The Study in the Broader Context of Indigenous Education

The reproduction of the majority perspective in state policy discourses, as uncovered in this study, is mirrored throughout the international literature on indigenous education. While education is seen as a key to alleviating the disparities between indigenous and non- indigenous peoples (TRC, 2015a; Paquette, Fallon & Managan, 2013; Nguyen, 2011; Paquette & Fallon, 2010), the majority of policy initiatives are targeted at the achievement gap, a measure that reflects western world values (OECD, 2017; Jacob, Liu & Lee, 2015; United Nations, 2008; Fraser & Honneth, 2003; Iverson, Patton and Sanders, 2000). The development of traditional language and cultural values of indigenous peoples are, in many cases, still seen as nice extras, but not central to the “real” work of indigenous education policy (Jacob et. al, 2015; Paquette & Fallon, 2010). Kowal’s (2008) view on the

propensity to remedialism in indigenous education policy making, that is the application of western liberal views to help indigenous people to be successful by western standards, shows up time and again throughout government policies across a wide variety of countries (see Chapter 2 for the polices of Canada, Australia, the United States and New Zealand for examples). Kowal (2008) first identifies liberal discourse as the dominant factor in most indigenous education policy and then questions the relevance of western values measures, such as housing, education, employment and health, in measuring indigenous outcomes. She argues that the very act of imposing liberal western education standards as the “right” measures of success, presupposes the inherent superiority of those standards and is based in colonial discourses and the power relations as historically established by the same discourses.

Of course, not all policies are the same, nor are they based entirely on the same discourses, the same societal conditions, nor the same desired outcomes. Beyond closing the

policy including building the economy, promoting citizenship, protecting minority rights and settling legal challenges to their authority. Just as BC’s EA policy seeks to balance aspects of two-eyed seeing and walking in two worlds, so too do many other indigenous education policies; however, like BC’s EA policy, the prevalence of discourses based on the view of the majority society means that on balance, the majority of policy still focuses on promoting the western world view rather than fully balancing between both worlds in which indigenous students are required to walk.

8.3. A Recommendation

One of the key elements of critical discourse analysis (cda) is its focus on not just

identifying issues related to social inequity and oppression through power, but on offering a positive way forward for the oppressed. In this study of BC’s EA policy, the structures of Canadian society, the structures of the BC education system and the discourses that created and arise from these all impact on the ideological assumptions of both policy producers and policy interpreters. As these discourses are reproduced through the producers’ and interpreters’ MR, they reinforce the current structures that exist in education in BC. The current structures do allow for limited Aboriginal community input into the education of their children, but certainly not the control of education that was called for in the Red Paper and advocated by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (2008).

If the goal of Aboriginal education is to maintain the current focus on government dictated outcomes, then the EA policy should be effective. However, if the goal is to bring about a change, and here I advocate that this is desirable, then the discourses and ideological assumptions underlying the EA policy and any subsequent BC Aboriginal education policies need to be continually uncovered (as I have started to do in this study) and

addressed. One way to do this is to provide policy producers and interpreters with the tools to understand and address their own underlying ideological assumptions as well as the discourses they reproduce in order to create in each of them a self-awareness such as that required of any cda analyst. If this is not practical, and based on the amount of time required to get myself trained to undertake this relatively small CDA I suspect it is not, then a solid alternative, and one which I recommend, lies in creating a small group of cda

analysts to review provincial Aboriginal education policy and to work with the policy producers and interpreters to build their cda literacy through focused, school district based work to surface the discourses and assumptions underlying policies during their production and again during their interpretation. Given the very few Aboriginal education policies currently active or contemplated in BC, this seems to me a reasonable recommendation and would in many ways reflect the same level of staffing and resource commitment that the Ministry put into supporting EA agreements prior to stepping out of that support role in 2016. The only major difference would be a specific cda literacy focus for the Ministry support. Developing this structure would be one positive step towards empowering Aboriginal education policy producers and interpreters to recognize the discourses which limit change to Aboriginal education in BC.