Niitsitapia’pii – Improving Well-Being in Blackfoot Youth Through Niitsi’powahsin (Speaking Blackfoot Language)

Crowshoe, Lisa

Niitsitapia’pii – Improving Well-Being in Blackfoot Youth Through Niitsi’powahsin (Speaking Blackfoot Language)

dc.contributor.author	Crowshoe, Lisa
dc.contributor.supervisor	McIvor, Onowa
dc.date.accessioned	2024-05-02T20:18:48Z
dc.date.available	2024-05-02T20:18:48Z
dc.date.issued	2024
dc.degree.department	Department of Indigenous Education
dc.degree.level	Doctor of Philosophy PhD
dc.description.abstract	Niitsitapia’pii – Improving Well-Being in Blackfoot Youth Through Learning Niitsi’powahsin, begins with the premise that Indigenous language learning can improve youth well-being. Niitsi’powahsin is speaking the language of the Blackfoot people. Niitsi’powahsin is a powerful means of connecting to Niitsitapia’pii (Blackfoot values and ways of knowing). This researchexplores a method for Blackfoot youth to improve their well-being while learning values-based Niitsi’powahsin. Blackfoot Elders and Knowledge Keepers chose a Niitsitapia’pii value and offered an accompanying values-based Niitsi’powahsin language lesson. Each recordingincluded an introduction, values-based language lesson, and related story (personal, traditional, historical). The audio-recordings were used to create podcasts. For Piikani Elders and Knowledge Keepers, this was a new way to combine Niitsi’powahsin language lessons, Niitsitapia’pii – values-based learning, and storytelling. The voices of the Elders and Knowledge Keepers are shared in the podcasts, additionally responses to questions are written in this dissertation. Upon completion of the language podcasts, Blackfoot youth were selected to listen to and respond to the podcasts. Their responses to the podcasts are shared thematically in the dissertation. Blackfoot youth responses were overall positive however, the technological aspect of the podcasts required improvements such as sound quality. It is the intent of this Indigenous language revitalization research to provide a method for Blackfoot youth to connect with language – Niitsi’powahsin – in a way that would explicitly teach a Blackfoot value in the larger context of Blackfoot storytelling.
dc.description.scholarlevel	Graduate
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1828/16473
dc.language	English	eng
dc.language.iso	en
dc.rights	Available to the World Wide Web
dc.subject	Blackfoot language
dc.subject	Niitsi’powahsin
dc.subject	values-based
dc.subject	youth
dc.subject	Elders
dc.subject	Knowledge keepers
dc.subject	Indigenous
dc.subject	language revitalization
dc.title	Niitsitapia’pii – Improving Well-Being in Blackfoot Youth Through Niitsi’powahsin (Speaking Blackfoot Language)
dc.type	Thesis