Item – Theses Canada

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OCLC number
741397710
Link(s) to full text
LAC copy
LAC copy
Author
Donald, Dwayne Trevor,1966-
Title
The pedagogy of the fort : curriculum, Aboriginal-Canadian relations, and Indigenous Métissage.
Degree
Ph. D. -- University of Alberta, 2009
Publisher
Ottawa : Library and Archives Canada = Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, [2010]
Description
6 microfiches
Notes
Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
This work focuses on the fort as a mythic symbol deeply embedded within the story of Canadian nation and nationality that teaches and naturalizes a divisive and dispiriting civilizational divide separating Aboriginal peoples and Canadians. I argue that this pedagogy of the fort, informed by colonial frontier logics, has been taught in Canada for many generations and severely circumscribes the ways in which the relationships connecting Aboriginal peoples and Canadians are conceptualized. Building on these insights, I contend that universities, schools, classrooms, curriculum scholars, and curriculum documents typically replicate these fort teachings when considering the possible significance of Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems to contemporary educational contexts. This contention is supported through close examination of the curricular and pedagogical problem presented to the field of education as significant initiatives have been undertaken across Canada to appropriately and respectfully consider Indigenous knowledges and perspectives. I specifically focus on the responses of practicing and preservice teachers to recent social studies curricular initiatives undertaken in the Province of Alberta that emphasize Aboriginal perspectives. I interpret their problematic responses to these initiatives with reference to the inherited colonial terrain and received theories of Indigenousness that typically inform teacherly considerations of curriculum and pedagogy today. I make the point that Indigenous scholars can also reinscribe these troubling divides when they frame their ideas in isolated and exclusionary ways. I argue throughout this work that the necessary next step in the struggle to decolonize involves an interrogation and rejection of circumscriptive colonial logics--like the pedagogy of the fort--and the conceptualization of more complexly relational standpoints and intents. To foster such movement, I forward an interpretive sensibility and research standpoint termed Indigenous Métissage that focuses on insights derived from contextualized and place-based interpretations of Aboriginal-Canadian relations. I contend that the field needs more critical articulations of Indigenous curriculum and pedagogy that honour the ethical imperative of human relationality and contest, rather than reinscribe, colonial frontier logics.
ISBN
9780494553350
0494553359