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The Power of Oral Culture in Education

Theorizing Proverbs, Idioms, and Folklore Tales

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  • © 2023

Overview

  • Explores the power of oral culture centering Indigeneity and non-hegemonic approaches in education
  • Features a range of contributors from equity-deserving identities representing oral culture from different identities, communities, and countries
  • Includes pedagogical tools for educators, practitioners, and students

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Table of contents (17 chapters)

  1. Identity: Knowing and Understanding Who You Are, Your Roots, Lineage, and Cultural Customs and Practices

  2. Culture: Customs and Traditions with Symbolic Meanings Associated with a Particular Nation, People, or Social Group

  3. Power: The Ability or Capacity to Influence Change Which Can Manifest in Different Ways Through Ideas, Individuals, or Institutions

  4. Community: A Collective Group or Geographical Space That Attends to the Needs of Its Members with Love, Respect, and Reciprocity with a Unified Vision or Common Interests

Keywords

About this book

This volume explores the importance of inter-generational oral culture and stories that transcend time, space, and boundaries transmitted historically from one generation to the next through proverbs, idioms, and folklore tales in different geographical and spatial contexts. These important stories and their embedded life lessons are introduced, explained, and supplemented with pre and post educational activities and lesson plans to be used as learning resources. The centering of orality as a tool and medium for educating the future generation is a reclamation and reaffirmation of Indigeneity, Indigenous knowledges. and non-hegemonic approaches to support students in a socio-culturally sustaining manner. Through this understanding, this book explores the interconnectedness between culture, traditions, language, and way of life through oral storytelling, sharing, and listening.   



Reviews

‘Eizadirad and Wane’s Power of Oral Culture in Education: Theorizing Proverbs, Idioms, and Folklore Tales is a powerfully insightful work of scholarship with impeccable attention to context, culture, and literary construction. This is a brilliant and provocative examination of oral traditions and practices.“
 
 –Molefi Kete Asante, Professor, Department of Africology, Temple University 




“Moving between the poetic, the auto/biographical and the praxis of storytelling, Power of Oral Culture in Education: Theorizing Proverbs, Idioms, and Folklore Tales creates a cartography where the center of learning is no longer within the four walls that we call school but within folklore tales, idioms and proverbs. Innovatively conceived and darefully articulated, Power of Oral Culture in Education engages us as readers, students and educators in pedagogical ways that are yet to be fully understood. The concepts of Indigeneity, spirituality, empathy, literacy, relationality and decoloniality are taken to a whole another level. Here language is turned into the landscape where folktales and identities are both formed and performed. For those who are interested in oral culture, proverbs, storytelling and folklore tales, Power of Oral Culture in Education is a must read.”–Awad Ibrahim, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa“In the Power of Oral Culture in Education, Ardavan Eizadirad and Njoki Wane provide a gift. This important resource which contributors write about proverbs, sayings, and folktales serves for many as a reminder of roots or cultural heritage; and as the theories by which we have been able to frame our analyses and understandings of life histories, contexts, and observations. These resources have long been used and will continue to tell our counter-stories as evident in this timely contribution.”


–Carl E. James, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora




“Power of Oral Culture in Education: Theorizing Proverbs, Idioms, and Folklore Tales comes to us at a critical time, when the need for untold stories and counter narratives are essential in educating for the future.  Dr. Ardavan Eizadirad and Dr. Njoki Wane reminds us through diverse narratives not only the importance of upholding oral traditions but exemplifying the power stories hold in education through reaffirming identities, cultural legacies, and future aspirations of learners.”


–Karen Murray, System Superintendent, Toronto District School Board


Editors and Affiliations

  • Faculty of Education, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada

    Ardavan Eizadirad

  • Department of Social Justice Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Njoki Nathani Wane

About the editors

Ardavan Eizadirad is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. His research interests include equity, standardized testing, youth violence, community engagement, anti-oppressive practices, critical pedagogy, social justice education, resistance, and decolonization. 


Njoki Nathani Wane is Chair of the Department of Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, Canada. Wane’s research interests include African Indigenous knowledges, spirituality, anti-colonial, decolonial, and decolonization theory. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Power of Oral Culture in Education

  • Book Subtitle: Theorizing Proverbs, Idioms, and Folklore Tales

  • Editors: Ardavan Eizadirad, Njoki Nathani Wane

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18537-3

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-18536-6Published: 04 March 2023

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-18539-7Published: 05 March 2024

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-18537-3Published: 03 March 2023

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXII, 305

  • Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Education, general, Literature, general, Religious Studies, general, Literature, general, Religious Studies, general

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