Engaging Aboriginal Perspectives in the Alberta Social Studies Classroom: A Sociocultural Investigation Into Conceptual Possibilities and Teacher Beliefs

Abstract

This doctoral thesis offers a sociocultural investigation into how one male Euro-Canadian social studies teacher interpreted and pedagogically responded to the curricular directive in Alberta to address Aboriginal perspectives, including the history of residential schools, treaties, and Aboriginal peoples’ historical and contemporary contributions to Canada. Employing case study methodology, the teacher’s practice was examined during a 10-2 social studies unit in which he was actively attempting to take up Aboriginal perspectives with his students. Data were collected from several channels including classroom observations, field journal notes, classroom documents, as well as ongoing semistructured interviews. Of note, the research participant avoided a number of resistances to engaging with Aboriginal perspectives that prior research had identified. Drawing on resources that honoured the voice of Indigenous peoples in ways that were not filtered through Euro-Canadian lenses, the teacher offered viable possibilities for engaging Aboriginal perspectives. Despite these positive developments, an overreliance on transmission-based pedagogies tied to the officially mandated textbook inhibited this teacher’s ability to sustain this work in his classroom. Further, a multicultural discourse where Aboriginal peoples are afforded opportunities to become benevolently integrated into the Canadian nation caused the research participant to significantly misrecognize the nature of Indigenous philosophies and hindered his ability to faithfully represent these perspectives to his students. Noting that these same tensions have been present in other studies, I argue that Canadian educators will be unable to engage with Aboriginal perspectives in qualitatively different ways without an alternative model or story to understand Aboriginal–Canadian relations. Drawing on insights from the work of Dwayne Donald, throughout the thesis I advance a number of relational possibilities for reconceptualizing Aboriginal–Canadian relations that draw inspiration from the Haudenosaunee Gus-Wen-Tah, or two-row wampum, as well as Cree understandings of the treaties. However, due to the First Nations–centric nature of these relational models, I ultimately argue that the purpose may not be to try to agree on one particular understanding of the relationship, but rather to place the nature of Aboriginal–Canadian relations at the centre of classroom deliberations.