A policy, a 'priority,' an unfinished project: The Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework (original) (raw)
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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...
Emerging Perspectives: Decolonizing indigenous educational policies
2017
The paper addresses three educational policy documents created by the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Ontario Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development (formerly known as the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities [MTCU]) to target and minimize the 'achievement gap' of Indigenous children and youth. The policy documents come at a critical time in which statisticians predict a significant increase in Indigenous populations across Ontario as well as Canada (MTCU, 2011). We critique the policy documents and argue that they represent tools of neo-colonialism that maintain dichotomous power relations in which Indigenous communities are positioned as dependent on the white settler Canadian state as providers. Through an anti-colonial theoretical framework, we interrogate the self-purported altruism on the part of the Canadian government toward Indigenous education initiatives, which masks the neo-liberal agenda of ensuring that the growing Indigenous populations are conforming to the competitive demands of the marketeconomy.
The Gap Between Text and Context: An Analysis of Ontario's Indigenous Education Policy
This paper analyzes the 2007 Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework, alongside its 2014 Implementation Plan. Content analysis is used to determine what specific actions are prioritized in each document, first through a quantitative analysis of the various strategies put forth, then a qualitative analysis of what larger purpose these strategies might indicate. The findings suggest a significant shift in the 2014 document away from substantive action and toward data management, specifically in regard to encouraging Indigenous student self-identification. Previous Ministry publications had called for the self-identification of Indigenous students as a necessary first step to developing targeted programming for these students. However, coming just two years before the 2016 target date for the original plan laid out in the Framework, it seems unlikely that this belated emphasis on self-identification in the Implementation Plan is for the originally stated purpose of establishing baseline data to implement and evaluate specific programs. Instead, it is suggested that the new self-identification data may be used as a type of symbolic policy, to obscure the absence of substantive change. Conversely, it is suggested that the Ministry of Education should establish a new baseline of self-identified Indigenous students and a renewed strategy, beginning in 2016, to implement specific, targeted programming for these students.
The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 2017
The Ontario Ministry of Education has declared a commitment to Indigenous student success and has advanced a policy framework that articulates inclusion of Indigenous content in schooling curriculum (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007). What are the perceptions among educators and parents regarding the implementation of policy directives, and what is seen to encourage or limit meaningful implementation? To answer these questions, this paper draws on interviews with 100 Indigenous (mainly Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Métis) and non-Indigenous parents and educators from Ontario Canada. Policy directives are seen to benefit Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Interviews also reveal challenges to implementing Indigenous curricular policy, such as unawareness and intimidation among non-Indigenous educators regarding how to teach material. Policy implications are considered.