Teaching beliefs in Mohawk classrooms: Issues of language and culture

This study describes the teaching beliefs of three primary-level teachers (two Mohawk and one nonaboriginal) teaching in the same Mohawk community and analyzes the ways in which cultural identity and language impact on these beliefs. It is evident from this study that depicting teachers as belonging to specific cultural groups may inadequately represent the complexity and diversity of teachers in aboriginal classrooms. Individual personal histories nested in the sociohistorical issues of particular communities play an important role in creating teachers' identities within, as well as across, cultural groups. We need further careful examination of the diversify of teacher beliefs and biographies if we are not to trivialize such a complex issue.