This qualitative study explored the potential for decolonizing the secondary English Language Arts classroom. An interdisciplinary approach was used to explore contemporary theories of literary criticism relevant to the study of Aboriginal literature, including an approach through colonial and post-colonial discourse and the growing body of theory and criticism written by North American Aboriginals; to incorporate literary theory and pedagogical knowledge of content into the development of Aboriginal literature units FOR secondary school classrooms; and to incorporate these new interpretive and pedagogical understandings into the practices of two secondary English teachers using North American Aboriginal literature in their classrooms.<p>A document was prepared that explored the interpretive potentials of postcolonial and Aboriginal literary theories and given to the two participating teachers who were able to use this information to develop instructional units for their literature classes. Action research framed the approach used to implement, revise, and evaluate the units of study in the two grade twelve classrooms. <p>The participating teachers found that the critical lenses enabled them to approach Aboriginal literature with more confidence and insight. They also found that their classroom use of Aboriginal literature disclosed the misconceptions their students held concerning Aboriginal peoples. The teachers were frustrated by the systemic racism evident in their classrooms. They were also frustrated by the resistance shown by their teaching peers toward incorporating Aboriginal literature and anti-racist methodologies into their instruction.<p>The findings of this study suggest that more exposure to critical literary theories and minority literatures in the context of teachers pre-service and in-service education may help to decolonize Canadian classrooms.

Teachers play a pivotal role in the production of discourse on race relations in education, yet few studies have researched the impact of white teacher identity construction as a variable in the creation and maintenance of racial ideologies, particularly here in Canada. The majority of the current research done on racism in schools has produced data that points to the widespread denial of racism by the majority of white teachers and students, while parents, teachers and students of color acknowledge the pervasive role racism plays in their educational and social lives. While the focus on institutional and systemic racism is important, it sometimes denies the role individuals play in the reproduction of racism and in our ability to make change. For these reasons, it is critical to consider the identity constructions of white teachers, as these constructions will influence how we interpret and respond to existing racial inequalities in education. <p>This research will draw from poststructural theories of discourse analysis in order to analyze how white teacher identity constructions of innocence are reproduced in an education system where racial inequalities are pervasive and systemic. Discourse analysis and deconstruction are important in understanding the way our subjectivity as white teachers continues to be produced and maintained.<p>This study takes place in the Prairie region, where Aboriginal people have been produced as the racial Other historically. Using an open-ended questionnaire, in-service, and focus group method, this research study invites educators to narrate their own perceptions of racism in schools. The collection and analysis of this data begins to address the theoretical gap in academic knowledge on teacher perceptions of racism in education.

The purpose of this autoethnographic study was to examine three questions: (a) how did my view of myself as a non-Aboriginal educator change as a result of teaching in an Aboriginal cultural context, (b) how did my teaching philosophy and pedagogical approach change as a result of teaching in an Aboriginal cultural context, and (c) how did my sense of community and relatedness to the people I interacted with change due to increased cultural awareness and exposure to Aboriginal cultures? Data from my time in my teacher education program and teaching in Klemtu, BC was collected, and Mezirow’s (1997) transformative learning theory was used to analyze the shift that I made in these three areas. Finally, recommendations were made to teacher education programs and future non-Aboriginal educators who choose to teach in Aboriginal-run schools.

社會變遷的快速，推波助瀾學校教育改革的腳步。學校教育不能原地踏步，必須有所創新；學校教育必須能掌握社會脈動，才能提供學子隨機應變的能力。因此，教育改革勢在必行。 中央統籌規劃的課程是一套統一的架構，並未考量學生生活經驗、學生成長背景、學生民族身分..，所以，為了改善上述缺失，教育部現今推行的九年一貫國民教育，在課程規劃上，安排一周兩節課的彈性學習時間，提供給各小學彈性運用課程的設計，也就是鼓勵學校妥善運用這兩節課時間，設計規劃適合該校學童學習的課程活動。精神上強調培養學生帶得走的能力、期望學生從此課程學習中找到學習的樂趣，從而喜愛上學、更有自信面對挑戰。課程的內容可以是各學科的補救教學活動；或是結合社區發展、自然生態資源、機關團體的課程設計；還是民族文化相關的課程發展活動…。因此，學校本位課程的推動，彰顯了各學校的發展特色。 不同的民族，有不同的風土民情；語言、習俗上的不同，讓台灣境內各民族有了各自不同的特色。學校本位課程所提供各學校彈性的自主課程設計，造就了原住民小學與漢人小學在課程設計方向上不同的發展。原住民小學發展了與該學校學童民族身分相關的民族文化課程活動，有的是民族語言課程、民族舞蹈活動、原住民合唱社團、還有原住民祭儀活動，以及傳統編織、織布技藝等課程。漢人小學則多是結合社區發展鄉土人文、自然生態，或是與社區機關、社團結合的課程活動。 本論文是以比較分析台灣中部以北地區，八所原漢國民小學所推動的學校本位課程活動，透過訪談、問卷調查，綜合歸納後得到下列點結論： 壹、原住民小學學校本位課程發展傾向於民族文化相關課程。 貳、漢人小學學校本位課程發展多與社區資源相結合。 參、原住民教師比漢人教師關心民族教育。 肆、學生喜愛主題活動式課程。 伍、學校本位課程活動設計打造學校特色。 / Study and Analyze the School-based Curriculum of Aboriginal Schools and General School for the Northern of Taiwan Elementary Schools The modern society changes so fast that it accelerates the revolution in our system of education and the school education system should innovate in order to make progress instead of regression. To provide students with the ability to adapt modern society, which changes all the time, revolution in our educational system is imperative. The central government designed curriculum, a prevailing uniformity of educational skeleton, concerns nothing about the living experience, backgrounds and special racial dignity of the individual, so the Department of Education promotes the nine-year integrated education, an educational frame, in order to correct the flaw that ignores individual characteristics. The nine-year integrated education provides the flexibility in program design by arranging elastic courses two times a week. In other words, the purpose on this special educational frame is that appropriate arrangement for activities and programs which suit students. Moreover, the essence of the nine-year integrated education puts emphasis on the spirit that the individual can see the fun of learning. In additionnine-year integrated education, students love to go to school and act with confidence to face challenges. The ingredients of the program may contain tutorial class or cooperate with community development, nature resources, and public welfare organizations. Therefore, advocating the school-based curriculum makes traits of every single school more obvious. Generally speaking, diverse races have dissimilar cultures which are unique. The variety of historical backgrounds, languages and custom contribute the special feature which belongs to natives in Taiwan. The school-based curriculum which offers flexibility in program design makes the difference in curriculum arrangement between aboriginal elementary school and general elementary school. The aboriginal elementary schools have developed the cultural programs, which include mother language, folk dance, chorus, ritual ceremony and traditional weave skill, relating to their historical background according to the traits that students present. On the other hand, the general elementary schools combine their programs with native humanism, environmental concerns or cooperate with community activities and public welfare organizations. The thesis analysis and compares the school-based curriculum of eight schools which include aboriginal and general elementary schools in north and central Taiwan by interviews, questionnaires and then obtains conclusions represented below. 1. The school-based curriculum of aboriginal elementary school inclines to develop cultural programs. 2. The school-based curriculum of general elementary school chiefly combines with community resources. 3. The aboriginal teachers concern more about national education than other teachers. 4. The students prefer topical subject curriculums. 5. Designing school-based curriculum forms characteristics of schools.

This study explored how the discursive practices of government education systemic discipline policy shape the behaviour of Aboriginal primary school students in an urban education district in Western Australia. First, this study conducted a Foucauldian genealogical discourse analysis of the historical and contemporary discursive forces that shaped systemic discipline policy in Western Australian government schools between 1983 and 1998 to uncover changing discursive practices within the institution. This period represented a most turbulent era of systemic discipline policy development within the institution. The analysis of the historical and contemporary discursive forces that shaped policy during this period revealed nine major and consistent discursive practices. Secondly, the study conducted a Foucauldian genealogical discourse analysis into the perspectives of key interest groups of students, parents and Education Department employees in an urban Aboriginal community on discipline policy in Education Department primary schools during the period from 2000 to 2001; and the influence of these policies on the behaviour of Aboriginal students in primary schools. The analysis was accomplished using Foucault's method of genealogy through a tactical use of subjugated knowledges. A cross section of the Aboriginal community was interviewed to examine issues of consultation, suspension and exclusion, institutional organisation and discourse. The study revealed that there are minimal consistent conceptual underpinnings to the development of Education Department discipline policy between 1983 and 1998. What is clear through the nine discursive practices that emerged during the first part of the study is a strengthened recentralising pattern of regulation, in response to the influence of a neo-liberal doctrine that commodifies students in a network of accountability mechanisms driven by the market-state economy. Evidence from both genealogical analyses in this study confirms that the increasing psychologisation of the classroom is contributing towards the pathologisation of Aboriginal student behaviour. It is apparent from the findings in this study that Aboriginal students regularly display Aboriginality-as-resistance type behaviours in response to school discipline regimes. The daily tension for these students at school is the maintenance of their Aboriginality in the face of school policy that disregards many of their regular cultural and behavioural practices, or regimes of truth, that are socially acceptable at home and in their community but threaten the 'good order' of the institution when brought to school. This study found that teachers and principals are ensnared in a web of governmentality with their ability to manoeuvre within the constraints of systemic discipline policy extremely limited. The consequence of this web of governmentality is that those doing the governing in the school are simultaneously the prisoner and the gaoler, and in effect the principle of their own subjection. Also revealed were the obscure and dividing discursive practices of discipline regimes that contribute to the epistemic violence enacted upon Noongar students in primary schools through technologies of power.

In Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language), Kipimoojikewin refers to our inheritance, or the things we carry with us. While Anishinaabemowin, Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) pedagogy and research practices are all part of our inheritance, so too is a legacy of colonial violence and historic trauma. This paper details one journey towards the language; the struggle through a colonial terrain rife with institutional and cognitive barriers, the journey to return to Anishinaabe ways of knowing, to articulating Anishinaabe pedagogy in a contemporary urban context and the work done to fulfill the vision of the Elders. There are no “best practices” only stories that exemplify an Anishinaabe axiological framework so that the causes and effects can be better understood, taken up and improved upon. Aapajitoon kema wanitoon.

In Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language), Kipimoojikewin refers to our inheritance, or the things we carry with us. While Anishinaabemowin, Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) pedagogy and research practices are all part of our inheritance, so too is a legacy of colonial violence and historic trauma. This paper details one journey towards the language; the struggle through a colonial terrain rife with institutional and cognitive barriers, the journey to return to Anishinaabe ways of knowing, to articulating Anishinaabe pedagogy in a contemporary urban context and the work done to fulfill the vision of the Elders. There are no “best practices” only stories that exemplify an Anishinaabe axiological framework so that the causes and effects can be better understood, taken up and improved upon. Aapajitoon kema wanitoon.

This study provides selected research findings on which decisions can be based in planning an in-school, publicly funded, Cree immersion program from kindergarten to grade 8 in Saskatchewan. The study was an analysis of language education research relating to the learner in immersion programs. Consequences of immersion education for student linguistic, psycho-social, and educational development were examined and reported. <p>Immersion programs for French, and to a lesser extent, for heritage languages in Canada, have been extensively researched. Immersion programs for Indian languages are few and are relatively unreported. There is, however, an increasing interest in the creation of immersion programs in Indian schools. <p> The analysis of research relating to publicly-funded French, heritage language, and Indian language immersion programs in Canada revealed support for the creation of an early total Cree immersion program. It could have neutral or positive effects on student linguistic, psycho-social, and educational development, under specific program conditions. The following consequences for students were projected: <p>1. a positive effect on Cree language proficiency. Native-like proficiency levels would not necessarily result. <br>2. a neutral or positive effect on cognitive development.<br>3. a positive effect on attitudes toward the Cree language and culture, and a strengthening of Indian identity. <br>4. a neutral or positive effect on self-concet. <br>5. a lessening of social distance between the generations.<p>6. a positive effect on attitudes toward language learning and the immersion experience. <br>7. a positive effect on student understanding of cultural, social, and political aspects of Indian/non-Indian relations.<br>8. a neutral effect on English language and literacy development. Temporary lags in English literacy skills could be expected until after the teaching of English reading. Skill levels could become equivalent to those of comparable students in regular programs within one school year, with the possible exception of spelling.<br>9. a neutral or positive effect on overall educational achievement. Greater understanding of their Indian culture, lowered drop-out rates, and improved work study skills could be predicted. <p> Certain program characteristics which were identified as essential if all of the projected neutral or positive consequences were to be realized include: <p>1. an early total immersion program model.<br> 2. an immersion centre setting.<br>3. introduction of Cree literacy before English literacy.<br>4. adequate Cree language resource materials, for all subjects and grades taught in Cree.<br>5. fluently bilingual and biliterate qualified teachers with specialized training in bilingual education.<br>6. subjects to be taught in Cree to be selected dependent on the availability of resource materials and qualified teachers.<br>7. a carefully planned and implemented program. <p>A Cree immersion program could result in enhanced cognitive and linguistic abilities to the extent that Cree were spoken in students' homes, and that students had opportunities to use Cree outside of the school. Under identified program conditions, early total Cree immersion could have at least neutral 'effects on student self-concept, cognitive development, English language development and academic achievement. It could have positive effects on student Cree language proficiency, attitudes toward the Cree language and culture, attitudes toward language learning, sociopolitical perceptions, communication within the family, retention rates, work study skills, and knowledge about Indian cultures. Cree proficiency attained by students might not be native-like, but could be at a level which would allow them to learn through Cree, and to continue learning the Cree language and culture.

This narrative inquiry explores how the Building Skills, Building Homes Project, which was undertaken in Saskatchewan, Canada from April November 2003, exemplified a learning strategy for self-sustainable community development through the straw bale construction of two buildings. Being self-sustainable involves searching for an interconnected way of living with our environment. Finding a strategy that connects what is ecologically sound, such as straw bale construction, with current modes of living, is a complex process that necessitates new kinds of community education relationships. A retrospective analysis of the authors experience with the project and a conversational interview with one of the participants of the Building Skills, Building Homes Project will illustrate the adult learning that happens between learners working together on a joint project, which facilitates a growing awareness of what self-sustainable living entails. The research question framing this study is: What links can community educators make using the Building Skills, Building Homes Project as an example of ecological community sustainability?

This narrative inquiry explores how the Building Skills, Building Homes Project, which was undertaken in Saskatchewan, Canada from April November 2003, exemplified a learning strategy for self-sustainable community development through the straw bale construction of two buildings. Being self-sustainable involves searching for an interconnected way of living with our environment. Finding a strategy that connects what is ecologically sound, such as straw bale construction, with current modes of living, is a complex process that necessitates new kinds of community education relationships. A retrospective analysis of the authors experience with the project and a conversational interview with one of the participants of the Building Skills, Building Homes Project will illustrate the adult learning that happens between learners working together on a joint project, which facilitates a growing awareness of what self-sustainable living entails. The research question framing this study is: What links can community educators make using the Building Skills, Building Homes Project as an example of ecological community sustainability?