Among people who leave high school prior to completion, many return to schooling as adults. High school equivalency programs (such as a General Educational Development or Adult Basic Education program) gives them the opportunity to go back and complete high school requirements. Using data from the 2017 Aboriginal Peoples Survey--a national survey…

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has called on federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments of Canada to educate public servants about the history and legacy of Indian residential schools and related topics, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This article advances this call…

"Power through Testimony" documents how survivors are remembering and reframing our understanding of residential schools in the wake of the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a forum for survivors, families, and communities to share their memories and stories with the…

This paper examines the potential of the term "settler ally" to create productive discomfort alongside productive comfort, thereby creating space for positive social change. The setting in which the term is examined is Canada--Alberta in particular--following the release of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission…

British Columbia (BC) charted its own course in 1949 when it passed legislation permitting Indigenous children to be schooled in provincial public schools. That is, BC's law predated federal legislation allowing integrated schooling by two years. This paper examines how and why BC followed its own policy path with respect to the schooling of…

Five Aboriginal Head Start early childhood educators from a northern Canadian community participated in interviews for the purpose of informing non-Indigenous teachers' classroom teaching. Their observations and experiences highlight the importance of learning from and on the land alongside family members, and of family stability and showing…

Indian residential schools lasted in Canada for nearly 150 years, with the last one closing in 1996. Canada's recently concluded Truth and Reconciliation Commission has confirmed what Indigenous families have said all along: many Indigenous children endured abuse, prolonged separation between parent and child, and intergenerational legacies.…

The residential school system is one of the darkest examples of Canada's colonial policy. Education about the residential schools is believed to be the path to reconciliation; that is, the restoration of equality between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada. While the acquisition of the long-ignored history of residential schools has…

How can creating a simple stick figure comic help us tell -- and deeply listen to -- true stories of social injustice and practice anti-oppression strategies? More specifically, how can creating a series of stick-figure comics help learners enhance their understanding of the Indigenous Peoples' testimonies in the Truth and Reconciliation Report…

In this paper, I discuss one photograph from a youth who participated in a 12-week arts based educational program I facilitated for Indigenous Young Adults at the Native Youth Drop-In centre in Toronto, Canada. By being able to communicate through their artwork, the youth shifted away from thinking of themselves as victims, and exuded a sense of…

In this paper, I aim to investigate the migration of Indigenous youth from the reserve to the urban environment. I will investigate the implications of an arts-based programme for youth and how they utilized my programme as a resource for learning. The goals of this paper are to provide a nuance thinking of and theorizing land as related to…

In the province of Manitoba, Canada, there is a gap between the rhetoric of inclusive education and its practical implementation. In the absence of inclusive educational policies and guidelines, deficit-based approaches such as categorical labels for students who are deemed to have a severe emotional and behavioural disorder, segregated…

In this article, I contextualize and outline my use of testimonial literature, including orature, by residential school survivors in a preservice course focused on building practices of witness-­as-study (Simon & Eppert, 2005). My theorization of the course curriculum and pedagogy draws on key texts by Roger Simon as a means of proposing…

There is a correlation between the Levels of student achievement in formal Western schools and the levels of involvement that their parents have in this education. Many First Nations students have low levels of achievement, which can be attributed to a lack of parental involvement. The negative perception of school left behind from residential…

The Indigenous people of Canada have endured great hardships and injustices in the past that have greatly affected them as a people and as individuals. For about a century, the young and innocent were taken from their homes and communities and placed in residential schools. The formal educational system of the past failed many students, harmed…