In the crucial discussion of Aboriginal education in Canada, there are two distinct schools of thought: parallelism and integrationism. For the first time in one volume, leading thinkers on both sides share their perspectives, allowing readers to examine this complex and emotionally charged issue from all angles.
Parallelism argues for Aboriginal self-determination and independent schools with Aboriginal values at their core, while integrationism advocates improving Aboriginal educational achievement within the conventional system. Both sides share the same goal, however: supporting and helping to realize the vast store of untapped potential in Aboriginal communities. Everyone agrees that Aboriginal education in Canada urgently needs improvement. A vigorous and informed debate can only speed the search for solutions.
Introduction: Hunting assumptions in the search for solutions
Part I: Parallelist Approaches
1. Aboriginal education in Canada: A retrospective and a prospective, Verna J. Kirkness
2. Silencing Aboriginal curricular content and perspectives through multiculturalism: “There are other children here,” Verna St. Denis
3. Closing the education gap: A case for Aboriginal early childhood education in Canada, a look at the Aboriginal Headstart program, Mai Nguyen
4. Canadian Native students and inequitable learning, Wayne Gorman
5. Making science assessment culturally valid for Aboriginal students, John B. Friesen and Anthony N. Ezeife
6. A new deal, Blair Stonechild
7. Connections and reconnections: Affirming cultural identity in Aboriginal teacher education, Linda Goulet and Yvonne McLeod
Part II: Integrationist Approaches
8. Schools matter, John Richards
9. A new approach to understanding Aboriginal educational outcomes: The role of social capital, Jerry White, Nicholas Spence, and Paul Maxim
10. Why we need a First Nations Education Act, Michael Mendelson
11. Free to learn: Giving Aboriginal youth control over their post-secondary education, Calvin Helin and Dave Snow
12. Retention of Aboriginal students in post-secondary education, Judy Hardes
13. Aboriginalism and the problems of Indigenous archaeology, Robert McGhee
14. Running the gauntlet: Challenging the taboo obstructing Aboriginal education policy development, Albert Howard with Frances Widdowson
15. The unintended outcomes of institutionalizing ethnicity: Lessons from Maori education in New Zealand, Elizabeth Rata
16. Native studies and Canadian political science: The implications of “decolonizing the discipline,” Frances Widdowson
Part III: Exchanges
17. First Nations education and rentier economics: Parallels with the Gulf states, John R. Minnis
18. First Nations education and Minnis’s rentier mentality, Frank Deer
19. Ganigonhi:oh: The good mind meets the academy, David Newhouse
20. The “good mind” and critical thinking: A response to David Newhouse, Frances Widdowson
21. Paths to truths, David Newhouse
