Approaches to Indigenous Topics, Issues and Perspectives in Teacher Education

Dear Colleagues,

Teacher educators have a pivotal role in training student teachers up to have competence in indigenous topics, issues and perspectives. This is particularly important to prevent discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypical views of indigenous people, and especially indigenous children. Teaching to promote indigenous values, practices and cultural knowledge often demands holistic and or interdisciplinary approaches, which are uncommon practices in higher education as well as in teacher education. Teacher educators with non-indigenous backgrounds may often feel hesitant to include indigenous perspectives due to their perceived lack of competence.

The aim of this Special Issue is to address how indigenous topics, issues and perspectives can be approached in teacher education. We are particularly interested in opportunities and challenges related to indigenous topics in teacher education (qualifying for work in early childhood education, primary and secondary education).  

We are interested in themes focused on teacher education such as: 

• Interdisciplinary, crossdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teaching and learning;
• Subject-specific approaches to indigenous topics;
• Sustainability issues;
• Indigenous contributions to solve challenges for the future; 
• Indigenous topics in the digital classroom; 
• Traditional knowledge and skills;
• Intergenerational knowledge;
• Place-based, nature-based and outdoor education;
• Arts approaches from indigenous perspectives; 
• Urban and rural perspectives and tensions.

We invite the submission of proposals up to 200 words in length by 15th March to Guest Editor Veronica Bergan <[email protected]> with "Approaches to Indigenous Topics, Issues and Perspectives in Teacher Education" in the subject line. Proposals will be reviewed and accepted, and accepted proposals will then be invited to submit a full manuscript for peer review. Please note that an invitation to submit a full paper does not guarantee acceptance; all papers will be subject to the full peer review process as per any submission to Education Sciences. A full manuscript should be between 4000 and 8000 words in length, including the Abstract and any tables/figures.

Dr. Veronica Bergan
Dr. Siw T. Killengreen
Guest Editors

Associate Professor Jan Höper
Guest Editor Assistant

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• teacher education
• indigenous perspectives
• outdoor education
• sustainability
• interdisciplinary teaching
• traditional knowledge
• traditional practices