Educational Resources

Source:  Science Direct: Children and Youth Services Review Volume 111, April 2020.

Summary: Existing evidence suggests that child welfare involvement has a deleterious impact on Indigenous peoples in Canada in terms of increasing their risk of becoming a visible or hidden homeless individual. Visible homelessness is generally understood as those individuals found sleeping in parks, cars, shelters, or on the streets and other locales such as in abandoned buildings or under bridges. Whereas the hidden homeless are those who find interim accommodations with friends, family members, and acquaintances. Although in saying this, many of the visible homelessness scenarios can also be considered hidden. Regardless, all situations of homelessness reflect uncertainty, lack of safety, and an increased vulnerability to abuse and exploitation. The pathways to homelessness are rooted in structural deficits in the society, which are multiplicative and intersectional in nature. They include housing affordability, oppression, conditions of physical and mental well-being, employment and employability, as well as family support and community connection. On the other hand, the greater the educational achievement experienced by Indigenous peoples the less the risk of being subjected to homelessness.

The premise of this paper is that Indigenous Peoples are multiplicatively oppressed and that these intersecting sites of oppression increase the risk of Indigenous P,eoples in Canada becoming homelessness.

Source: Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights. Vol 3 No 1 (2016): Indigenous Children’s Rights

Margo Greenwood, Carleton University

Summary: Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) sets out the rights of Indigenous and minority children to learn about and practice their own culture, religion, and language in countries where these practices are not shared by the majority of the population. The provisions of Article 30 are particularly relevant in nations such as Canada that are built upon a history of colonization, where for generations Indigenous children have been dispossessed of their cultures, languages, territories, family and community ties—all of the foundational elements of healthy and whole Indigenous identities. The colonization of the life-worlds of Indigenous children represents, in short, a primary mechanism through which nations have attempted to eliminate and assimilate the Indigenous populations within their borders, with devastating multi-generational consequences for surviving Indigenous peoples.

Source: McIvor, Onowa; Ball, Jessica. University of Victoria – UVic Space

Summary: Indigenous languages are struggling for breath in the Global North. In Canada, Indigenous language medium schools and early childhood programs remain independent and marginalized. Despite government commitments, there is little support for Indigenous language-in-education policy and initiatives. This article describes an inaugural, country-wide, federally-funded, Indigenous-led language revitalization research project, entitled NE?OL?EW (one mind-one people).

The project brings together nine Indigenous partners to build a country-wide network and momentum to pressure multi-levels of government to honour agreements enshrining the right of children to learn their Indigenous language. The project is documenting approaches to create new Indigenous language speakers, focusing on adult language learners able to keep the language vibrant and teach their language to children. The article reflects upon how this Northern emphasis on Indigenous language revitalization and country-wide networking initiative is relevant to mother tongue-based education and policy examples in the Global South. The article underscores the need for both community level initiatives (top-down) and government level policy and funding (bottom up) to support child and adult Indigenous language learning.

Source: The Conference Board of Canada

Summary: Document Highlights

When educators use a culturally responsive curriculum – one that bridges Indigenous ways of knowing with Western science – Indigenous students are more engaged and perform better.

In recent years, many organizations across Canada have established programs to help Indigenous learners get ahead in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. However, the effectiveness of these new initiatives is not well understood.

The inventory in Incorporating Indigenous Cultures and Realities in STEM lists more than a 100 different programs in Canada that specifically aim to help Indigenous learners succeed in STEM. These programs can be sorted into eight broad strategies for increasing Indigenous representation in STEM. Each strategy falls into one of three periods in the learner’s life course. Within each strategy, there are initiatives that attempt to address cultural difference.

Source: Walking Together : Education for Reconciliation – Alberta Teachers’ Association

Summary: How were the Métis people in Alberta impacted by the Indian residential school system?

The first church-run mission schools established in western Canada beginning in the 1860s were open to First Nations and Métis children. As a result, many Métis students in the communities of Fort Chipewyan, St Albert and Lesser Slave Lake did attend school. In 1879 the Government of Canada, as part of its strategy of First Nations assimilation into the Euro-Canadian culture, entered into a partnership with the Christian churches to establish government-funded, church-run residential schools for Indigenous children. While the federal government acknowledged its responsibility for educating First Nations children, its overall policy was that the provinces were responsible for Métis children.

Source: Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 41:3 (2018)

Summary: Co-designed with over 200 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit educators and community members across Ontario, the survey investigated how students are learning to think about colonialism and its relationship to Indigenous peoples and Canadian society. Statistical analysis of 2,899 student responses reveals that first-year university students who graduated from Ontario high schools are substantially unaware of Indigenous presence and vitality. The majority of students do not understand the fundamental laws structuring conditions of life for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people or the contributions Indigenous peoples make to all aspects of Canadian society. Although they know slightly more about what is happening with regard to Indigenous peoples today, students have little sense of the historical circumstances and forces that shape current events… However, when students have opportunities to engage with Indigenous perspectives and topics, it can make a difference to what students know and think. These results indicate that curricular reform is key to eradicating mass ignorance but cannot occur in isolation. Teacher education programs must play a central role in enacting the promise of new curricular emphases.

Source: Congress of Aboriginal Peoples

Summary: Aboriginal Education, notably the inclusion of Aboriginal content in curricula and programs and the success of Aboriginal students, has received focused attention across Canada in recent years. Substantial efforts have been undertaken at the federal and provincial levels to address the differences in rates of achievement by Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal Youth (e.g., Kroes, 2008; Levin, 2009).

Historically, there have been gaps in measured outcomes between Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal Peoples of all ages, particularly in literacy rates (Statistics Canada, 2005), and enrolment to post‐ secondary education (Statistics Canada, 2010a). Although enrolment to post‐secondary education by Aboriginal Peoples is increasing, it is still below the rates of non‐Aboriginal Peoples. Across Canada rates of Aboriginal Peoples completing high school lag far behind non‐Aboriginal Peoples.

… According to Statistics Canada 2006 census data, 40% of Aboriginal Peoples aged 20 to 24 did not have a high‐school diploma, compared to 13% among non‐Aboriginal Peoples. The rate of non‐ completion is even higher for on‐reserve Aboriginal Peoples (61% had not completed high school) and for Inuit Peoples living in rural or remote communities (68% had not completed high school).

Gender differences on the 2006 census are also evident, as 43% percent of male Aboriginal Peoples in Canada between the ages of 20 and 24 had not completed high school, compared to 37% of female Aboriginal Peoples of the same age group (Statistics Canada, 2010a).

Source: First Peoples Child & Family Review, Cyndy Baskin Vol. 3 No. 3 (2007)

Summary: This article explores structural determinants as possible causes of the homelessness of Aboriginal youth in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It includes a brief literature review and provides some of the findings of a recent research project, which implemented an Aboriginal research methodology with homeless youth in Toronto. These findings point to a strong link between Aboriginal children growing up in poverty and involvement in child welfare and becoming homeless as a youth. Suggestions for positive change at the policy-level are offered in order to prevent the next generation of Aboriginal children growing up to become homeless youth.