Research in the area of sociolinguistics, African Nova Scotian Ebonics, and literacy achievement never truly developed in Nova Scotia. Unlike previous literacy outcome research, this research study employs a qualitative content analysis and Critical Pedagogy to examine the process of assessment and the Linguistic Deficit Theory embedded within the education system. The sociolinguistic hierarchy of Standard English has caused numerous misconceptions, which impacts the Ebonics speech community across the African diaspora. Yet, previous research found that the promotion of code-switching between Standard English and Ebonics in an anti-racist empowering environment promotes higher literacy achievement among Ebonics speakers. My research findings suggest that the Nova Scotia education system has implemented cultural and linguistic diverse curriculum policies. However, the Linguistic Deficit Theory resurfaces in several sections of the assessment process. These findings suggest that future research should focus on in-classroom participation or observing the assessment practices for more detailed and generalizable findings.

The meaning of and motivations behind self-identification is a contentious topic within “the Black community.” The thesis examines the articulation of “Black” and/or “African” identities as means of gaining access to Nova Scotia’s Black Business Initiative (BBI), a state-funded organization mandated with “fostering a dynamic and vibrant Black presence” in the Nova Scotian business community. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Halifax in 2013, including interviews with a diverse representation of 36 participants who self-identified as either "Black" or "African." Viewed as a rare redress effort directed toward and run by Blacks, the BBI is a highly visible site of contestation and competition between “indigenous Blacks” and more recently arrived “African Nova Scotians” from the African continent and Caribbean islands over the boundaries of native and foreign Blackness. The thesis argues that a group historically positioned as “Black” (i.e. Other) within a lasting narrative of displacement – both in the Americas in general, and academic diaspora discourse specifically – can be seen as adopting and adapting a discourse of indigeniety as an act of political and economic empowerment. Stuart Hall’s theoretical understanding of the articulation and positioning of Black identities is used to frame a discussion on the coupling of a distinct group’s lived experiences of subjugation and marginalization in place (i.e. Blackness) with a political and juridical ideology of belonging and entitlement to state recognition and resources (i.e. indigeniety) as a means of securing racially directed resources. It therefore challenges Paula Madden’s (2009) overly simplistic critique of this community as creating a hierarchy of Blackness and performing an erasure of Mi’kma’ki through its claims of Black indigeniety.