In contemporary educational research, practice and policy, ‘indigenous women’ have emerged as an important focus in the global education arena. This Special Issue investigates what is significant about indigenous women and their learning in terms of policy prescriptions, research agendas and not least indigenous women’s own aspirations. The articles draw on the authors’ ongoing research and experiences from diverse countries including Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Nepal and Peru. The articles engage with indigenous women’s learning from the perspectives of rights, agency, power, gender equality and cultural, linguistic and ontological diversity. These are issues pertinent not only in these country contexts but reverberate across the field of adult education and women’s learning in the UK and beyond. This Introduction examines contemporary education policy to understand why there is a focus on indigenous women, and what such a focus contributes to promoting adult learning. It starts by questioning the global discourse of indigenous women as vulnerable and asks who are indigenous women? The articles demonstrate the kinds of marginalisations and discriminations indigenous women confront as indigenous persons, as women and as indigenous women, but they also point to women’s agency and power in the face of complex and dynamic changing social, physical, economic and cultural environments. The grounded ethnographic nature of the research also emphasises the importance of recognising indigenous women, not as a homogeneous undifferentiated group or category. It illustrates their diverse positionalities emerging from their varying historical and contemporary experiences of inequalities, opportunities and formal education, as well as their learning desires, demands and practices.

中文翻译：

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土著妇女和成人学习：朝着范式转变？

在当代教育研究，实践和政策中，“土著妇女”已成为全球教育领域的重要焦点。本期专刊从政策规定，研究议程，尤其是土著妇女自己的愿望出发，对土著妇女及其学习的意义进行了调查。文章借鉴了作者在埃塞俄比亚，印度，墨西哥，尼泊尔和秘鲁等不同国家的持续研究和经验。这些条款从权利，代理，权力，两性平等以及文化，语言和本体论多样性的角度参与土著妇女的学习。这些问题不仅与这些国家相关，而且在英国及其他地区的成人教育和妇女学习领域也引起了反响。本导论探讨了当代教育政策，以了解为什么偏重于土著妇女，以及这种偏重对促进成人学习有何帮助。它首先质疑土著妇女作为弱势群体的全球话语，并问谁是土著妇女？这些条款说明了土著妇女作为土著人，妇女和土著妇女所面临的边缘化和歧视，但它们也指出了面对复杂，动态变化的社会，自然，经济和文化环境的妇女的代理权和权力。研究的扎实的人种学特征也强调了承认土著妇女的重要性，而不是将其视为同质的未分化群体或类别。