Articles

MCC HAS ENGAGED IN A SERIES OF COLLABORATIVE AND COORDINATED RESEARCH CONNECTING ETHNOGRAPHIC AND RIGOROUS OUTCOME STUDIES

MCC’s work and studies recognized as making a contribution to culturally-based education

 

According to Mary Ann Zeher of Education Week (January 8, 2008). MCC is one of the few culturally based programs that conducted rigorous studies on student outcome.

MCC’s contribution to school reform, personal narratives and case studies of Yupiaq teachers, and the creation of a collaborative community based approach between Yupiaq elders, Yupiaq teachers, and academics was recognized by the Before Columbus Foundation’s prestigious American Book Award in 1999.

  

Books

Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup’ik Eskimo Examples (PDF) J Lipka with GV Mohatt, E Ilutsik, First Published 1998, eBook 2014

This book speaks directly to issues of equity and school transformation, and shows how one indigenous minority teachers' group engaged in a process of transforming schooling in their community. Documented in one small locale far-removed from mainstream America, the personal narratives by Yupík Eskimo teachers address the very heart of school reform. The teachers' struggles portray the first in a series of steps through which a group of Yupík teachers and university colleagues began a slow process of reconciling cultural differences and conflict between the culture of the school and the culture of the community.

The story told in this book goes well beyond documenting individual narratives, by providing examples and insights for others who are involved in creating culturally responsive education that fundamentally changes the role and relationship of teachers and community to schooling.

 

Chapters in Books

• Symmetry and Body Proportional Measuring: Contributions of Yup’ik Elders to Mathematics Education (Web Link), J Lipka, D Andrew-Ihrke, EE Yanez, Living Culturally Responsive Mathematics Education with/in Indigenous Communities, Chapter 11, 2019 

Qualitative Studies

• Culturally Negotiated Schooling: Toward a Yup'ik Mathematics (PDF) excerpted from Journal of American Indian Education, 33(3), 1994
• Developing an Alternative Learning Trajectory for Rational Number Reasoning, Geometry, and Measuring based on Indigenous Knowledge (Web Link)- J Lipka, M Wong, D Andrew-Ihrke, E Yanez, Alternative Forms of Knowing (in) Mathematics, New Directions in Mathematics and Science Education, 24, pp. 159–182, 2012
• Elastic Geometry and Storyknifing: A Yup'ik Eskimo Example. (Web Link) J Lipka, S Wildfeuer, N Wahlberg, M George, Teaching Children Mathematics, 7(6), p.337, 2001.
• Ethnomathematics Applied to Classrooms in Alaska: Math in a Cultural Context (PDF) excerpted from NASGEm Newsletter 3(1), 2009
• Indigenous Knowledge Provides an Elegant Way to Teach the Foundations of Mathematics (PDF) J Lipka, D Andrew-Ihrke, D Koester, V Zinger…, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2015
• Math in a Cultural Context: Two Case Studies of a Successful Culturally Based Math Project (Web Link)- excerpted from Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 36(4), 2005
• Negotiated Change: Yup'ik Perspectives on Indigenous Schooling (Web Link), J Lipka, E Ilutsik Bilingual Research Journal, 19(1), 1995
• Schools Failing Minority Teachers: Problems and Suggestions (Web Link), J Lipka, The Journal of Educational Foundations, 8(2), 1994
• Schooling for Self-Determination: Research on the Effects of Including Native Language and Culture in the Schools (PDF) taken from ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools ED459989, 2002
• Yup'ik cosmology to school mathematics: The power of symmetry and proportional measuring (Web Link), J Lipka, D Andrew–Ihrke, EE Yanez, Interchange, 42, 2011

Case Studies

• Toward a culturally based pedagogy: A case study of Yup’ik Eskimo Teacher (Web Link),  J Lipka. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 22(3), pp. 203-223, 1991
• Creating a third space for authentic biculturalism: Examples from math in a cultural context J Lipka, N Sharp, B Adams, F Sharp, Journal of American Indian Education, 46(3), pp. 94-115, 2007
• Constant Perimeter, Varying Area: a Case Study of Teaching and Learning Mathematics to Design a Fish Rack (Web Link), A. Rickard; Journal of American Indian Education, 44(3), pp. 80–100, 2005
• Finding a Good Fit: Using MCC in a "Third Space" (Web Link), JP Webster, P Wiles, M Civil, S Clark, Journal of American Indian Education, 44(3), pp. 9–30, 2005
• Reversing the academic trend for rural students: The case of Michelle Opbroek (Web Link). B Adams, S Adam, M Opbroek, Journal of American Indian Education, 44(3), pp. 55–79, 2005
• The relevance of culturally based curriculum and instruction: The case of Nancy Sharp (Web Link), J Lipka, N Sharp, B Brenner, E Yanez, F Sharp, Journal of American Indian Education, 44(3), pp. 31–54, 2005
• Integrating Cultural Form and Content in One Yup'ik Eskimo Classroom: A Case Study (Web Link) J Lipka, Canadian Journal of Native Education, 17(2), pp. 18–32, 1990

Ethnography, Theory, and Practice

• Symmetry and Measuring: Ways to Teach the Foundations of Mathematics Inspired by Yupiaq Elders, J. Lipka, B. Adams, M. Wong, D. Koester, K. Francois, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 9(1), pp. 107–157, 2019

Quantitative Studies

• Academic and practical intelligence: A case study of the Yup'ik in Alaska (PDF) excerpted from Learning and Individual Differences 14(4), 2004
• Adapting assessment instruments for an Alaskan context (PDF) MMD Wong, J Lipka, pp. 821–829. Australia: AAMT and MERGA, 2011
• Culturally Based Math Education as a Way to Improve Alaska Native Students’ Math Performance (PDF) excerpted from the Working Paper Series of ACCLAIM Number 20, 2004
• Introduction (PDF) excerpted from Journal of American Indian Education 44(3), 2005 
• The Potential of a Culturally based Supplemental Mathematics Curriculum to Improve the Mathematics Performance of Alaska Native and Other Students (Web Link) from the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 43(1), pp. 75–113, 2012
• Triarchically-based instruction and assessment of sixth-grade mathematics in a Yup'ik cultural setting in Alaska RJ Sternberg, J Lipka, T Newman, S Wildfeuer, EL Grigorenko, Gifted and Talented International, 21(2), pp. 9–19, 2006
• Some Evidence for Ethnomathematics: Quantitative and Qualitative Data from Alaska (Web Link) J. Lipka, B. Adams, International Congress of Mathematics Education (ICME) 10, Copenhagen (DK), July 2004

Articles on Math in a Cultural Context by Others

• Finding out what works for Native students (By Rhonda Barton) (PDF) excerpted from Northwest Education Magazine, 9(4), pp. 22–26, 2004
• Counting on Tradition: Math in a Cultural Context Adds Up (PDF) from Agroborealis, School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences at University of Alaska Fairbanks, 40(1), p. 4, 2009
• Evidence on Effect of Culture-Based Teaching Called Thin (Web Link) from Education Week, 27(17), p. 8, 2008
• Measuring Proportionally: Elders' Wisdom Applied to Teaching and Learning, and The Potential Contribution of Indigenous Knowledge to Teaching and Learning Mathematics Project, (PDF) from University of Alaska Fairbanks, School of Education, Newsletter, pp. 4–5, 2012
• Measuring the World the Yup’ik Way: New Math Curriculum Adds Up to Success (Web Link) from Indian Country Today, Jan 26 2015