Browsing by Author "Louie, Dustin"

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    Indigenous Dawn Breakers and Daybreak People: The Braided Journey of Indigenous Professors
    (2021-08-20) Shawana, James; Poitras Pratt, Yvonne; Louie, Dustin; Groen, Janet
    A growing number of Indigenous people have successfully obtained an undergraduate degree and have continued their educational journey to earn a graduate degree. Indigenous communities have more Indigenous people attending post-secondary institutes seeking Western Knowledge as this is what is offered. Indigenous graduate students can transcend the colonial imposition that exists in Canada and in universities by pursuing a graduate studies education as a tool of empowerment. This qualitative study involved interviews with eight Indigenous professors who shared experiences of their graduate educational journeys and thoughts for future Indigenous graduate students. By exploring these stories and their messages in this study, I am helping Indigenous professors share how they broke the trail for generations to come. Those who arise at dawn, when the sun rises, are known as Dawn Breakers and Daybreak People. In contemporary times, they are ones who have sought a new path of graduate studies and have gone on to create this new path for future generations of Indigenous scholars. This research presents its findings through the metaphor of a sweetgrass braid where the lived experiences, colonial-based experiences, and academic experiences of Indigenous faculty members are the three central strands. The first strand of lived experiences concerns the importance of families in graduate students’ lives, establishing a new Indigenous community, understanding an Indigenous cultural imperative, and relocating to attend graduate school. The second strand of colonial-based experiences represents some of the negative outcomes of a colonial past on those pursuing graduate degrees, including the personal struggles as graduate students with feelings of inadequacy, preserving Indigenous culture during graduate studies, awareness of the labour market, racism in society and universities, and universities’ deficiencies. The third strand of academic experiences represents the educational context of Indigenous professors, highlighting the need for mentors to help support Indigenous graduate students, understanding the relevance of a graduate degree as a condition of employment at universities, navigating finances, time management considerations, and having frank discussions to understand all that is involved in pursuing graduate studies. Culture is rooted in but not limited to the past, as this Braid of new Knowledge will serve as a gift to distil insights for the success of future Indigenous graduate students.
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    Optimum Learning for All Students Implementing Alberta’s 2018 Professional Practice Standards A Longitudinal, Mixed Methods Research Study: 2019-2020 Provincial Year 1 Survey Research Report
    (2021-04-15) Friesen, Sharon; Chu, Man-Wai; Hunter, Darryl; Brandon, Jim; Brown, Barb; Louie, Dustin; Stelmach, Bonnie; Schmidt, Edgar; Adams, Pamela; Burleigh, Dawn; Mombourquette, Carmen; Parsons, Dennis
    Alberta Education commissioned this 4-year longitudinal, mixed methods research study, which is designed to assess, deepen, and extend the implementation process for Alberta’s three professional practice standards: The Teaching Quality Standard (TQS) the Leadership Quality Standard (LQS), and the Superintendent Leadership Quality Standard (SLQS). This report presents the survey findings from the first year of the study. Findings are presented for each of the three standards. Results overall indicate: 1. educators across the province are in the adapting stage of implementation. The standards and their implementation do not appear to be rigidifying practice since interquartile ranges and standard deviations remain professionally healthy for fostering discussion and multiple perspectives. 2. leaders must engage the wider community in schools. Those competencies in leading those within the system are stronger than for leading those beyond the system. 3. pedagogy as it relates to First Nations, Métis and Inuit foundational knowledge, alongside traditional Western ideas in mathematics and the sciences, are a challenge.
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    Optimum Learning for All Students Implementing Alberta’s 2018 Professional Practice Standards A Longitudinal, Mixed Methods Research Study: 2020-2021 Provincial Year 2 Survey Research Report
    (2021-04-15) Friesen, Sharon; Chu, Man-Wai; Hunter, Darryl; Brandon, Jim; Brown, Barb; Louie, Dustin; Hunter, Darryl; Stelmach, Bonnie; Schmidt, Edgar; Adams, Pamela; Burleigh, Dawn; Mombourquette, Carmen
    Alberta Education commissioned this 4-year longitudinal, mixed methods research study, which is designed to assess, deepen, and extend the implementation process for Alberta’s three professional practice standards: The Teaching Quality Standard (TQS) the Leadership Quality Standard (LQS), and the Superintendent Leadership Quality Standard (SLQS). This report presents the survey findings from the first year of the study. Findings are presented for each of the three standards. Results overall indicate: 1. educators across the province are in the adapting stage of implementation--– where teachers, school leaders, and superintendents are still adapting in their practice to novel problems– they reported much flexibility. The public health situation in 2020 and 2021 have required such flexibility and continuing adaptivityThe standards and their implementation do not appear to be rigidifying practice since interquartile ranges and standard deviations remain professionally healthy for fostering discussion and multiple perspectives. 2. leaders must engage the wider community in schools. Those competencies in leading those within the system are stronger than for leading those beyond the system. While small gains have been made in year 2 of the study, leaders must continue to engage with the public to continue constructing public confidence. 3. forms and formats of professional learning and leadership development have shifted markedly over the past year, and will continue to shift after the pandemic. More technological delivery of customized courses, more collegial approaches in virtual learning space, and greater demand for both credentialed and non-credentialed learning will be necessary. What that means for changing educator behaviour and enacting standards to support “optimal” learning remains unclear.
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    Preventative Education for Indigenous Girls Vulnerable to the Sex Trade
    (2016) Louie, Dustin; Ottmann, Jacqueline; Lund, Darren; Steeves, Phyllis; Brandon, Jim
    Indigenous women in Canada are drastically overrepresented in the sex trade (Cler-Cunningham & Christensen, 2001; NWAC, 2014; Saewyc, MacKay, Anderson & Drozda; Sethi, 2005; Totten, 2009), while the phenomenon is simultaneously overlooked in academia. This dissertation investigated the potential of formal education systems in preventative education for Indigenous girls vulnerable to the sex trade. Five Indigenous sex trade survivors and nineteen service providers from a partner organization in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, participated in individual unstructured interviews to collaborate in unearthing the life experiences creating vulnerability, methods of recruitment, and preventative education recommendations. The case study methods of this dissertation are steeped in the principles of Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies (1999). Based on interviews, organizational documents, and scant academic literature, the life experiences creating vulnerability to the sex trade for Indigenous girls were found to be: sexual abuse, transition from reserves, prison systems, violentization, substance abuse, family disorganization/out of home placements, family in the sex trade, poverty, and poor relationship with services. Indigenous girls are recruited into the sex trade by: gang recruitment, boyfriends, female recruitment, family recruitment, meeting basic needs, substance abuse, social media, and reserve recruitment. Prevention education will be targeted to Indigenous girls from 7-13 years old in on-reserve schools. A combination of teachers, female community members, elders, role models, and service providers could teach preventative education using love, engagement, patience, and understanding. Entire families should be included in the education process as much as possible, which should apply local cultural education and ways of knowing as much as possible.