In First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) communities, Elders are highly regarded as intergenerational transmitters of ancestral language and Indigenous knowledge. Without language revival initiatives, ancestral languages in FNMI communities are at risk of extinction. Leveraging digital technologies while collaborating with Elders can support…

Based on Bourdieu's theory of practice, this article explores pedagogical ideals and educational policies in teachers' everyday practice in a postcolonial bilingual university setting in Greenland. Greenlandic and Danish teachers' teaching ideals were explored during a one-year pedagogy qualifying course for assistant professors organised by the…

Little is known about Nunavut students' experiences in high school and post-secondary education, in particular their self-defined determinants of success. This study aimed to understand factors that influence secondary school completion, post-secondary education, and education success for students from Nunavut. An online survey was conducted with…

The Miqqut project was a participatory action research project through which Inuit language and literacy learning was embedded in a traditional skills program. Community-based researchers tracked learners' progress through entrance, exit, and post-program interviews and questionnaires, as well as through participant observation. Results show that…

Indigenous peoples have rightful aspirations for their languages and cultures, supported under international conventions, jurisdictional treaties, laws, policies and enquiry recommendations. Additionally, the inclusion of Indigenous languages in education can impact positively on Indigenous students' learning, engagement, identity and well-being,…

This study uses data from the child and adult components of the 2001 Canadian Aboriginal Peoples Survey to examine what factors are related to speaking an Aboriginal language and how speaking an Aboriginal language is related to school outcomes. Even after controlling for child and family factors (age, sex, health status, household income, number…

Mi'gmaq, an Algonkian language of northeastern North America, is one of nearly 50 surviving Indigenous languages in Canada that are usually not considered to be viable into the next century. Only Inuktitut, Cree, and Ojibwe presently have enough younger speakers to provide a critical mass for long-term survival. In one Mi'gmaq community, however,…

This article offers an original review of research and reports about young Indigenous children's language development needs and approaches to meeting them. The review addresses not only children's acquisition of an Indigenous language but also their acquisition of other languages (e.g., English and French), because their progress in one linguistic…

Inuktitut, the Eskimo language spoken in Eastern Canada, is one of the few Canadian indigenous languages with a strong chance of long-term survival because over 90% of Inuit children still learn Inuktitut from birth. In this paper I review existing literature on bilingual Inuit children to explore the prospects for the survival of Inuktitut given…

This book deals with the Central Siberian Yupik Eskimo language as spoken on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, an island near the Bering Strait and on the tip of the Asian mainland opposite Russia. This book has been used with college-level classes composed of a mixture of Yupik speakers and well-prepared non-speakers (people who have studied other,…

This research explored the impact of the abrupt shift from heritage-language to dominant-language education on Inuit children's personal and collective self-esteem. Specifically, the following question was addressed: will early heritage-language education serve as an inoculation against the potential negative impact of being submerged in a…

The papers included here examine issues related to the role outside specialists, such as linguists, educators, or media professionals, can play in the preservation of endangered languages. Language communities must continue to use their mother tongues if the languages are to survive, and this has led to questions about whether outside…