Educational inequality for Aboriginal youth in Canada’s current education system

Mohammed Samer AlHaffar

Canadian Language and Culture

Prof J. Mendelsohn

York University

The Canadian education system currently does not meet the educational needs of Aboriginal youth. Many attempts to integrate all First Nation peoples into the modern Canadian education system have failed at several levels, as a result, Aboriginal students are left behind the rest of Canadians regarding education and highly skilled occupations. Nevertheless, like the residential schools, the new school system is based on European ideologies, maintains language barriers and the curricula lack Aboriginal studies resources (Julian, 2016). In brief, the current education system results in educational inequality and as Wotherspoon and Satzewich (2000) state that “Canada’s education systems served to widen the gap between colonial institutions and traditional Aboriginal beliefs”. Hence, to close the educational and employment gap, there is a need for more alternative education programs addressed toward individual Aboriginals across Canada. This paper will describe the failures in the education system, and it will argue that more Aboriginal-centered education programs would achieve educational equality for all Canadians and prepare Aboriginal youth with good education and skills to bridge the employment gap.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) offered 94 calls to action with a vision of changing the policies of all levels of government to treat the harm of residential schools on the Aboriginal people and to create an equal society between them and non-Aboriginal Canadians. One of the calls to action is to develop with Aboriginal groups, “a joint strategy to eliminate educational and employment gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians” (Mass, 2015). To create a unique strategy that serves all their interests and responses to their needs, problems that are contributing to widening the gaps should first be identified. One of these problems is that due to multiple reasons, Charleyboy (2017) states that Aboriginal youth complete upper school grades and enroll in post-secondary education at a much lower rate than non-Aboriginal counterparts where more than one-third of them have not earned a high school diploma and only 8% of them hold a university degree. Another problem as noted by Julian (2016) is that Aboriginal youth have been characterized as at-risk students, the term at-risk is used to identify students who are part of minorities, at risk of not graduating from school, come from poor communities, suffer from addiction and drug problems, have a history of violence, teenage mothers and “whose skin colour, ethnicity and language deviate from the prevailing white way of life” (Hixson and Tinzmann, 1990).

Integrating Aboriginal people into the current Canada education system has failed at several levels due to some policies and practices toward them. There are many theories explaining their failures in the education system, Julian (2016) states that the most interesting theories are those that explain the remaining effects of the Indian residential schools. Those effects are still entrenched in the overall view of the Aboriginal people towards the education system in general, especially for those who live in remote areas. Back in time, the residential school system was introduced after 1880 and it strived at erasing the cultural identity, customs, and languages, and take the social cohesion of the First nation apart to be replaced by European traditions as an attempt to integrate them into Canadian society (Miller, 1996). Likewise, a further theory describes their failures that according to Battiste (2000), the education system was designed under the cognitive imperialism perspective, which is defined as a “particular perspective that is imposed upon a people who have a divergent worldview, with the idea that the imposed worldview is superior” (Battiste, 2000). In this regard, the education system has been organized to integrate Aboriginal people into it while it still holds foreign values. Moreover, most schools’ teachers do not have an Aboriginal background, considering Aboriginal culture not as an academic curriculum, and lack an understanding of the issues and the social practices of Aboriginal people, although teachers work to provide appropriate academic assist for Aboriginal youth, individual teachers are carrying intellectual and cognitive stereotypes of aboriginal peoples (Julian, 2016). Riley and Ungerleider (2012) also note that “teachers articulated a clear opposition to the negative stereotyping of Aboriginal peoples, their comments occasionally revealed the same stereotypes they opposed”. In light of this, the idea of the “superiority of the Europeans over non-Europeans” (Blaut, 1993) which is the main concept of cognitive imperialism has found a place to be accomplished through the policies and practices of Canada’s education system and in which gives Aboriginal people rare opportunities to develop their identity and culture into the educational curriculum (Julian, 2016). Another issue in the matter of financial assistance for an individual student, Charleyboy (2017) states that Aboriginal youth go to three different kinds of schools in the current school system; federal schools, provincial schools, and local schools. However, 65% of them attend local schools that are underfunded an Aboriginal student receives 20% to 40% lower than non-Aboriginal student’s fund share.

To overcome all these challenges of integrating Aboriginal students into the current education system and achieve a significant step toward equality, providing alternative educational programs that are separated from the traditional education system could be a reasonable attempt to respond to the Aboriginal students’ needs. These programs must be designed with unique cultural content that recognizes their values, provides universal scientific and literary curricula and improves their academic and social skills. To give a clear example of these suggested programs, according to a case study done by Julian (2016), an alternative program was provided in Saskatoon between 1998 to 2002, designed to be more responsive to the Aboriginal youth’s needs and function to overcome the social and economic undesirable challenges. 200 Aboriginal youth who were at risk participated in this program and were divided into 15 student groups; each student received $200 a week during the 12 weeks of the program. This program followed the emancipatory education method, which was specifically, no evaluation measurements for students such as scores and testing were used besides interesting learning activities, it sought to develop life and academic skills, such as employment skills, physical fitness, and upgrade academics, in addition, as Julian (2016) also notes, “Aboriginal teachings were seen as integral to the success of this program as they emphasize a more positive and accepting climate in the classroom”. All of these helped some of these students to attend a high school. However, after cutting the program funds, other students failed to complete their studies. Thus, it can be argued that by applying this kind of program, besides achieving educational equality, the employment gap could be reduced considering that “by 2020, there is estimated to be a shortfall of one million workers in Canada, mostly in high-skilled and knowledge-oriented occupations” (Charleyboy, 2017), thus, educated Aboriginal youth would cover a part of that shortfall.

In conclusion, there are ongoing challenges lying in Canada’s education system, somehow, they are visible to everyone, the government is demanding serious action to ensure all the education rights of Aboriginal youth by funding alternative education programs that fit the historical, cultural and ethical needs of the Aboriginal people and prepare them to be more engaged in the other academic institutions. Certainly, this suggestion could be an important key to achieving educational equality among all Canadians, as well, this will decide how would be the future shape of Aboriginals’ education.

References:

Battiste, M. (2000). Maintaining aboriginal identity, language, and culture in modern society. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming Aboriginal voice and vision (pp. 192-208). Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press.

Blaut, J. (1993). The colonizer's model of the world: Geographical diffusionism and Eurocentric history. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Charleyboy, L. (2017, October 11). The Problem with aboriginal education in Canada and what you can do about it. JOBPOSTINGS Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.jobpostings.ca/career-guides/aboriginal/problem-aboriginal-education-canada-and-what-you-can-do-about-i

Hixson, J. & Tinzmann, M. (1990). Who are the at-risk students of the 1990s? North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Retrieved from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/ rpLesys/equity.htm

Julien, R. (2016). Change now! A call to reform education for Canada’s aboriginal youth, 36(2), 129–148. http://ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/login?url= https://search.proquest.com/ docview/19

Mas, S. (2015, December 14). Truth and Reconciliation offers 94 'calls to action'. CBC News.

Riley, T., & Ungerleider, C. (2012). Self-fulfilling prophecy: How teachers' attributions, expectations, and stereotypes influence the learning opportunities afforded Aboriginal students. Canadian Journal of Education, 35(2), 303-333. Retrieved from http:// mje.mcgill.ca/index.php/MJE/article/ view Article/8475

Wotherspoon T., & Satzewich, V. (2000). Aboriginals: Race, class, and gender relations. Regina, SK: Canadian Plains Research Center.