No description available.

No description available.

Although a plethora of educational initiatives over the past 30 years were developed with the goal of improving the academic success of Aboriginal students in public schools, there continues to be a significant achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in Canada (Battiste, 2000, 2002; Ireland, 2009; St. Denis, 2007, 2010; White & Beavon, 2009). In 2008, the Manitoba Minister of Education attempted to address this gap in part by mandating that faculties of Education across the province restructure teacher education programs to include a compulsory course on Aboriginal perspectives, histories and pedagogies. This mixed methods research explores the perceived impact of the mandate on the student teachers who completed the course entitled, “Teaching Aboriginal Perspectives” at Brandon University Faculty of Education during the 2008 – 2010 academic terms. Donald (2009), St. Denis (2007), and Williams and Tanaka (2007) report that subtle and overt forms of resistance to mandated courses are displayed when students teachers are compelled to study Aboriginal issues as a requirement for teacher certification. As such, this research is conceptually framed using critical race theory (Bell, 1991; Delgado, 1995; & Dunbar, 2008), Indigenous or Aboriginal feminism (Canella & Manuelito, 2008) and Red Pedagogy (Grande, 2004, 2008). The methodology for this research is primarily phenomenological but articulated using Indigenous storywork (Archibald, 2008) and story (Wilson, 2008). The primary data sources include surveys or questionnaires and semi-structured interviews of students within the course, my personal story as an Aboriginal female professor of the course and the stories of new teachers’ experiences embedded throughout the report. The findings are analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, means and percentages) and comparative statistics (chi-squares and t-tests) for quantitative items on the questionnaires, and constant comparative data analysis methods for open-ended questions on the questionnaires and the interview data. Findings show that the student teachers demonstrated growth in FNMI content and knowledge over both years of the study. The findings also indicate an initial resistance to course content which causes angst for both students and the instructor as students engage with contentious issues, the deconstruction of privilege and examples of institutionalized racism within the educational system. Although more positive attitudes regarding FNMI content, worldviews, pedagogies and people developed over the duration of the course, once student teachers move into the school system, their desire to implement their learning are often challenged by racist attitudes and practices, particularly in schools where administrators do not foster FNMI education. The study concludes by suggesting that the mandate and work that has begun in the Aboriginal Perspectives course is important, necessary work, but it must be sustained across the entire educational system and across the career stages of all teachers in order to change the social attitudes that continue to dominate in schools.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Within the United States, the southern strategy of Massive Resistance to federally mandatedr acial desegregationh ad its origins in 1948, a year which saw the confirmation of Cold War hostilities in Europe. As a result, the dialogue surrounding matters of race was infused with Cold War rhetoric. Between 1950 and 1954, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy added to this milieu, reinvigorating anticommunism and red-baiting as political weapons. Allied to the traditional southern fear of "outsiders," many southerns egregationists seized upon anti-communism as a weapon to undermine opponents promoting change to the region's racial status quo. This thesis, however, challenges the notion that all segregationists used anticommunism against all integrationists at all times. Rather, anti-communism could be a subtle, flexible political tool which individuals and groups tailored to suit their own needs. At times, it was used to rebuff specific civil rights campaigns, activists and organisations. At others, it was used sparingly. One of the main tenets of this thesis is that, hitherto, segregationists have commonly been treated in rather one-dimensional terms by historians of the civil rights movement. By examining their diverse responses to anti-communism and wider Cold War anxieties, it is argued that they were not the homogeneous political group that many have suggested, but in many ways were as resourceful and pragmatic as those they opposed in the civil rights movement. This thesis also examines some apparent anomalies in the uses of anticommunism and Cold War rhetoric. Opponents of segregation berated segregationists for undermining America's attempts to court newly independent, post-colonial states in the Caribbean, Asia and Africa. No predominately non-white country, they argued, would align with the US-dominated West rather than the Soviet East with such blatant racism endemic in the American South. Segregationists were accused of being more totalitarian than their Soviet counterparts, and of bringing Soviet-style one party rule to the region. Finally, by looking in depth at two southern states, North Carolina and Virginia, this thesis will do more justice to the nuances and complexities of anticommunism than would be possible in a broader, regional study. Both states were at the legislative forefront of Massive Resistance, and both propounded a more sophisticated -- though no less determined -- brand of racism than most of their counterpartsi n the Deep South, largely as a consequence of their reliance on external investment.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.