The Lac du Flambeau Project was sponsored by The Hegemony Project when it was an organization working with the University of Wisconsin Stout. The Hegemony Project has now paired with the Educultural Foundation to provide projects and programs that fulfill the missions of both organizations.

The main goal of The Hegemony Project is to give voice to people who have been silenced by cultural hegemony. Those of us who work with The Hegemony Project, now embedded within Educultural Foundation, work to call out injustice and inequity in the political, educational and cultural systems.

Fulfilling the mission of The Hegemony Project, The Lac du Flambeau Project was dedicated to preparing a “Road Map” for educators who are tasked to prepare future teachers to teach their own K-12 students about First Nations/American Indian Studies–the history, culture, sovereignty and treaty rights and treaties of Indigenous/Native people in Wisconsin.

We have developed the “Road Map” in the context of cultural hegemony. Cultural hegemony is a process through which ordinary people like ourselves are persuaded to agree with and come to internalize certain dominant ideas, values and beliefs that serve elites, sow division among social and cultural groups, and have the consequence of reproducing asymmetrical power relationships (Gramsci, 1971).

We make these ideas, values and beliefs our own to such an extent that we see them as “normal,” “natural,” or “common sense” (Lea, 2014). Cultural hegemony cultivates docile, patriotic citizens who would serve the nation-state, and rarely challenge the status quo.

The Hegemony Project and the Lac du Flambeau Project are committed to find better ways to address cultural hegemony, and work together to help make the world a better place for everyone.