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The Native peoples of North America still confront the challenges of lingering colonial cultural imperialism. One such challenge is that of Native education, and its unfortunate management by the European-descended political powers. Using tactics such as assimilation, segregation and integration, the establishment used schooling as a blunt tool to solve the so-called "Indian problem"---that is, the assimilation of the Native population into the European way of life. The results were predictably tragic; the current education system is still perceived as a tool of colonization by many Natives. / After so many failed attempts, policy-makers are finally looking to return to the First Nations the education they need, not what North America thinks they should have. One example of this is the proposal to create an institution of higher learning within the Cree communities of Northern Quebec. This dissertation examines the possible challenges and benefits of such a project. It explores the relationship between Cree students and the current "mainstream" education system by way of research, participant-observation narrative and the voice of the Cree themselves while interviewed. / Since they must travel to non-Native communities to pursue higher education, Cree students typically deal with culture shock, alienation and no small degree of racism while studying. In addition a commonality of experience between the Cree and students of other Native communities while attending a "white" school precipitates a pan-Indian/super-tribal perspective, which becomes an important factor in their world view. / Because this dissertation uses participant-observation and interview methodologies for research, and because the subjects of the observation and the interviews are Cree students, then it is necessary for this dissertation to first survey the topics of Pan-Indian Identity and Culture Shock and put them into context. In fact, a large part of the participant-observation narrative is that of the author integrating into a Cree community as an educator. This narrative essentially documents the author's own stages of culture shock, a mirror to that which the Native student faces "down south" at college. These are examples of the real anxieties and challenges faced when immersed in a new and different culture. / The Native perspective is provided by the Cree students themselves in interviews that were fortunately rich in narrative recollection. In addition to answering the standard interview questions, the interviewees offered their own anecdotes, observations and insights into their experiences within the "mainstream" education system. / The conclusions drawn in this body of research may go towards dealing with the legacy of Cree distrust towards an educational system possibly perceived as an imposition of a colonizing society, and to answering the real needs of Native students who are seeking to benefit from education, whatever its form.

This documentary study sought to determine the relevance of the James Bay Cree's cultural values and practices to their policy-making process as school committee members. The Cree's formal school system, for which they have full responsibility, is based on the values and practices of non-native society. / Using the historical method, both primary and secondary sources were searched for relevant information concerning Cree culture and its distinguishing characteristics. Evidence of a distinct egalitarian society, practicing consensus, reciprocity and communal land use was found. Sources also indicated the continuing existence and adaptability of Cree values and practices despite prolonged interaction with non-native society. / This thesis proposes that these cultural values and practices predispose the Cree to be effective school committee members. The study provides data for a possible future ethnographic study of Cree school committee participation. Further research could also focus on the policy-making process required of Cree school board members.

Abstract not supplied. / Thesis (Ph.D)-University of Natal, 1959.

This longitudinal study on the transition from school to work of a group of Indian school-leavers from two co-educational schools in Durban is an attempt to analyse the processes underlying the construction of educational and career routes. It deals with the lived experiences of boys and girls from different social-class backgrounds within the school, the family, and the work situation. This passage from school to work, which also includes the experiences of unemployment, is examined against the background of social interactions in micro settings, as well as the influences of social, structural and cultural forces. In particular, the career pathways are studied within the context of the cultural background of Indians, and their socio-historical location in the South African society as a minority and an intermediate status group in a racially-divided society. As the students proceeded through the last three years at school and into the first few months of work various qualitative, field research methods were used to get some insight into the changing and complex nature of the transitional process. These methods included participant observation, focus sed and unfocussed interviews, and discussions. Such qualitative research methods were valuable for an understanding' of the meanings and values on which the students' actions were based. The structural and interpretive analysis of the family, the school, the labour market, and a patriarchal, capitalist, apartheid society points to the significance of ideological values, hegemony, class relations, racial, gender, and political and economic influences on the construction of educational and career identities. The analysis also indicates the close relationship which exists on the one hand between the cultural interpretations and practices of various social actors; and on the other hand, the structural conditions in which these are located. The findings provide some account of how social-class relations are continued and sustained via related and different inequalities such as race and gender. Race, class and gender exist side by side in this reproduction process. By focussing on the close relationship which exists between the actions and decisions of the students, and the structures of society, this study attempts to bridge the gap between structural and interpretive explanations. The students' interpretations of their educational and career choices are brought into a closer relationship with the structures of society. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1988.

This research project investigates the ways in which six Indian boys who have been officially proclaimed failures in grade 11 construct their masculinity in Meadowlands Secondary School, a predominantly Indian technical secondary school in a working class area of Chatsworth. The way in which failing Indian boys construct their masculinity is under-researched in South Africa. When boys are officially declared academic failures by the school, they often take other ways to validate their masculine identities. This study focused on the complex relationship between their academic failure and the formation of their masculinities. Drawing from semi-structured in-depth interviews with six boys who failed grade 11 in 2003 and are currently repeating grade 11 in 2004, the study shows the complex relationship between school failure, and the formation of boys' masculinities in three areas. These areas are the formal academic dimension of schooling, the informal social dimension of schooling and outside school activities. The major fmdings from the interviews indicate that boys construct their masculinity by resisting the demands placed on them in schools and engage in disruptive activities. They find alternate power and prestige in wearing brand name clothes, wearing jewellery, carrying cellular phones, having girlfriends, clubbing, taking drugs and joining gangs. They find school boring and equate academic achievement with being feminine and thus being gay and resist doing school-work. They are thus able to construct their masculinities in ways that are anti-school and anti-authority. The study concludes by suggesting that failing boys at MSS are in trouble and that schools and teachers must be more alert to why failing boys behave in the ways that they do. At MSS it is suggested that the school encourages the development of sport as a way of exposing boys to different ways of being a boy. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

This study seeks to throw light on the language background of fifty-nine primary school children in schools for Indian South Africans in the Durban area of Natal. The schools were all under the control of the Department of Internal Affairs. At some time before February 1982, each child had been referred to the remedial teacher employed at his school, and had subsequently received help in language, specifically reading, for at least the period from February 1982 - November 1983. Even after that time, the children were not considered able to achieve satisfactorily in the "normal" class without further help. Data were initially collected by remedial teachers who interviewed the adult considered most significant in the child's life, using scheduled interviews. In addition they collected information from the child and the school and filled in personal questionnaires. After the first school term of 1984, Diploma in Specialise Education (Remedial Education) students at the University of Durban-Westville visited the homes of twenty children in the study and tape-recorded unstructured interviews with the adults. Three of these tapes are used in this text. The data collected is used to show that despite the poverty many families experience, the reason for the child's language difficulties is caused less by lack of material possessions than by parental ignorance of how best they can encourage language development and help close the gap between the spoken language of home and both the spoken and written language the children meet in school. The inefficiency of questionnaires as research tools became increasingly apparent as the project progressed, and that there is a real need for a thorough qualitative investigation into the language background of pupils-in-need is clear. / Thesis (M.Ed) - University of Durban-Westville, 1984.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, 1960.

The aim of the research was to document as fully as possible the programmes and practices in Indian secondary schools in the Republic of South Africa for the induction of beginning teachers. Teacher education is viewed as a career-long professional continuum and induction as the transition between graduation from a pre-service teacher education institution to the onset of in-service education. Induction is viewed as an important stage in the prolonged period of professional development. The method of research was, initially, to make a study of induction programmes in England, Australia and the United States of America. The concept adopted to guide questionnaire compilation and item writing was that prospective teachers had acquired knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in anticipation of their professional performance during the pre-service period. The premise was that those acquired ideas and skills will become active only in so far as the new situation allowed, demanded and encouraged the beginning teacher. The major findings that emerge from the study are that induction activities assume varied forms and that the integration and orientation of beginning teacher into the teaching profession depend very much on the nature of the schools and the willingness and co-operation of the principal and certain members of his established staff. There is no well defined system for the orientation of beginning teachers into the profession. The underlying problem was found to be the absence of a philosophy and policy for induction by the Department of Education and Culture (House of Delegates). The study concludes with several recommendations to the Department of Education and Culture (House of Delegates) the most important being: the formulation of a policy by the Department based on a well defined philosophy for induction; implementation of programmes arising from the policy in the form of school based induction activities, external support programmes by the teachers' centres, subject advisers, tertiary institutions and the teachers' associations. The underlying conclusion of the study is that induction is a complex process but definitely not an opportunity to be missed. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, 1988.