.
“When we care for the earth, we care for each other.”
This chapter introduces cultural advantage as a driving framework in education,

one exemplified beautifully by the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage. In addition to
catalyzing global action around urgent environmental issues, the voyage is a modern
day feat of applied indigenous knowledge. From concept through implementation,
the undertaking and all that it signifies is a window into a unique indigenous
57 We Voyage for the Earth: Cultural Advantage as a Global Education Framework 1139
epistemology, culture, and values deeply rooted in ancestral wisdom, experience,

and sense of place. It is a proof point demonstrating the power of embracing cultural
diversity as an advantage for the betterment of humanity. I first review cultural
advantage as a framework within the broader sociopolitical and educational forces
underlying indigenous and culture-based education (CBE), then discuss research on
the impact of CBE on students and communities before turning to Hawaiʻiʻs story
and the Mālama Honua voyage as place-based examples of positive impact.
A key purpose of Mālama Honua is to catalyze educational transformation. Many
of the volunteer crew members are educators, scientists, and community members
challenged by critical questions about the education children experience in today’s
school systems. Is it the education they deserve, which best prepares them for the
future? What will they need to know and do? In each global port, Hōkūleʻa and crew
welcomed the chance to share the message of Mālama Honua with children around
the world and at home in the Hawaiian archipelago. In a Hawaiian worldview,
human life exists in deep kinship with the ocean and natural world around us,
reflecting firmly held values common to most Pacific peoples. Some see the ocean
as a boundary separating humanity, but in Indigenous eyes, the ocean is an abundant
life-giving force that connects us all, through every breath we take. And, unfortu-
nately, its current fragile state reflects more consumptive views of ocean as human
dumping ground, now requiring urgent care and action because without the ocean,
there is no life. The belief behind Mālama Honua is that when we care for the oceans
and the earth, we care for each other. In many ways, understanding this cultural
wisdom is paramount not only for indigenous children, but for all children, to learn
and practice.
Mālama Honua is an example of how the voices and leadership of indigenous
discoverers, educators, and community members inspire the field to reexamine the
structures, paradigms, and practices of effective education. The ideas and research
presented in this essay build on the shoulders of many who have contributed to this
undertaking, including my CBE research collaborators from Kamehameha Schools
and Nā Lei Naʻauao Hawaiian Native Charter School Alliance, and with deep
respect for the service of leaders like Nainoa Thompson, the captains, and entire
crew of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, ʻOhana Waʻa, and the Worldwide Voyage
who share their wisdom with the world. Elsewhere my colleagues and I argue that
cultural and indigenous knowledge have gone unrecognized too long in mainstream
education. Recognizing cultural assets as advantages in education changes forever
the landscape of knowledge and action. A challenge for all educators, whether
indigenous or not, is to critically scrutinize and counter the way conventional
education systems perpetuate systematic inequities in opportunities and outcomes
afforded to certain groups in society, in effect curtailing cultural and linguistic
diversity and innovation that could benefit the earth and all its inhabitants
(Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017; Abt-Perkins and Rosen 2000).
In effect, this call for equity challenges educators and policymakers around the
globe to interrogate educational paradigms and practices from the standpoint of
Indigenous and minoritized populations who differ linguistically and culturally
within Western-based power structures. Educational progress will come from
forward-oriented research and leadership that embraces the cultural advantages of

communities with diverse experiences of racism, poverty, cultural trauma, and
oppression. Empirical research conducted in Hawaiʻi and in other places indicates
that learners thrive with culture-based education (CBE), especially Indigenous
students who experience positive socioemotional and other outcomes when teachers
are high-CBE users and when learning in high-CBE school environments
(Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017). By cultivating culturally vibrant and affirming learning
environments in lieu of “one-size-fits-all” approaches, educators honor assets found
in Indigenous knowledge, values, and stories as models of vitality and empowerment
for all. Now with much greater environmental and human urgency at stake than ever
before, this next decade marks a highly significant inflection point to transform
education.
Shifting the Paradigm: Cultural Advantage as an Educational

Framework
Mohala i ka wai ka maka o ka pua

Unfolded by the water are the faces of the flowers, flowers blossom in good conditions
The concept of cultural advantage is highly relevant to Indigenous peoples across

the globe seeking to redress significant social injustices experienced through colo-
nization (All Hawaiian proverbs in this chapter are found in Pukuʻi (1983).). It is an
example of “flipping the narrative,” a tool used in Indigenous critical pedagogy to
interrogate the status quo (Grande 2008; Kaomea 2003, 2011). Rooted in critical
theory and pedagogy (Apple 2013; Giroux 2011), Indigenous critical theory unveils
the seemingly invisible power relations at work within education but from the
standpoint of Indigenous community, self-determination, and sovereignty (Brayboy
2005; Goodyear-Kaʻōpua 2013). This standpoint reverses the “Western gaze,”
offering a lens to challenge the way conventional educational approaches erase the
lives of some and privilege others and also to position Indigenous ways of knowing
and being as cultural advantages rather than deficits.
The United Nations (2009) counts more than 370 million peoples in 90 countries
that are “Indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which
inhabited the country, or a geographical region. . .at the time of conquest or coloni-
zation or the establishment of present state boundaries and who irrespective of their
legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political
institutions” (C169 Article 1, International Labour Organization 1989). In Indige-
nous experiences, schooling systems have used colonizing and assimilationist pol-
icies designed to erase Indigenous cultures and languages, systematically
marginalizing the identities of Indigenous children in the name of progress (Benham
and Heck 1998; Lipka 2002; Ogbu 1982; Lomawaima and McCarty 2006;
Skutnabb-Kangas and Dunbar 2010; Wilson and Kamanā 2006).
In response to the harmful policies and approaches of these agendas, Indigenous
education aims to build on and enhance the linguistic, cultural, cognitive, and
affective strengths possessed by Indigenous students. Indigenous culture-based

education often includes efforts to revitalize languages, knowledge, practices, and
beliefs lost or suppressed through colonization or occupation (Demmert and Towner
2003). These approaches highlight the assets of their students and communities,
revealing “funds of knowledge” where others have only seen deficits (Gonzalez et al.
2005). Reframing Indigenous identities as cultural advantage creates
counterhegemonic opportunities by giving voice to the expertise of elders and
other cultural sources of community, familial, and individual strengths.
In this vein, we must challenge ourselves to name, conceptualize, and narrate
these advantages using Indigenous languages, stories, and values (Kanaʻiaupuni
2004). Yosso’s (2005) model of community cultural wealth identifies the significant
cultural assets available to students of color, (re)framed as linguistic, familial, and
resistant capital. Goodyear-Kaʻōpua’s (2013) account of sovereign pedagogy in an
Indigenous public charter school in Hawaiʻi provides a living example of cultural
advantage used as an educational framework to guide how students see themselves
as change agents in present-day political, media, and community contexts. Seeing
culture as advantage drives intentionality, prompting educators to deepen their
efforts, because “when we invest our multicultural energies in surface-level cultural
exchanges, fantasies of color-blindness, or celebrations of white-washed heroes
while ignoring the actual inequities many of our students face, we demonstrate an
implicit complicity with those inequities” (Gorski and Swalwell 2015, p. 40).
Behind the Stage: Sociopolitical Context, Tensions, and Dilemmas
ʻO nā hōkū nō nā kiu o ka lani

The stars are the spies of heaven
Indigenous CBE sees educational systems embedded within broader sociopolit-

ical contexts, where culture and identity are deeply contested arenas in the politics
of European and US nationalism (Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017). Institutionalizing a
single, common language and culture is an all too familiar tool of those in power.
Mass education plays a critical role, significantly differentiating the experiences
of those living the drama by prescribing the dominant group’s language and culture
as the script for all groups, while delegitimizing and silencing potentially competing
languages and cultures (Goodyear-Kaʻōpua 2013; Kanaʻiaupuni and Ledward 2013;
Spring 2016). The process is eerily invisible and oftentimes people forget
(or dismiss) that what is considered knowledge in modern societies, and how it is
transmitted, can vary considerably among cultural groups. For example, a big wake-
up call came when Native peoples dared protest the use of respected American Indian
icons as mascots in sports, prompting national debate and sometimes
outrage. Ironically, the misuse happened within the very institutions purporting to
educate American Indian students to fully participate in the modern world (see
Staurowsky 2007).
Vigilance is required, and the record shows much can be gained when educators
challenge institutions, seeking greater diversity of knowledge (Apple 2013). Owing
to these voices, multicultural education became widely accepted in the 1990s
throughout the United States and other Western countries, albeit not without chal-
lenges (Glazer 1997). Continued resistance to the idea reflects the tug between
national cohesion and power versus cultural and linguistic diversity, known as the
“pluralist dilemma” (Bullivant 1981; May 2014).
Political answers to this dilemma include, on one end, corporate pluralism, which
allocates economic, social, and political awards to minority groups based on size and
influence, and liberal pluralism on the other, under which no national or ethnic
minority group possesses separate standing before the law. According to May
(2014), most nations champion the latter. Efforts to protect minority cultures are
often portrayed as “irremediably unjust, a disguise for creating or
maintaining. . .ethnic privilege” (Kymlicka 1989, p. 4; May 2014). Cosmopolitan-
ism advocates push the line beyond national boundaries, arguing for a universal
global citizenry spurred by increasing transnationalism and standardization of expe-
riences (Nussbaum 1997). In effect, these forces create pressure to universalize
identity, threatening local diversity.
In Indigenous experiences, notions of a universal national or global identity as
common good raise critical questions about profound social inequities perpetuated
by education policies supposedly in service to that same common good (Wallerstein
1996). Greater value might be found in learning how to take or serve a global
purpose through local identity and action. As presented in this chapter, the case of
Mālama Honua is an applied example of this potential.
Building the Toolkit: Education as Individual and Collective

Transformation
I ulu no ka lālā i ke kumu

The branches grow because of the trunk, a student is a reflection of the teacher
Clearly culture and language are volatile pivot points in the broad sociopolitical
landscape. This knowledge is an important backdrop for understanding the purpose
of education. By giving students access to the art and science of critical thought
through diverse epistemologies or knowledge systems, including those of their own
communities, education creates transformational opportunities for individuals and
entire communities to change the world, and themselves, for the better.
Several schools of thought inform this argument. First, from a sociological
perspective, education is the primary means to spread the norms, beliefs, and
knowledge of society. It accomplishes the crucial task of cultural preservation by
transferring knowledge to the next generation. The question is whose knowledge and
for whom? How do we account for the data showing cultural-linguistic minority
students are routinely denied access to elite academies, influential positions, and
earnings enjoyed by the dominant group? Conventional schooling systems
reproduce inequities in power relations while also serving as a primary gateway to

mobility and socioeconomic status in Western societies (Apple 2013; Bourdieu
1986). Education, especially higher education in this decade, while often viewed
as the greatest equalizer in our society, is arguably also the greatest stratifier of our
time (Reeves 2017).
Second, developmental perspectives focus attention on the processes through
which education liberates the human mind through reflection and knowledge, in
addition to freeing up access to socioeconomic rewards. Theories of learning stress
the empowering role of educators who encourage students to reflect on their social
world and develop their own refinements (Vygotsky 1978). Through this process,
education brings about individual enlightenment and awareness of the self as learner
and in relation to others. Social cognitive approaches emphasize the importance of
developing self-efficacy in students, through which is gained a sense of empower-
ment and confidence in the ability to succeed (Mega et al. 2014; Weissberg et al.
2015; Lane et al. 2004).
As youth make their way through school, they develop self-awareness and
identity, which in turn provides a foundation for growth, agency, and action in a
global world. Banks (1991) traces the formation of identity through six stages
of development (Table 1). Although transitions between stages are gradual and
nonlinear, educational efforts may use multiple approaches. Sometimes schools
unwittingly stop short of the most advanced stage which achieves global compe-
tency and action.
Social critical theories draw an even more definitive line connecting education and
agency. Through education, students learn to critically reflect, question, and reason
using scientific and experiential methods. Learning empowers students to engage in
responsible personal action and to make changes in the conditions of their everyday life,
to seek autonomy, social interdependence, truth, justice, and fairness (Edwards 2012).
For example, Shor (1992) describes emancipatory education as “a critical-
democratic pedagogy for self and social change. It approaches individual growth
as an active, cooperative, and social process, because the self and society create each
other. . . The goals of this pedagogy are to relate personal growth to public life, to
develop strong skills, academic knowledge, habits of inquiry, and critical curiosity
about society, power, inequality, and change”(pp. 15–16). It is a multicultural
pedagogy concerned for public welfare rather than self-centered gain. These ideas
are consistent with certain aims of culture-based pedagogy in indigenous education,
which seek to build the critical thinking and other skills for learners to discover their
potential as positive change agents in their communities, locally and globally.
In Fig. 1, I show several progressive stages from reflective to agentic capacity
development. The top half traces several internal, subjective steps, and the lower half
describes major stages in the externalization of this developmental process in
learning.
As shown in the figure, education encourages youth to see themselves as valuable
actors capable of making improvements to broader society in the areas of justice and
freedom (Andruske 2003). Education is about individual growth leading to collec-
tive social change. As a case in point, Mālama Honua voyage is a brilliant example
Table 1 Developing ethnic identity as global competency (Based on Banks 1991)

Description Teaching and learning implications
Stage 1: Ethnic Individual believes ideas, Stage 1: Students are exposed to
psychological assumptions, attitudes about his or own ethnic/cultural group
captivity her ethnic group (class, gender) that perspectives and info
are institutionalized within the
society
If ashamed, may respond in a
number of ways such as avoiding
contact with cultural group or
striving for total assimilation even if
different from culture of origin
The more a group is stigmatized, the
more they may experience
psychological captivity
Whether positive or negative,
understanding is shallow
Stage 2: Ethnic The individual participates in his or Stage 2: Benefits students in
encapsulation her own ethnic/cultural (race, class, learning about other ethnic/cultural
gender) group and believes them groups and perspectives
superior to other groups
Participates in ideas that some
groups are inferior and are
ethnocentric
Can become culturally isolated and
unaware
Understanding is incomplete
Stage 3: Ethnic Individual is able to identify Stage 3: Benefits students in
identity personal attitudes and cultural/ developing emerging ethnic/
clarification ethnic (race, class, gender) identity cultural awareness and opinion
to reduce intrapsychic conflict
Develops positive attitudes about
own group
Able to understand positive aspects
of their ethnic/cultural group and
those of others
Ethnic (cultural, class, gender) pride
is genuine, not contrived
Has positive experiences with other
cultural/ethnic groups
Stage 4: Individual has a healthy sense of Stage 4: Supports students’ deeper
Bi-ethnicity ethnic/cultural (class, race, gender) understanding of ethnic/cultural
identity and skills/characteristics groups other than their own
needed to participate successfully in
more than one group
Has a strong desire to participate in
more than one ethnic/cultural group
Many marginalized groups function
on bi-ethnic level
Stage 5: Multi- Individual has clarified positive Stage 5: Supports students to
ethnicity and personal, ethnic, and national develop a global sense of ethnic/
identifications cultural literacy and to master
(continued)
Table 1 (continued)
Description Teaching and learning implications
reflective Positive attitudes toward other concepts about a large range of
nationalism ethnic/cultural (class, gender) and groups within the United States or
racial groups globally
Able to function within several
ethnic cultures within their nation
Able to understand symbols, values,
and institutions of several cultures
within the United States, or more
globally, and committed to multi-
ethnic ideals
Stage 6: All of stage 5 as well as ability to Stage 6: Engages students in being
Globalism and function within cultures in other global agents of change and in
global parts of the world understanding global issues
competency Ideal balance of ethnic/cultural
(gender, class, race), national and
global identifications,
commitments, literacy, and
behaviors
Has internalized universalistic
ethical values and principles of
humankind and has the
competencies and skills needed to
take action within the world to
actualize commitments
Myself, in relation My values, my My empowerment,

to others efficacy, my voice my mobility
Reflective Agentic
REFLECT CHALLENGE ACT
Groups in relations Power relations Social action to

to others, my between groups, influence/change
group in relation to equity of societal power, freedom,
others opportunities & justice
outcomes
Fig. 1 Developing agency in youth
of individual actions to achieve urgently needed change on a global scale, an

undertaking inspired by collective values of indigenous culture and identity.
These are not new ideas, but they somehow seem absent from current discussions
in education. In Indigenous education, borrowing from Freire’s (1970) foundational
work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the most important process is awakening critical
consciousness, attuning learners to the sources of human oppression and power, and
disrupting the “culture of silence” that powerfully mutes the voices of the oppressed.
To awaken learners is to empower them to interrogate racism, discrimination, and
“blaming the victim” for outcomes beyond their control. In this endeavor, cultural
advantage becomes a powerful tool for positive change and learning. As opposed to
imposing the worldview and values of one cultural group on another, education
should reflect mutual learning between educators and students. It is about building
compassion and holding gracious spaces where students and teachers learn about
and resolve contradictions between the worldviews of different cultural groups. The
resulting environment becomes an enriching learning community where students
and teachers are collectively responsible for learning and where cooperation and
interaction are primary educational motives (Adams and Hamm 1994). In this
learning environment, there are no spectators, no one who is charged with teaching,
transmitting, or giving anything. “[T]he object of the actors’ action is the reality to be
transformed” (Freire 1970, p. 180).
Transforming reality is a call to action central to Indigenous educators seeking
greater well-being for their people and increased opportunities to preserve, protect,
and apply cultural knowledge, tradition, and language (Demmert 2011; Grande
2008; Meyer 2008; Reyes 2013). The Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage is but
one healthy example of success, where Indigenous knowledge became a platform to
create a coalition of hundreds of thousands of shared voices and hands inspired to
take action to work together to protect the earth.
Sharpening the Focus: Cultural Advantage and Indigenous

Education
ʻAʻohe pau ka ʻike i ka hālau hoʻokahi

All knowledge is not taught in one school, one learns from many sources
Through the lens of cultural advantage, it is a limited common good that denies
itself the full benefits of diverse knowledges. Recognizing this potential, a growing
core of educational researchers and practitioners has called for culturally responsive
pedagogies (see Table 2 – Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017). In the 1990s, research in this
area focused primarily on racial and ethnic diversity (e.g., Gay 2000; Ladson-
Billings 1995), suggesting now well-known, though still inconsistently used, peda-
gogies that authentically engage student cultures in learning by:
– Acknowledging the legitimacy of different cultural heritages

– Engaging children through culture and respecting culture as content worthy of
learning
– Building meaningful bridges between home and school experiences and between
academic abstractions and lived sociocultural realities
Table 2 Evolving approaches and aims of culture in education

Ways in which culture is integrated in education Key aim
1. Invisible: All education is culture-based, Assimilation, protecting hegemony of
typically reflecting an invisible Western cultural western culture in education
norm in the United States
2. Culturally appropriate: Cultural styles, Teaching tolerance and respect for diversity
competency, or sensitivity approaches
emphasizing respect and tolerance for other
cultures and ways of learning (Gutiérrez and
Rogoff 2003)
3. Culturally relevant/responsive: Pedagogy #2, and
and curriculum are culturally attuned and Student engagement and positive identity
responsive to students’ diverse cultural formation; cultural diversity
communities and experiences (Castagno and
Brayboy 2008; Gay 2000; Ladson-Billings
1995).
4. Culturally sustaining: Pedagogical #2, #3 and
approaches supporting both traditional and Sustains linguistic, literate, and cultural
evolving ways of cultural connectedness for pluralism as the democratic project of
youth (Paris 2012) schooling
5. Culturally sustaining and revitalizing: #2, #3, #4 and
Revitalizing connections to identity and mother Rebuilds control over language, self-
language that have withstood colonization, determination
ethnicide, and linguicide (McCarty and Lee
2014)
6. Culture-based: Instruction and student #2, #3, #4, #5 and
learning evolving from the values, norms, Transmits and applies cultural ways of being,
knowledge, beliefs, practices, experiences, knowing, and doing, past, present, and future
places, and language of a cultural group, e.g.,
Japanese, Jewish, Jesuit, or Hawaiian (Demmert
and Towner 2003; Kanaʻiaupuni and
Kawai‘ae‘a 2008)
Source: Kanaʻiaupuni et al. (2017, p. 317S)
– Using a wide variety of instructional strategies to connect with different learning

styles
– Teaching students to know and praise their own and others’ cultural heritages
– Embedding multicultural information, resources, and materials in all subjects and
skills routinely taught in schools
Reflexive, critical scholarship strengthens these approaches, seeing beyond cul-

turally responsive pedagogy to one that will “perpetuate and foster – to sustain –
linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism as part of the democratic project of
schooling” (Paris 2012, p. 95; see also Ladson-Billings 2014).
Indigenous scholarship sharpens the focus on social justice and self-
determination, arguing that where culture and language have been lost or
oppressed through colonizing forces, education, research, and theory must
embrace the purpose of restoring culture and identity to a healthy place (Castagno
and Brayboy 2008; Goodyear-Kaʻōpua 2013; Meyer 2008; Reyes 2013). Thus,
critical “culturally sustaining and revitalizing pedagogy” or CSRP (McCarty and
Lee 2014) centers on cultural restoration and self-determination, also spelled out
in international conventions such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indige-
nous Peoples, Article 14 (United Nations 2009). Fundamentally, a culturally
sustaining and revitalizing pedagogy is one that will “serve the needs of Indige-
nous communities as defined by those communities” (McCarty and Lee 2014,
p. 103; see also Brayboy 2005).
The diverse cultural approaches and their primary educational purposes summa-
rized in Table 2 range from assimilation (definition #1) to sustaining and revitalizing
culture (#5) and culture-based education (#6). As one moves down the table, progres-
sively stronger assumptions emerge regarding culture and education. Culture is the
subject of a vast body of research (see Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952; Eisenhart 2001).
Native Hawaiians, like other Indigenous peoples, have been romanticized and racial-
ized in ways that reflect a bounded sense of culture (Ledward 2007). Borrowing from
Stuart Hall’s (1980) notion of articulation, cultural identities are constellations of
meanings emerging and evolving through specific sociopolitical histories. Identities
are enacted through connections individuals make with other people, ideas, and
experiences. This view recognizes the multiple positionalities that individuals and
groups assume within Hawaiʻiʻs diverse social milieu while acknowledging deeper
implications of colonization and occupation (Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017).
Most generally, CBE refers to approaches to teaching and learning evolving
from (but not fixed in) the languages, values, norms, knowledges, beliefs,
practices, experiences, and places that are foundational to Indigenous or other
cultural groups (Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017). Fluidity of culture and ideas is
central to this definition. As Ladson-Billings (2014) explains, “this notion of
pedagogy shifts, changes, adapts, recycles, and recreates instructional spaces to
ensure that consistently marginalized students are repositioned into a place of
normativity – that is, that they become subjects in the instructional process, not
mere objects” (p. 76).
CBE refers to approaches to teaching and learning evolving from (but not
fixed in) the languages, values, norms, knowledges, beliefs, practices, experi-
ences, and places that are foundational to Indigenous or other cultural groups.
As Indigenous peoples, our approach to Indigenous CBE recognizes, first, that:
• Educational systems are sites for power negotiation and potential liberation not
just of individuals but of entire communities and nations.
• Knowledge tied to cultural heritage and language is essential to identity and self-
determination.
• Desired educational outcomes are those useful and meaningful to local and
Indigenous communities.
Second, Indigenous CBE practices education within local cultural contexts and in
service to a community, based on the specific history, knowledge, and experiences of
its people (Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017).
Third, Indigenous CBE is dynamic by design, ensuring cultural vibrancy (past,
present, and future) through the production, transmission, and application of cul-
tural knowledge, language, practices, values, and beliefs. Finally, it carries the
broader educational imperative of inspiring children on a journey of self-discovery
clarifying who they are and how they and their communities can impact the world
(Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017).
Improving Practice: Research on CBE and Student Educational

Outcomes
He puko‘a kani ‘aina

A coral reef hardens into land; beginning in a small way and gaining steadily until firmly
established
Empirical research examining the impact of CBE suggests several findings

consistent with a theory of cultural advantage. First, CBE is positively related to
student socioemotional development and cultural affiliation based on studies show-
ing Indigenous CBE increases individual and collective identity, building students’
positive self-concept, resilience, and confidence (Borofsky 2010; Tibbetts et al.
2007). In turn, socioemotional development improves achievement and other key
markers of a healthy, well-adjusted life. For example, among Filipino students,
learning family genealogy is positively correlated with school performance, and
speaking the heritage language negatively associated with substance abuse and
depression (Guerrero et al. 2006). Phinney and Chavira (1992), Phinney et al.
(1997) documents well-established positive relationships between higher ethnic
identity and self-efficacy and finds inverse relationships with loneliness and
depression.
Research evidence shows that culturally contextualizing education generates
robust relationships and support from surrounding communities and families,
resulting in students’ increased sense of belonging at school (Castagno and Brayboy
2008; Kawakami 1999; Lee 2015; Yazzie-Mintz 2007). Studies reveal the strong
pull of shared priorities for language- and culture-rich education in schools serving
Indigenous communities, drawing in parents, youth, and community leaders alike
(Demmert and Towner 2003; Luning and Yamauchi 2010; Yazzie 1999; Wilson and
Kamanā 2006).
CBE can strengthen student engagement in learning, including their college
aspirations. Prior research shows improved student engagement when educators
flexibly “create collaborative and culturally diverse learning environments, adapt
cultural patterns in classroom verbal interactions, and other cultural dimensions of
reciprocal interaction and dialogic instruction” (Abt-Perkins and Rosen 2000,
p. 254). Various case studies find related positive effects, including Indigenous
student gains in math, compared to matched control groups (Kisker et al. 2012;
Lipka et al. 2005; Rickard 2005); improved math test scores with Native Yup’ik
approaches (Adams et al. 2005); doubled achievement results among Pacific Islander
university students taking upper-level mathematics courses (Furuto 2014); and
superior Native and non-Native Alaskan student learning outcomes in urban and
rural schools using culturally responsive curricula (Sternberg et al. 2005). A recent
longitudinal study found that participating in an 8th grade culturally responsive
course increased student attendance, GPA, and course credits earned in high school
(Dee and Penner 2017).
Longitudinal studies are rare in this field, more are needed to increase knowledge
and opportunities that strengthen and build on these promising directions in indig-
enous education. Taken together, the findings suggest individual, family, school, and
community benefits from investing in culturally rich learning environments and
educational approaches. Further research is essential to understand the conditions
that engage student learners and methods to assess learning most effectively, the
kinds of professional development supports that equip teachers with the skills they
need to deliver CBE, and successful strategies to engage families and communities
in the teaching and learning process. Empirical research in this area is mounting, but
still limited, representing a critical area of need for Indigenous educators and
researchers (Sleeter 2012).
Bringing It Home: Culture-Based Education and Native Hawaiians
Ua ao Hawaiʻi, ke ʻōlino nei

Hawaiʻi is in the brightness of day, it shines, brilliant. Hawaiʻi is in an era of education
With examples like Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, the story of Native
Hawaiians and Western education is a promising example of resilience and progress
in light of a darker sociohistorical past. Primarily fueled by the concern and passion
of community members, parents, and advocates, culture-based education reform has
been an organic solution to the chilling negative statistics that plague Hawaiʻiʻs
indigenous and Pacific Islander children: high rates of poverty, substance abuse,
juvenile deviance, criminal activity, teenage pregnancies, poor educational out-
comes, domestic abuse, depression, and youth suicide.
As a cultural and linguistic minority group, today’s Native Hawaiians share
similar experiences with other indigenous and racialized minority groups in the
United States. The unique cultural lineage of Native Hawaiians traces back to a
thriving, vibrant Polynesian society that achieved highly sophisticated governance
and knowledge systems to navigate and prosper in the Pacific. Hundreds of years
after settling in Hawaiʻi, Western contact brought exposure to new diseases and
drastic population decimation, reducing this traditional society to one-tenth its size
(Nordyke 1989). Importantly, it also brought the codification of Hawaiian language.
Shortly thereafter, literacy rates topped 90% within the Hawaiian population. A
robust reading, writing, and publishing community in the Hawaiian language
quickly emerged, and the majority of teachers in the first schools in Hawaiʻi were
Native Hawaiians (Wilson and Kamanā 2006).
Over time, however, growing Western influence in Hawaiʻi sought power through
educational systems. The earliest missionaries that came to Hawaiʻi used education
as an effective colonizing tool. Following the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom,
explicit policies prohibited using Hawaiian language in instruction in all public and
in many private schools. In public education, this ban occurred shortly after Hawaiʻi
became a territory in 1896 by decree of Sanford Dole, who played a key role in the
overthrow and was the first Education minister. The deep and lingering effects of this
de facto ban on Hawaiian language cannot be overstated in regard to Native
Hawaiian student outcomes (see Lipka 2002; Skutnabb-Kangas and Dunbar 2010).
The impact was systematic in effect, remaining in place for nearly 100 years (Lucas
2000; Wilson and Kamanā 2006).
To protect their children, parents were forced to give up their language involun-
tarily, a phenomenon common to many indigenous groups, as documented by the
United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (see http://undesadspd.org/
indigenouspeoples.aspx). Children were punished for speaking their language at
school, among many other examples of colonizing practices experienced by Native
Hawaiian children and families with the introduction of Western schooling
(Kanaʻiaupuni and Ledward 2013; Benham and Heck 1998). It was not until 1986
that the state’s Board of Education approved an amendment to allow for “special
projects using the Hawaiian language” (Lucas 2000, p. 11). The first Hawaiian
language immersion public school (kula kaiapuni) was opened shortly thereafter
and the revitalization of Hawaiian language through education continues to be a
growing call to action for the indigenous community and its many supporters.
Past and current statistics on Native Hawaiian well-being attest to the enduring
detrimental impact of this history and its related events (Kana‘iaupuni et al. 2005).
Comprising one-third of annual births in Hawaiʻi and about one-fourth of public
school students, Native Hawaiian children attend schools that serve many other
racial/ethnic groups, the next largest among them being White (or Caucasian),
Filipino, Chinese, and Japanese. In public schools, aggregate Native Hawaiian
student achievement levels lag behind these other groups by up to 30 percentile
points. Rates of chronic absenteeism, dropping out, and grade retention are signif-
icantly higher among Native Hawaiian students, suggesting low levels of student
engagement. Native Hawaiian children in special education programs are dispropor-
tionately high, whereas graduation rates are some of the lowest in the state. Not
surprisingly, the percentage of Native Hawaiians completing a 2- or 4-year college
degree is about half the state average, roughly 14% of recent high school cohorts
(Kana‘iaupuni et al. 2005; Kamehameha Schools 2014).
Research examining the successes of Native Hawaiian students consistently
indicates the benefits of innovative, CBE approaches in reaching the students other
public schools have struggled to serve. Elsewhere, for example, my colleagues and I
find that students whose teachers are more intense users of culture-based education
have higher levels of student belonging (students express trust people in school, feel
teachers care about them, and view people at school as family), more often apply
71.6
I trust people in my school
53.0
87.9
I expect to graduate from college
73.5
I am able to use cultural skills I learn at 77.6

school in the community 40.8
0 20 40 60 80 100
High CBE Teachers Low CBE Teachers
Fig. 2 Belonging, aspirations and relevancy of skills among Native Hawaiian students by intensity
of CBE use
60
50
Summative score
50
40 44.1
39.4
30
27.4 30
20 25.0
20
10 14.4 16.6
0
Ethnic identity (overall) Ethnic identity search Affirmation, belonging, and
commitment
Low CBE Teachers High CBE Teachers Total possible
Fig. 3 Cultural affiliation among Native Hawaiian students by intensity of CBE use
their cultural skills outside of school, and are significantly more likely to expect to
graduate college (see Fig. 2, Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017).
The same study finds a positive relationship between Indigenous students’ cul-
tural affiliation and having one or more high-intensity CBE teachers ( p < 0.001).
Students of high-intensity CBE teachers also have markedly greater knowledge of
their culture, commitment to cultural values, and comfort with their heritage lan-
guage (Fig. 3). High-intensity CBE leads to deeper community connections for
students. Over half of students with high-intensity CBE teachers engaged repeatedly
in social or political causes of particular concern to the Native Hawaiian community,
as shown in Fig. 4. For example, on multiple occasions, one-third of students had
attended community or school meetings, and three-quarters had acted to protect the
environment in their communities. In addition to these results, students of high-
intensity CBE teachers also report greater engagement with local issues such as land
I have participated in demonstrations, 50.8

protests, or marches 12.5
I have attended a public meeting about 36.8

community or school affairs 16.8
I have worked to protect the 71.0

environment (ocean, streams, marshes,
forests) in my community 32.0
0 20 40 60 80 100
High CBE Teachers Low CBE Teachers
Fig. 4 Native Hawaiian students community action or service (>1 occasion) by intensity of
CBE use
development, Hawaiian language revitalization, and Native rights. Together, these

differences indicate a consistent positive relationship between CBE and students’
contributions to their communities (Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017).
To bring how it works to life, several examples of CBE follow in this next section,
showing the application of five common dimensions of culture-based education
(language, content, context, family/community, assessment – see Table 3 in
Kanaʻiaupuni and Kawai‘ae‘a 2008). First, despite its earlier history and owing to
the tenacity of Native Hawaiian communities and many supporters, the state of
Hawaiʻi is a national role model today in reestablishing the indigenous Hawaiian
language as an official language alongside English in 1978. The state constitution
also mandates public education to promote the study of Hawaiian language, culture,
and history. Now enrolling about 2000 students annually, the Hawaiʻi State Depart-
ment of Education runs K-12 Hawaiian language immersion schools that connect to
preschool and post-high programs conducted in Hawaiian and provides additional
language classes to parents and community members. It operates roughly 17 Hawai-
ian language immersion school programs and instructs all learners on the culture
and history of Native Hawaiians unique to the state. Additionally, about one-third of
the state’s public charter schools also use Hawaiian language as the medium
of instruction, and roughly 50% of them routinely use the heritage language,
supplemented by language classes. This progress is a tribute to the many Native
Hawaiian and supporting community members, teachers, parents, children, and
administrators who worked tirelessly to make the vision a reality. Today, although
continuously troubled by a critical lack of resources, immersion education has
helped grow the Hawaiian language in the past two decades, standing out as a
singularly significant educational milestone achieved by and with an indigenous
people in the United States.
In terms of pedagogy, place-based learning is a pillar of effective culture-based
educational innovation found in many Hawaiian community and school learning
Table 3 Five dimensions of culture-based education (CBE)

Language Recognizing and using the Native or heritage language.
Family and Actively involving family and community in the development of
community curricula, everyday learning, and leadership.
Content Making learning meaningful and relevant through culturally embedded
content and assessment.
Context Structuring school, classroom, and other learning interactions in
culturally meaningful ways.
Assessment and Gathering data and assessing students using various methods to ensure
Accountability learning and application in culturally purposeful ways.
Source: Adapted from Kanaʻiaupuni and Kawaiʻaeʻa (2008, p. 75)
environments across the state. Educators use project-based and place-based

approaches, interweaving Native culture, community, and the natural envir-
onment to inform curricular content and instructional context for learning
(Kaomea 2011; Goodyear Kaʻopua et al. 2008). Studies indicate that Native
Hawaiian and non-Native children alike learn, connect, and retain knowledge
more effectively when the curriculum and instruction are culturally meaningful
and relevant to their own lives and experiences (Kaiwi and Kahumoku
2006; Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017; Kawakami 1999). Kahumoku (forthcoming)
reports that private school students outperform their peers in advanced place-
ment English and upper-level high school science classes with the introduction
of culturally embedded approaches, compared to nonculturally embedded
approaches.
Data from Native Hawaiian-focused public charter school (HFPCS) students
show high student engagement in learning, which leads to higher attendance
and graduation rates compared to Native Hawaiian children in conventional
public schools (Kamehameha Schools 2014). Contributing to this advantage are
the successes that these schools document in achieving high levels of trust,
student sense of belonging, and family commitment in the educational process
(Kanaʻiaupuni et al. 2017). In HFPCS schools, students tackle authentic problems
in community spaces and living laboratories without walls. For example, they
may conduct science experiments to assess the relative successes of various
traditional and more modern methods to restore endangered endemic species
or water resources. A 5-year stream restoration project, for instance, partnered
Kanu ‘o Ka ‘Āina (Natives of the Land) public charter school students with a
team of scientists at the Bishop Museum to entirely restore a Hawaiian stream
to natural flow conditions, creating a wealth of lesson plans, data, and presen-
tations documenting their progress (see http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/waipio/
index.html).
In schools and programs such as these, curricula include learning about life-
styles, knowledge, and values of Native Hawaiians, including from students’
own families and community members, who are asked to share their knowledge
and their stories with the children in multigenerational settings. As powerful
learning vehicles themselves, “stories can validate identities to the self and
the world by providing models of strength and empowerment” (Tusitala Marsh
1999, p. 170). And importantly, learners are assessed for mastery in ways that are
meaningful to the community. For example, they demonstrate learning through
successfully presenting (and implementing, in some cases) their research-based
proposal to local residents to restore endemic fish and plants in a river or marsh,
contributing to the health of their community ecosystem. In this way, connections
to the land, culture, language, and community create a rich educational envi-
ronment that nourishes spiritual, physical, and educational well-being. These conn-
ections generate a sense of kuleana (responsibility), love for learning,
and students who understand their cultural identity and their role in a local
community as the foundation for leading and contributing to broader global
communities.
Culture-based approaches also are visible in out-of-school time programs
that not only impact students positively but also the broader environmental
ecosystem. As one example among many, Papahana Kuaola is an organization
located on O‘ahu island. It serves roughly 10,000 students each year. The mission
of this nonprofit is to “create quality educational programs focused on Hawaiʻi’s
cultural and natural history, environmental restoration, and economic sustainabil-
ity fully integrated with Hawaiian knowledge”(see www.papahanakuaola.com).
Through a variety of educational programs offered to P-20 learners, learners
gain twenty-first-century skills through ancestral practices that build a strong
sense of place, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication in modern
context, all through a Hawaiian cultural lens. As evidence of their success, the
program has forged strong partnerships with local schools and other nonprofit
organizations that value Hawaiian knowledge and sustainable lifestyles.
The success of their efforts over the past 6 years is evidenced in the
dramatic reshaping of the native ecosystem through the removal of invasive
plant species, replanting of thousands of native seedlings, loʻi (taro fields), and
stream restoration projects that have improved water quality and riparian health
overall.
Navigating for Global Impact: CBE and Mālama Honua
ʻAʻohe puʻu kiʻekiʻe ke hoʻāʻo ʻia e piʻi

No cliff is so tall that it cannot be scaled
The Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage embodies the power of cultural

advantage on an even greater plane. First, it is a scientific voyaging feat. Second,
it illustrates the value of diverse forms of Indigenous knowledge that
build compassion for the earth and all of its living and nonliving forms. Third,
it radically challenges conventional paradigms and behavior in education.
It connects people Hawaiian and non-Hawaiians alike with the spiritual mana
or force that inspires deep relationships and shared understanding. It calls for
peace and love, aloha, in a world full of conflict and divides. It is impact with
global reach.
In casual conversation about education in the United States, one often hears a
long list of complaints – outdated instructional models, overly focused on test scores,
driven by textbook companies, lacking relevance to real problems and real life, and
not engaging our students or attracting our best teachers and leaders. Behind the
naysaying, though, is a deep-seated belief that education is a singularly critical
process in bettering ourselves as individuals, as a society, as humanity, everywhere
around the world. It is sometimes easy to forget that for many people around the
world, education is a privilege not equally accessible to all. The United States is no
exception. As portrayed in this chapter, Native Hawaiians in Hawaiʻi, like other
indigenous peoples, have fought and continue to work toward greater equity in
educational opportunities and outcomes for children today and the future. Equally
important and also likely to be forgotten is the need to educate for equity with the
natural world living alongside us on this special island called planet earth. Some call
it earth or eco-justice. Indigenous culture-based education addresses this call to
action. Indeed, indigenous science and perspectives provide a wealth of knowledge,
approaches, and tools to use in the effort.
In preparing for each global port, the Worldwide Voyage sought to discover and
share stories of hope and inspiration about the innovations and positive impact
communities are creating around the world to coexist and to return the planet to
greater health. First contact in each place was made with First Peoples of that place
to validate and spotlight indigenous sources of ancestral science and wisdom and
to point out the gains availed through blended knowledge systems that take full
advantage of ancient and modern technologies and science in learning.
So, how do we employ these tools to “crack the code” of how to best care for the
earth? This question is a constant for Nainoa Thompson, captain and visionary
behind the Worldwide Voyage and the Polynesian Voyaging Society, caretakers of
Hōkūleʻa. The answers lie in part in deepening current understandings of local
knowledge. Western scientists are realizing that well-being and sustainability rely
greatly on local, place-based, and biocultural sources of knowledge and approaches
(Sterling et al. 2017).
In the Galapagos, with its history of evolutionary science and protection of some
of the earth’s most fragile natural resources, Hōkūleʻa crew members observed that
the majority of children grow up understanding a sense of place, in contrast to the
seemingly disconnected experiences more familiar to many children in the United
States. I noted the following three shared values after visiting several schools and
community programs:
• Deep relationships with nature, cultivated from interacting outside daily with
the native, natural environment, some of it extremely fragile, and observing adults
modeling respectful relationships.
• Mutual interdependence, based on the connection between human actions and
the environment. It’s observable to children in the economy, their parents’ jobs,
industry – all rely heavily on understanding reciprocal interdependence.
• Daily coexistence, experiential knowledge about how human activity can be
managed and regulated to privilege nature as part of everyday life. Galapagueño
community members vigilantly guard efforts to achieve greater equity with
nature, including limits on the number of tourists or others in any area, respect
for wild and plant life, restricted population size, and closely sanctioned activities.
Exploring the Galapagos represented a unique opportunity to celebrate

Charles Darwin and his work, which continues to guide modern evolutionary
science today. It was also a chance to recognize age-old evolutionary knowledge,
long predating Darwin’s work. In Hawaiian epistemology, exemplars like the
Kumulipo recount wisdom about the origins of the universe and evolution
(Beamer 2014). That the Kumulipo was well-established as a generations-old
oral history and even put into print before Darwin published On the Origin of
Species is a little known fact important to understanding the power of ancestral
scientific connections.
Passed orally through many successive generations, the Kumulipo was eventually
translated into English by the last reigning sovereign of Hawaiʻi, Queen Liliʻuoka-
lani, while she was imprisoned during a coup staged by American businessmen and
missionaries. The Kumulipo is creation chant, genealogy, and evolutionary science
recognizing that all life shares common ancestry. Life begins with darkness, pō, the
spirit world. It emerges in the depths of the sea with invertebrate organisms such as
coral, before proceeding to develop greater complexity across ocean, land, and sky,
with like evolving from like, eventually human in form (Liliʻuokalani 1897;
Beckwith 1951).
A genealogical chant of “remembrance from the lipo of our deep past to the lipo
of our unknown future,” the Kumulipo conveys the carefully cultivated Hawaiian
scientific mindset and keen observation skills developed through the lens of
interdependence and kinship between people and the earth, land, and sea (see
Forward by Kanahele in Beckwith (1951), 2016 reprint). Native Hawaiian zoologist,
Ane (2016), argues, “the chant teaches us that life in the sea and life on land are
inexorably connected, and what we do on land has a direct connection and impact on
all organisms in the sea. Hawaiians recognize that these organisms are the building
blocks for all life on this shared planet we call Honua.” This approach stands in stark
contrast to more individualistic, technical teaching conventions of Western science.
Should today’s global learners experience this knowledge in addition to Western
approaches?
From the perspective of cultural advantage, the answer is yes. In fact, all life
forms today would benefit from embracing diverse knowledge systems to care for
the earth. As conservation biologist, Samuel Gon observed, a noteworthy distinction
from Darwin’s framing is that the Polynesian worldview holds nonhuman life,
including plants and animals, as ancestral, therefore familial, and sacred. The
Western view of man separate from the rest of nature, perhaps even as having
dominion over it, has allowed massive abuse and exploitation of natural resources
that would be morally indefensible in a Polynesian view. This lesson of the familial
connection of people to the living elements of each place, and the responsibilities
placed on people as caretakers of those ancestors is the lesson that can ultimately
save the world from our current path of destruction.
Continuing the Voyage (Conclusion and Future Direction): A Call

to Action for Learning and Self-Determination
E mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pon,

THE life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness
This chapter is a call to action to transform educational systems as sites of power

negotiation and liberation of individuals, communities, and nations. It is a call to
recognize the gift of knowledge tied to cultural tradition and language with account-
ability to student outcomes that are useful and meaningful to local and Indigenous
communities. It is but one milestone in a journey that many others will continue to
build and refine.
The intensifying movement toward Indigenous culture-based education (CBE) in
Hawaiʻi owes much countless individuals who have devoted lifetimes to
reimagining educational systems where all children blossom. Like life-giving ele-
ments of rain, soil, and sunlight, educators can move forward to create more just and
equitable learning environments built on cultural assets to foster improved outcomes
for Indigenous learners and communities in ways that benefit all.
Adopting the theoretical lens of cultural advantage raises critical questions about
who benefits from particular pedagogical approaches. For instance, how do students,
Indigenous or otherwise, experience “culturally appropriate” school events? How

might these experiences reinforce or challenge students’ belonging, self-efficacy,
and community connections? These questions can position students with greater
power and agency in relation to the context and purpose of their learning. When
taught to examine daily life events consciously and critically, drawing from the
cultural values and experiences of their communities, students are empowered to
self-determine their participation and utilization of events/tools, even those origi-
nally conceived to mask inequity.
Overall, research provides a strong case that CBE is well-suited for further
development and implementation, based on its efficacy for children, its alignment
with other research-based best practices, and its appeal among a growing number of
teachers pursuing greater relevance for learners. CBE builds foundations for positive
relationships capable of igniting powerful learning for students and communities,
heightening students’ socioemotional development, self-efficacy, and community
engagement. These connections are especially valuable in Indigenous contexts
where families have experienced multiple generations of marginalization within
public schools. The research findings have broader policy and program implications
for national efforts that often fail to recognize the importance of language and culture
for Indigenous and other minoritized children and families. The consequences of this
failure are replete in the well-worn trail of low achievement, low socioeconomic
status, and poor health of this nation’s Indigenous and minoritized populations.
Countering these challenges, there is a shift happening in Indigenous education
and research not to focus on the devastating after-effects of colonization but to
recognize and value the strengths and resilience of Indigenous communities.
Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage is only one example added to the work of
many educators, and researchers across the nation demonstrating what is possible
when communities are able to guide the education of their children, unleashing
greater relevance, and meaning in both outcome and substance.
Today, Hawaiʻiʻs children learn about Darwin’s evolutionary science in school,
how can learning Hawaiʻiʻs own place-based ancestral science create even strong
pathways for learners to care for the earth, to Mālama Honua? In addition, why
should they and others not be exposed to the diverse insights captured through
indigenous perspective like the Kumulipo as they learn science and other subjects?
More broadly, how might we as educators build pathways for Native children to
learn about their own knowledge systems in addition to learning about evolution
from a Western view?
Clearly, fresh research and development is needed to cultivate culturally rich,
deeper learning experiences for students where experiencing their kinship with the
earth is an everyday occurrence. For this to happen, educators need better tools to
engage students more effectively in learning the language of nature and families
supported to come together as communities that care for the earth and each other.
The earth is in crisis. To match and counteract the exponential pace of destruction,
the pace of positive change must also be exponential. Further work is needed to
discover and develop proof points, models of success, to share and disseminate and
scale and institutionalize transformational innovations through systems change.
Embracing the potential of Indigenous knowledge and culture-based education is a

“win” for everyone in our increasingly plurilingual, pluricultural world. All of
society will benefit from the assets found in cultural knowledge, values, and stories
as models of vitality and empowerment through which we can all progress.
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We Voyage for the Earth: Cultural

Advantage as a Global Education 57

Shawn Malia Kanaʻiaupuni

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 1137

Honua Worldwide Voyage as a powerful application of indigenous knowledge to

“When we care for the earth, we care for each other.”

This chapter introduces cultural advantage as a driving framework in education,

epistemology, culture, and values deeply rooted in ancestral wisdom, experience,

forward-oriented research and leadership that embraces the cultural advantages of

Shifting the Paradigm: Cultural Advantage as an Educational

Mohala i ka wai ka maka o ka pua

The concept of cultural advantage is highly relevant to Indigenous peoples across

affective strengths possessed by Indigenous students. Indigenous culture-based

Behind the Stage: Sociopolitical Context, Tensions, and Dilemmas

ʻO nā hōkū nō nā kiu o ka lani

Indigenous CBE sees educational systems embedded within broader sociopolit-

Building the Toolkit: Education as Individual and Collective

I ulu no ka lālā i ke kumu

reproduce inequities in power relations while also serving as a primary gateway to

Table 1 Developing ethnic identity as global competency (Based on Banks 1991)

Myself, in relation My values, my My empowerment,

Groups in relations Power relations Social action to

Fig. 1 Developing agency in youth

of individual actions to achieve urgently needed change on a global scale, an

Sharpening the Focus: Cultural Advantage and Indigenous

ʻAʻohe pau ka ʻike i ka hālau hoʻokahi

– Acknowledging the legitimacy of different cultural heritages

Table 2 Evolving approaches and aims of culture in education

– Using a wide variety of instructional strategies to connect with different learning

Reﬂexive, critical scholarship strengthens these approaches, seeing beyond cul-

As Indigenous peoples, our approach to Indigenous CBE recognizes, ﬁrst, that:

Improving Practice: Research on CBE and Student Educational

He puko‘a kani ‘aina

Empirical research examining the impact of CBE suggests several ﬁndings

Bringing It Home: Culture-Based Education and Native Hawaiians

Ua ao Hawaiʻi, ke ʻōlino nei

I am able to use cultural skills I learn at 77.6

High CBE Teachers Low CBE Teachers

I have participated in demonstrations, 50.8

I have attended a public meeting about 36.8

I have worked to protect the 71.0

development, Hawaiian language revitalization, and Native rights. Together, these

Table 3 Five dimensions of culture-based education (CBE)

environments across the state. Educators use project-based and place-based

Navigating for Global Impact: CBE and Mālama Honua

ʻAʻohe puʻu kiʻekiʻe ke hoʻāʻo ʻia e piʻi

The Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage embodies the power of cultural

Exploring the Galapagos represented a unique opportunity to celebrate

Continuing the Voyage (Conclusion and Future Direction): A Call

E mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pon,

This chapter is a call to action to transform educational systems as sites of power

Indigenous or otherwise, experience “culturally appropriate” school events? How

Embracing the potential of Indigenous knowledge and culture-based education is a

Furuto L (2014) Paciﬁc ethnomathematics: pedagogy and practices in mathematics education.

Ladson-Billings G (1995) Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. Am Educ Res J

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