EDU 211 Presentation Chapters 2 and 3

Successes & Limitations

Success:

• Highlights thoughtful criticisms of government limitations on individual freedoms

Limitations:

• Lacks full comprehension of the hurdles faced by Aboriginal peoples

Human Capital Theory

Human-Capital Theory

Connected to Liberal-Individualist theories is Human Capital Theory:

Recognizes the importance of investing in education to increase economic growth for individuals and society

• Avoids "wasted" talent
• Views Aboriginal Peoples as a form of an "untapped" resource
• Connection to growing birth rates of Aboriginals

Residential Schooling Connection

This theory can explain why Aboriginal People were taken away from their culture to rid them of these cultural factors

Residential School Connection

Note: This assumes that minority cultures are more primitive or less than the majority culture

Success & Limitations

Success & Limitations

Success:

• More empathy for Aboriginal viewpoints
• Recognizes Aboriginal culture as distinct

Limitations: (This is why the cultural deficit approaches can be dangerous)

• Belief of culture developing in isolation and remaining static
• Dominate culture is neutral or superior and success depends on minorities assimilating
• Does not look at the diversity of cultures

Cultural Discontinuity Thesis

Takes the blame for defeat away from cultural traditions and places it instead onto the gap that is present between minority cultural heritage and schools/institutions that dominate

Cultural Discontinuity Thesis

Ethnographic Studies and Life Histories

Ethnographic Studies and Life Histories

Provide an account of the patterns and social activities that make up the everyday routine of a community

• Aboriginal vs. non-Aboriginal accounts
• Can perpetuate stereotypes
• Portrayed as "primitive museum pieces"
• Continually discussed as "prehistoric"

Internal Colonialism

Most widely used way to explain the education difference

• Looks at mechanisms used by dominate culture to oppress Aboriginals
• Views colonization is ongoing and deepening nor temporary or incidental

Internal Colonialism

Successes & Limitations

Successes & Limitations

Success:

• Education is now a way to decolonize

Limitations:

• Explanations offered of Aboriginal education are often not complete
• Many different ranges of demands from full sovereignty to creation of "distinct spaces"
• Many Aboriginals resisted colonization
• Ex: Carrier women in central BC (p. 27)

Conditions

Common conditions included: poor health/sanitation, poor nutrition, and child labor.

Unfortunately, one of the most common realities of residential schools that survivors still struggle with today that is prevalent inter-generationally is the element of emotional, physical, and sexual assault.

Elements of survivor's lives such as cultural identity, dignity, language, faith, family, and traditional methods of learning (looking, listening, and learning) were often lost.

Conditions

Industrial Motivations

Industrialization

Around the time of the creation of residential schools, there was an increasing desire of the Canadian government to industrialize.

There is an inherent connection between the industrial and educational exploitation of First Nation's individuals: cultural invasion as a result of the expansion of various industries (i.e agriculture) in order to utilize Indigenous peoples in these markets.

Survivor's Actions Today

Survivors are making their voices heard in two key ways:

1. Present lawsuits centralize on survivors seeking compensation for the sexual and physical assault endured during their time in residential schools

2. Research is documenting the suffering of survivors and their lasting effects.

Survivors

Reasoning of Compulsory Education

Reasoning

1. That teaching is a moral crusade and that the best teachers are on a moral mission of which money is not a part;

2. That aptitude is inherited and that aptitudes are more prominent among certain sectors of society;

3. That the best families help in the schooling of children at home;

4. That compulsory education has a spiritual/moral element that is required by all children, but especially those children most unlike the norm

Educational Ideology and the Legitimation of Coercion

• Rhetoric of Labour, Education, and Racism

• Inadequacy of Teachers and Curricula

• Education and Care secondary to Order, Discipline, and Sexual Exploitation

• Socio-economic Marginalization

Educational Ideology

Mohawk Institute, Brantford, ON

Residential School, Edmonton, AB

The Modern Legacy (Post 1945)

• Move from ‘Paternalistic Phase’ to ‘Democratic Ideology’

• Hawthorn Report (1967)

“Teachers must take refuge in the “rightness” of their ways and struggle onward in their task of “helping children overcome their Indianness” (Hawthorn, 1967, p.121)

• Assessment of Family Fitness

• Lack of Adequate Teachers and Curricula

Modern Legacy

Continuing Legacy

• Pathology of Oppression (1950s - 1960s)

• Defamation of Children

• Damaged Generations

• Cultural/Spiritual Disconnect

• Education as Class Warfare

Continuing Legacy