Kaitlyn Watson | University of Ontario Institute of Technology (original) (raw)
Papers by Kaitlyn Watson
This paper documents our initial response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as... more This paper documents our initial response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as White settler-Canadian pre-service students and educators learning about appropriately integrating Indigenous content for all students in physical education. Through storytelling we describe our in-class and post-course experiences evaluating physical education resources that infuse Indigenous content. Course documents, meeting artefacts, and reflections were thematically analyzed and reflect our concerns regarding independent planning, time and research involved, and feelings of lacking relevant knowledge; and our questions about addressing stereotypes with students, and balancing complexity with classroom constraints. We navigated these dilemmas by engaging with critical multiculturalism. Attending more closely to our experience of learning to plan for cultural infusion allowed us to shift from a liberal to critical multicultural lens that benefited our growth towards facilitating rec...
˜The œjournal of working-class studies, Dec 1, 2017
<jats:p>Critical friendship is often used in the field of education to refer to relationshi... more <jats:p>Critical friendship is often used in the field of education to refer to relationships based on support and critical critique of professional practice. However, we posit that critical friendship has the potential as both a protective measure and mode of functional support for individuals negotiating the lived experiences and consequences of being working-class in the academy. Based on the auto-ethnographic narratives of two self-defined working-class doctoral students living and working in Ontario, Canada, we find that (mis)perceptions of incompetence; negotiating the academy as women; income, debt, and the tensions this creates result in the need for this redefined understanding of critical friendship.</jats:p>
In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Ed... more In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework. The policy set forth a vision to significantly improve the levels of achievement for Indigenous students attending Ontario's public schools, and to increase awareness and knowledge of Indigenous cultures and perspectives for all students by the year 2016. Drawing upon critical pedagogy, theories of decolonizing education, and policy enactment, we engaged with the Framework and a set of related documents to a critical discourse analysis. Four discourses were revealed: achievement; increasing capacities; incorporating "cultures, histories, and perspectives"; and absence. In tracing the presence of these discourses across the documents we found that, while well-intentioned, the policy has yielded problematic outcomes. In turn, this undermines the ability of Ontario's education system to not only reach the aforementioned goals but also to take an a...
In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Metis, and Inuit Ed... more In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Metis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework . The policy set forth a vision to significantly improve the levels of achievement for Indigenous students attending Ontario’s public schools, and to increase awareness and knowledge of Indigenous cultures and perspectives for all students by the year 2016. Drawing upon critical pedagogy, theories of decolonizing education, and policy enactment, we engaged with the Framework and a set of related documents to a critical discourse analysis. Four discourses were revealed: achievement; increasing capacities; incorporating “cultures, histories, and perspectives”; and absence. In tracing the presence of these discourses across the documents we found that, while well-intentioned, the policy has yielded problematic outcomes. In turn, this undermines the ability of Ontario’s education system to not only reach the aforementioned goals but also to take an active role in rec...
International Indigenous Policy Journal, 2017
This article provides a review of the book Trickster Chases the Tale of Education by Sylvia Moore.
McGill Journal of Education
Drawing on reflexive conversations, we describe our experiences teaching a new mandatory course i... more Drawing on reflexive conversations, we describe our experiences teaching a new mandatory course in Indigenous education at Western University in London, Ontario. By discussing the successes, challenges, and mistakes made while teaching this course, we hope to continue to decolonize our practice as settlers, PhD students, and educators with the goal of working towards reconciliation in education and society.
Revista de Comunicação Dialógica
PHEnex, 2019
This paper documents our initial response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as... more This paper documents our initial response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as White settler-Canadian pre-service students and educators learning about appropriately integrating Indigenous content for all students in physical education. Through storytelling we describe our in-class and post-course experiences evaluating physical education resources that infuse Indigenous content. Course documents, meeting artefacts, and reflections were thematically analyzed and reflect our concerns regarding independent planning, time and research involved, and feelings of lacking relevant knowledge; and our questions about addressing stereotypes with students, and balancing complexity with classroom constraints. We navigated these dilemmas by engaging with critical multiculturalism. Attending more closely to our experience of learning to plan for cultural infusion allowed us to shift from a liberal to critical multicultural lens that benefited our growth towards facilitating reconciliatory education. We suggest emphasis on the process and experience of learning to plan for cultural infusion to allow for critical growth.
McGill Journal of Education , 2018
Drawing on reflexive conversations, we describe our experiences teaching a new mandatory course i... more Drawing on reflexive conversations, we describe our experiences
teaching a new mandatory course in Indigenous education at Western University in London, Ontario. By discussing the successes, challenges, and mistakes made while teaching this course, we hope to continue to decolonize our practice as settlers, PhD students, and educators with the goal of working towards reconciliation in education and society.
Journal of Working Class Studies, 2017
Critical friendship is often used in the field of education to refer to relationships based on su... more Critical friendship is often used in the field of education to refer to relationships based on support and critical critique of professional practice. However, we posit that critical friendship has the potential as both a protective measure and mode of functional support for individuals negotiating the lived experiences and consequences of being working-class in the academy. Based on the auto-ethnographic narratives of two self-defined working-class doctoral students living and working in Ontario, Canada, we find that (mis)perceptions of incompetence; negotiating the academy as women; income, debt, and the tensions this creates result in the need for this redefined understanding of critical friendship.
Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education, 2017
In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Ed... more In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework. The policy set forth a vision to significantly improve the levels of achievement for Indigenous students attending Ontario's public schools, and to increase awareness and knowledge of Indigenous cultures and perspectives for all students by the year 2016. Drawing upon critical pedagogy, theories of decolonizing education, and policy enactment, we engaged with the Framework and a set of related documents to a critical discourse analysis. Four discourses were revealed: achievement; increasing capacities; incorporating "cultures, histories, and perspectives"; and absence. In tracing the presence of these discourses across the documents we found that, while well-intentioned, the policy has yielded problematic outcomes. In turn, this undermines the ability of Ontario's education system to not only reach the aforementioned goals but also to take an active role in reconciliation and efforts towards the decolonization of education.
Book Reviews by Kaitlyn Watson
The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 2017
Thesis Chapters by Kaitlyn Watson
Reconciliation in the Canadian context is difficult to define (Graeme & Mandawe, 2017; Martin, 20... more Reconciliation in the Canadian context is difficult to define (Graeme & Mandawe, 2017; Martin, 2009), but is often linked to the residential school system (Chrisjohn & Wasacase, 2011; Nagy, 2012). This instrumental case study examines how reconciliation is understood and activated among a group of educators and community members involved with a professional learning event held in Southern Ontario inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Employing narrative inquiry, and informed by decolonizing methodologies, seven event organizers, four presenters, and five attendees participated in conversational interviews. Two main themes were uncovered from the interview data. The first, reconciliation is difficult, includes consideration of the personal discomfort involved with reconciliation efforts; the tensions that can arise from bringing together Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, as evidenced in a specific incident which occurred at the event; and the institutionalization of colonialism. The second theme associated with the need for action to support reconciliation is connected to education in the following ways: making learning mandatory, being sensitive to language, and centring Indigenous voices. Action for reconciliation through relationships is tied to community connections and having care for people. Informed by critical and decolonizing theoretical perspectives, the author discusses three elements associated with the challenges to describing and actualizing reconciliation: the systemic manifestations of colonialism including Canada’s long history of oppression, the impacts of the Indian Act, and the ways that colonialism informs social institutions that exist today; the role of individuals in maintaining settler colonialism; and the tendency to use reconciliation as a synonym for other Indigenous-centred activities, such as resurgence and restitution. Based on the interview data and related literature, this study posits that the question “what does reconciliation mean” is less important than the efforts of working towards what reconciliation could be, and, ultimately, reconciliation is a complicated concept that requires context-specific consideration.
Peer reviewed articles by Kaitlyn Watson
Dialogical Communication, 2019
This dialogic autoethnography, in which the authors reflect on their experiences as settlers who ... more This dialogic autoethnography, in which the authors reflect on their experiences as settlers who have researched with Indigenous communities, maps four paradoxes settler researchers need to negotiate in decolonizing research. The term “settler fragility” signals a settler positioning of innocence in colonization, which simultaneously recenters colonial power to secure settler futures. In research, settler fragility must be confronted through four paradoxes: (1) the paradox of learning Indigenous worldviews in a profound way, but without appropriation; (2) the paradox of unsettling research by undoing colonial epistemologies in which settlers problematically aim to feel settled; (3) the paradox of reconciling research to improve relationships with Indigenous communities, which can lead to reconciling settlers with their place in colonialism, rather than with Indigenous research partners; and (4) the paradox of decolonizing research in which settler research in colonial universities is recognized as incommensurate with decolonization and yet must be undertaken to decolonize the university. Contributing a tentative set of settler research practices, this paper aims to expand dialogues about how settlers can overcome settler fragility through negotiating the four paradoxes of decolonizing research to develop authentic relationships with Indigenous communities, researchers and research partners.
This paper documents our initial response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as... more This paper documents our initial response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as White settler-Canadian pre-service students and educators learning about appropriately integrating Indigenous content for all students in physical education. Through storytelling we describe our in-class and post-course experiences evaluating physical education resources that infuse Indigenous content. Course documents, meeting artefacts, and reflections were thematically analyzed and reflect our concerns regarding independent planning, time and research involved, and feelings of lacking relevant knowledge; and our questions about addressing stereotypes with students, and balancing complexity with classroom constraints. We navigated these dilemmas by engaging with critical multiculturalism. Attending more closely to our experience of learning to plan for cultural infusion allowed us to shift from a liberal to critical multicultural lens that benefited our growth towards facilitating rec...
˜The œjournal of working-class studies, Dec 1, 2017
<jats:p>Critical friendship is often used in the field of education to refer to relationshi... more <jats:p>Critical friendship is often used in the field of education to refer to relationships based on support and critical critique of professional practice. However, we posit that critical friendship has the potential as both a protective measure and mode of functional support for individuals negotiating the lived experiences and consequences of being working-class in the academy. Based on the auto-ethnographic narratives of two self-defined working-class doctoral students living and working in Ontario, Canada, we find that (mis)perceptions of incompetence; negotiating the academy as women; income, debt, and the tensions this creates result in the need for this redefined understanding of critical friendship.</jats:p>
In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Ed... more In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework. The policy set forth a vision to significantly improve the levels of achievement for Indigenous students attending Ontario's public schools, and to increase awareness and knowledge of Indigenous cultures and perspectives for all students by the year 2016. Drawing upon critical pedagogy, theories of decolonizing education, and policy enactment, we engaged with the Framework and a set of related documents to a critical discourse analysis. Four discourses were revealed: achievement; increasing capacities; incorporating "cultures, histories, and perspectives"; and absence. In tracing the presence of these discourses across the documents we found that, while well-intentioned, the policy has yielded problematic outcomes. In turn, this undermines the ability of Ontario's education system to not only reach the aforementioned goals but also to take an a...
In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Metis, and Inuit Ed... more In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Metis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework . The policy set forth a vision to significantly improve the levels of achievement for Indigenous students attending Ontario’s public schools, and to increase awareness and knowledge of Indigenous cultures and perspectives for all students by the year 2016. Drawing upon critical pedagogy, theories of decolonizing education, and policy enactment, we engaged with the Framework and a set of related documents to a critical discourse analysis. Four discourses were revealed: achievement; increasing capacities; incorporating “cultures, histories, and perspectives”; and absence. In tracing the presence of these discourses across the documents we found that, while well-intentioned, the policy has yielded problematic outcomes. In turn, this undermines the ability of Ontario’s education system to not only reach the aforementioned goals but also to take an active role in rec...
International Indigenous Policy Journal, 2017
This article provides a review of the book Trickster Chases the Tale of Education by Sylvia Moore.
McGill Journal of Education
Drawing on reflexive conversations, we describe our experiences teaching a new mandatory course i... more Drawing on reflexive conversations, we describe our experiences teaching a new mandatory course in Indigenous education at Western University in London, Ontario. By discussing the successes, challenges, and mistakes made while teaching this course, we hope to continue to decolonize our practice as settlers, PhD students, and educators with the goal of working towards reconciliation in education and society.
Revista de Comunicação Dialógica
PHEnex, 2019
This paper documents our initial response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as... more This paper documents our initial response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada as White settler-Canadian pre-service students and educators learning about appropriately integrating Indigenous content for all students in physical education. Through storytelling we describe our in-class and post-course experiences evaluating physical education resources that infuse Indigenous content. Course documents, meeting artefacts, and reflections were thematically analyzed and reflect our concerns regarding independent planning, time and research involved, and feelings of lacking relevant knowledge; and our questions about addressing stereotypes with students, and balancing complexity with classroom constraints. We navigated these dilemmas by engaging with critical multiculturalism. Attending more closely to our experience of learning to plan for cultural infusion allowed us to shift from a liberal to critical multicultural lens that benefited our growth towards facilitating reconciliatory education. We suggest emphasis on the process and experience of learning to plan for cultural infusion to allow for critical growth.
McGill Journal of Education , 2018
Drawing on reflexive conversations, we describe our experiences teaching a new mandatory course i... more Drawing on reflexive conversations, we describe our experiences
teaching a new mandatory course in Indigenous education at Western University in London, Ontario. By discussing the successes, challenges, and mistakes made while teaching this course, we hope to continue to decolonize our practice as settlers, PhD students, and educators with the goal of working towards reconciliation in education and society.
Journal of Working Class Studies, 2017
Critical friendship is often used in the field of education to refer to relationships based on su... more Critical friendship is often used in the field of education to refer to relationships based on support and critical critique of professional practice. However, we posit that critical friendship has the potential as both a protective measure and mode of functional support for individuals negotiating the lived experiences and consequences of being working-class in the academy. Based on the auto-ethnographic narratives of two self-defined working-class doctoral students living and working in Ontario, Canada, we find that (mis)perceptions of incompetence; negotiating the academy as women; income, debt, and the tensions this creates result in the need for this redefined understanding of critical friendship.
Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education, 2017
In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Ed... more In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education released the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework. The policy set forth a vision to significantly improve the levels of achievement for Indigenous students attending Ontario's public schools, and to increase awareness and knowledge of Indigenous cultures and perspectives for all students by the year 2016. Drawing upon critical pedagogy, theories of decolonizing education, and policy enactment, we engaged with the Framework and a set of related documents to a critical discourse analysis. Four discourses were revealed: achievement; increasing capacities; incorporating "cultures, histories, and perspectives"; and absence. In tracing the presence of these discourses across the documents we found that, while well-intentioned, the policy has yielded problematic outcomes. In turn, this undermines the ability of Ontario's education system to not only reach the aforementioned goals but also to take an active role in reconciliation and efforts towards the decolonization of education.
Reconciliation in the Canadian context is difficult to define (Graeme & Mandawe, 2017; Martin, 20... more Reconciliation in the Canadian context is difficult to define (Graeme & Mandawe, 2017; Martin, 2009), but is often linked to the residential school system (Chrisjohn & Wasacase, 2011; Nagy, 2012). This instrumental case study examines how reconciliation is understood and activated among a group of educators and community members involved with a professional learning event held in Southern Ontario inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Employing narrative inquiry, and informed by decolonizing methodologies, seven event organizers, four presenters, and five attendees participated in conversational interviews. Two main themes were uncovered from the interview data. The first, reconciliation is difficult, includes consideration of the personal discomfort involved with reconciliation efforts; the tensions that can arise from bringing together Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, as evidenced in a specific incident which occurred at the event; and the institutionalization of colonialism. The second theme associated with the need for action to support reconciliation is connected to education in the following ways: making learning mandatory, being sensitive to language, and centring Indigenous voices. Action for reconciliation through relationships is tied to community connections and having care for people. Informed by critical and decolonizing theoretical perspectives, the author discusses three elements associated with the challenges to describing and actualizing reconciliation: the systemic manifestations of colonialism including Canada’s long history of oppression, the impacts of the Indian Act, and the ways that colonialism informs social institutions that exist today; the role of individuals in maintaining settler colonialism; and the tendency to use reconciliation as a synonym for other Indigenous-centred activities, such as resurgence and restitution. Based on the interview data and related literature, this study posits that the question “what does reconciliation mean” is less important than the efforts of working towards what reconciliation could be, and, ultimately, reconciliation is a complicated concept that requires context-specific consideration.
Dialogical Communication, 2019
This dialogic autoethnography, in which the authors reflect on their experiences as settlers who ... more This dialogic autoethnography, in which the authors reflect on their experiences as settlers who have researched with Indigenous communities, maps four paradoxes settler researchers need to negotiate in decolonizing research. The term “settler fragility” signals a settler positioning of innocence in colonization, which simultaneously recenters colonial power to secure settler futures. In research, settler fragility must be confronted through four paradoxes: (1) the paradox of learning Indigenous worldviews in a profound way, but without appropriation; (2) the paradox of unsettling research by undoing colonial epistemologies in which settlers problematically aim to feel settled; (3) the paradox of reconciling research to improve relationships with Indigenous communities, which can lead to reconciling settlers with their place in colonialism, rather than with Indigenous research partners; and (4) the paradox of decolonizing research in which settler research in colonial universities is recognized as incommensurate with decolonization and yet must be undertaken to decolonize the university. Contributing a tentative set of settler research practices, this paper aims to expand dialogues about how settlers can overcome settler fragility through negotiating the four paradoxes of decolonizing research to develop authentic relationships with Indigenous communities, researchers and research partners.