Education research demonstrates that positive and trusting family/school relationships support academic achievement but for many Indigenous parents in Canada legacies of residential schooling have made it difficult to develop strong bonds with schools and teachers. Drawing on interviews with 69 Indigenous parents and eight non-Indigenous parents…

Policies to ensure education equity and programs to foster educational advancement among Aboriginal people have been in place for several years in most Canadian jurisdictions. Despite of the successes brought about by these policies, questions about just how much has been accomplished, and how best to secure desired results, remain matters of…

Public school teachers, regardless of where they work, face ongoing challenges to balance sensitivity to the social and learning needs of the communities they serve with pressures to meet broader labor market, social, and political objectives. This article explores the changing, often contradictory character of teachers' work shaped by reforms…

This paper focuses on teachers' work in western Canadian communities that have substantial populations of Aboriginal students. It highlights the expectations, conditions, and activities that accompany the work in which teachers engage as a direct response to the needs and concerns of diverse Aboriginal communities, examining ways in which teachers…

Canadian social life and public policy are increasingly influenced by Aboriginal people, their roles in Canadian society, and the issues that concern them. Drawing on a political economy perspective, this book provides a systematic analysis of how changing social dynamics, organized particularly around race, class, and gender relations, have…

In Canada, Aboriginal people remain highly disadvantaged relative to the general population. Structural factors operate in conjunction with cultural factors and other social practices like racism, such that they cannot be explained away through conventional analysis and isolated interventions. Schooling for Aboriginal people must incorporate and…

This discussion paper explores interactions among formal learning, informal learning, and life conditions and opportunities experienced by aboriginal people in Canada. The contradictory importance of education for aboriginal people is examined with respect to three related aspects of these relationships. First, the paper summarizes students'…