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Whose knowledge, whose culture? Re-thinking theory through restorative approaches
A few years ago I was teaching a session on barriers to learning as part of a session concerning educational practice for adult students. We were using the classic motivation theory of ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ created (as I understood it) by psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1940s.

Maslow, like many theorists of his era and background, is a mainstay of teacher education, yet his well-used Hierarchy is problematic, and often meets with mixed responses. On this particular day, one student stated that the pyramid felt irrelevant to her for two reasons; firstly, there was no acknowledgement within its motivational frame of faith and spirituality, and secondly, the idea of communal development and collective ‘becoming’ was missing. We decided to cut up the hierarchy and flatten it out, exploring how it might look when viewed through an alternative understanding of humanity.
Not long after this event I came across the work of Cindy Blackstock, an indigenous scholar and activist. Blackstock’s ‘Breath of Life’ theory (2011) references Maslow’s 1930s visit to the Blackfoot reservation in Alberta, Canada and the way in which he studied the lives of First Nations people in order to inform his theoretical work. The wisdom of the aboriginal teachers and their contribution to knowledge is not acknowledged in his writing, yet the hierarchy itself is drawn directly from their lives and their teaching; and the pyramid, is in fact a tipi. The Blackfoot beliefs which form the basis of Maslow’s theory differ from his published interpretation in several important ways, however. Firstly, in Maslow’s conception, the original tipi is inverted; for the Blackfoot people, self-actualisation does not come at the top in terms of motivational progress, but is in fact at the bottom of the triangle, followed by community actualisation and finally, cultural perpetuity. As Blackstock states: ‘…if Maslow had more fully integrated Blood First Nations perspectives, the model would be centered on multi-generational community actualization versus on individual actualization and transcendence.’ (Blackstock, 2011). I discovered that the original and authentic Blackfoot tipi model is much closer to the worldview of my student who valued collective and collaborative life; it can be viewed in Blackstock’s article.
References
- Blackstock, C. (2011). The Emergence of the Breath of Life Theory. Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics. 8(1). [Online]. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264889109_The_Emergence_of_the_Breath_of_Life_Theory
Kay Sidebottom
Kay joined the Leeds Beckett University in January 2019 as a Lecturer in Education and Childhood. Her specialism is teacher education (lifelong learning) and her background is in community and futher education, where she has taught a range of subjects.