Call for Proposals

It is a pleasure to invite you to the 8th Annual Indigenous Education Research Conference.  The conference is hosted by the Institute for American Indian Education at the University of New Mexico.  The first day of the conference is April 3, 2025 in-person at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, NM.  The second day of the conference is April 4, 2025 and will be virtual.
The Institute for American Indian Education acknowledges and operationalizes the importance of engaging in research that recognizes the integrity of cultural sovereignty as it is exercised by Indigenous Nations.  As educators, scholars, and Indigenous Peoples, IAIE is cognizant of the critical role that Western and Indigenous-centered education has on pedagogy, policy, research, and practice.  It is in this spirit that the idea for this research conference emerged.
The theme of the 8th Annual Indigenous Education Research Conference is Acknowledging the Historical Significance of Our Past as a Foundation for Moving Forward.  The late Indigenous scholar Haunani Trask (1987) describes our history: 
The history of Indigenous People cannot be written from within Western culture.  Such a story is merely the West's story of itself.  Our story remains unwritten.  It rests within the culture, which is inseparable from the land.  To know this is to know our history.  To write this is to write of the land and the people who are born from her. (p.178)

Our beloved sister Haunani Trask speaks to the centrality of culture, language, and land in developing and advancing a critical historical consciousness as Indigenous Peoples in our research, pedagogy and community engagement efforts.

We invite proposals for research-based panels and papers that address:
  • Rearticulating the space of boarding schools from the past to the present e.g., Santa Fe Indian School, Haskell Indian Nations University
  • Transfer of Bureau of Indian Affairs schools to tribally controlled schools
  • Teaching difficult histories in secondary and post-secondary schools
  • Transformational leadership from authoritative models to transformational, collective, visionary and holistic models
  • History of Native Education topics, e.g., boarding schools, day schools, early childhood, immersion schools, survival schools, tribal colleges, unschooling movements, critical historical studies, children's literature in Native history, young adult literature in Native history
  • Conducting historical research of Native education from an Indigenous perspective
  • Decolonizing historiography

Panels

Panel presentation proposals should include a 200-500 word narrative (excluding references) explaining how the proposed panel will address the conference theme: Ackowledging the Historical Significance of Our Past as a Foundation for Moving Forward.  In addition to the narrative, a 50-word bio should be submitted for each presenter.  Panel presentations should be no longer than 45 minutes, allowing 15 minutes for a question-and-answer session.

Papers

Paper presentation proposals should include a 200-500 word narrative (excluding references) describing how the proposed paper will address the conference theme: Acknowledging the Historical Significance of Our Past as a Foundation for Moving Forward.  In addition to the narrative, a 50-word bio should be submitted for each author of the paper.  Paper presentations should be no longer than 45 minutes, allowing 15 minutes for a question-and-answer session.

Submission:

Submit your panel or paper proposal as well as any inquiries you may have regarding the conference to Glenabah Martinez at glenie@unm.edu and/or Shereena Baker at sbaker8@unm.edu

Important Dates:

Deadline for proposal submission: February 28, 2025
Notification of acceptance: March 7, 2025
Registration deadline: March 14, 2025
Notification from presenters confirming attendance: March 21, 2025

Conference: April 3 - 4, 2025

 

No fee to attend the conference but registration is required.

We look forward to seeing you at the 8th Annual Indigenous Education Research Conference

Thank you,

UNM Native Faculty & IERC Planning Committee

For more information regarding the 2025 Indigenous Education Research Conference please subscribe to our list-serv...