





































Emerging Perspectives 
ep.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca 
 
 

Decolonizing Indigenous Educational Policies 

Zuhra Abawi, Janelle Brady 

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto  

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 market-

economy. 

Keywords: Decolonization, Indigeneity, neo-liberalism, Eurocentric, self-

identification, policy 

 

Abawi, Z., & Brady, J. (2017). Decolonizing indigenous educational policies. 

Emerging Perspectives, 1(1), 20-31. 

 
 

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not want to think as a matter of fact, that the country ought 

to continuously protect a class of people who are unable to stand alone…our objective is to continue until 

there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no 

Indian question, and no Indian Department”. 

-Duncan Campbell Scott: Head of the Department of Indian Affairs (1913-1932) 

Introduction 

In 2007, the Ontario Ministry of Education (EDU) created two documents: the Ontario First 

Nations, Métis and Inuit Education (FNMI) Policy Framework and the Building Bridges to Success 

for First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) Students. These documents were to serve as provincial 

educational policy for Indigenous students in Ontario’s publicly funded education system, grades 

K-12. In 2011, following these policies, the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities 

(MTCU)1 collaborated with the EDU to draft the Aboriginal Postsecondary Education and Training 

                                                         
1 The Ontario Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development was formerly known as the Ontario Ministry 

of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) and will be referred to as MTCU in this paper as that was the name 

of the said Ministry at the time of publication of the policy document. 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               21 

Policy Framework. These three policy documents were implemented at the kindergarten to grade 

12 (K-12) level as a mechanism to increase literacy and numeracy, retention of students in publicly-

funded schools, graduation rates, and enrolment and acceptance to sites of postsecondary education 

(PSE). The Aboriginal PSE Policy Framework was drafted to create partnerships between 

Indigenous communities, school boards and sites of government, to reduce the achievement gap 

between Indigenous and non-Indigenous PSE students, and to provide funding and resources 

(Ontario MTCU, 2011).  

Funding and resources were to be delivered on colonial government terms as manifested in 

the dichotomous power relations of dominance perpetuated by the white colonial government. We 

argue that terms or conditions bear resemblance to those imposed by Western Imperial nations on 

former colonized nations of the Global South in the form of SAPs (Structural Adjustment 

Programmes) regulated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). The 

conditions include rigorous and invasive data collection concerning ‘self-identification’ of 

Indigenous students, performance measures, accountability markers, and transparency for such 

funds to be released. Although the policy frameworks are outlined as altruistic, well-meaning, 

committed pledges on part of the provincial government to address educational gaps between 

Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, such policies reinforce the dichotomous 

oppressor/oppressed power relations embedded in Indigenous and colonial state relationships 

(Razack, 1998). The policies are platforms, which reproduce tracking, objectifying and 

subsequently ‘knowing’ the colonized Other as a strategy of dominance and control according to 

the will of the colonizers. We analyze and interrogate the ways in which the discursive practices 

encapsulating the policy frameworks benefit a neoliberal agenda of conformity-demanding, results-

based, market-oriented education which seeks to maintain and promote Ontario, and, more largely, 

Canada as competitive players on both domestic and international fronts.  

Our work disrupts the government’s asserted altruistic approach to addressing Indigenous 

educational approaches through an anticolonial theoretical framework deconstructing the 

imperial/colonial relationship that privileges white settlers at the expense of Indigenous 

communities. We address and critique the policy context and rationale in which the documents 

were drafted and implemented, discuss the government imposed notions of Indigenous self-

identification and provide a genealogy of settler policies as a mechanism of imperialism.  

Theoretical Framework 

Anti-colonialism seeks to dismantle past and present colonialisms, which remain embedded 

and implicated in ongoing white settler colonial states and Western militarized imperial states, as 

well as neo-colonial states. Anti-colonialism is therefore against colonialism in all of its 

manifestations. Asante (2006) described the multifaceted pervasiveness of colonialism: 

Colonialism seeks to impose the will of one people on another and to use the resources of the 

imposed people for the benefit of the imposer. Nothing is sacred in such a system as it powers 

its way toward the extinction of the wills of the imposed upon with one objection in mind: 

the ultimate subjection. (p. ix) 

The Canadian nation-state imposed such an all-encompassing, pervasive colonial structure with its 

early implementation of the Indian Act (1876), which continues to exist.  Dei (2006) articulated 

the necessity of contextualizing power relations and alternate historical accounts from non-

dominant perspectives in order to take up anti-colonial work, in which history and context are 

crucial and an understanding of our collective past is significant for pursuing political resistance.  

Anti-colonialism differs from post-colonialism, as post-colonialism assumes that occupation or 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               22 

colonization has come to a conclusion and that power and autonomy have been restored to the 

Indigenous communities of a particular land.  As Waziyatawin (2010) posited, anti-colonialism 

challenges power relations in and sets forth Indigenous knowledge recovery as an anti-colonial 

project, resulting in a “conscious and systematic effort to revalue that which has been denigrated 

and revive what has been destroyed” (p. 121).  Waziyatawin stated that anti-colonialism effectively 

dismantles the “fallacy of European superiority” (p. 122), thus creating an entry point for systemic 

change rooted in resistance.  Anti-colonial resistance, in the case of decolonizing white settler state 

Indigenous policy-making, requires the interrogation of power relations in which the white colonial 

settler state imposes itself, its norms, values, and social systems, on colonized Indigenous people 

and inherently positions Indigenous people as inferior to white, Euro-Canadian settlers.  Dei (2011) 

described “processes of knowledge production, validation and dissemination, and claims of 

Indigeneity and Indigenous knowledge” (p. 112), and outlined the implications of colonialism and 

neo-colonialism on power relations. The three policy frameworks highlighted in this paper are 

rooted in Eurocentric notions of what education is and what it ought to look like without any 

consultation of Indigenous communities and leaders for self-determination and agency over 

educational outcomes.  The fact that these documents continue to be drafted by the same white 

settler populations and institutions which have historically created genocidal legislation is highly 

problematic.  Power relations are also solidified by the very existence of such policy frameworks 

and educational strategies, as they are indicative of which groups have the power, the right or the 

autonomy to create such documents and which communities are not afforded such privilege.  

Policy-making is yet another tool of the colonization, control and domination of Indigenous 

communities, in which many of the policies are highly racialized and operate on the 

homogenization, tokenization and white supremacist stereotypical conceptions of Indigenous 

communities. Schick (2014) noted: 

Stereotypes about Aboriginal people and federal policies that hampered their progress were 

useful in creating the mythology of the vanishing Indigenous peoples, and later, producing 

management systems that enabled the state to control the progress of Aboriginal peoples 

when they refused to go away. (p. 93)  

Such tokenized, derogatory depictions of Indigenous people as one homogenous, static group 

continue to inform and dictate settler government interactions with Indigenous communities.  

Schick discussed issues of “white resentment” in terms of the colonial settler state and a moral 

panic, in which white people fear their fate as a possible minority and must therefore re-assert white 

supremacy or what Schick referred to as “a re-affirmation and re-narration of cultural and social 

identities” operating to legitimize white privilege and white supremacy (p. 96).  Policy-making and 

legislation are components of the ongoing white settler colonial apparatus, which seeks full 

domination over Indigenous people, lands and resources.  

  Although the policy documents express the fact that Indigenous knowledge systems, 

epistemologies and pedagogical approaches vary from Eurocentric paradigms, this 

acknowledgement is a colour-blind, multiculturalist, difference acknowledgement (Coulthard, 

2014). There is a lack of interrogation of how such Eurocentric legislation, policy-making and 

implementation, education, social services, and legal and government structures have and continue 

to serve as systems of genocide and assimilation.  

Anti-colonialism disrupts liberal, multicultural, discursive practices, which claim to advocate 

for Indigenous education and success, yet operate to ensure that the white settler neo-liberal agenda 

remains hegemonic. Such policies exist to ensure that Canada’s fastest growing demographic 

remains economically competitive and fills labour shortages (Cherubini, 2010). How can anti-

colonialism be implemented through praxis, acts of resistance and Indigenous knowledge systems 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               23 

at the policy-making level? Is such an anti-colonial coalition as described even possible in a truly 

authentic way, free from neo-colonial influence? 

Policy Context and Rationale 

The increasing Indigenous demographic has led to the implementation of the three policy 

documents that cite Statistics Canada projections, estimating a 

16% increase in Ontario’s Aboriginal population, to 267,700 by 2017, and the number of 

young Aboriginal adults aged 20-29 is expected to grow by more than 22%, which is well 

beyond the projected growth of 9% among those in the same age group in the non-Aboriginal 

population.” (MTCU, 2011, p. 8) 

The increase of the Indigenous population has enabled a pathological response on behalf of the 

government, in which the settler state must frantically formulate policies in order to ensure that 

such an increasing demographic is productive and conforming to the competitive, neo-liberal, 

market-economy demands (Cherubini, 2010).  It is important to be critical of the purported increase 

in the population in the first place; it can instead be an acknowledgement of Indigenous 

demographics and existence in Canada, rather than the historical silencing and erasure of 

Indigenous populations in such policies (Razack, 1998). We must be critical of why this 

acknowledgement is taking place now and who benefits. Cherubini (2010) cited the 2007 Ontario 

First Nations, Métis and Inuit Education Policy Framework which indicates a “28% increase in the 

Indigenous population, compared to 6% mainstream population” (p. 12). The forecasted increase 

of the Indigenous populations amounts to the provincial government’s panic to fill pending market 

and labour shortages due to both the aging of Ontario’s population and the declining birth rate of 

non-Indigenous Canadians (Cherubini, 2010).  The anticipated increase in Indigenous people has 

led to the emergence of the noted policy frameworks to aggressively close achievement gaps and 

increase graduation rates so that Ontario can maintain its status as a productive market economy 

(Cherubini, 2010). The national on-reserve K-12 drop-out rate of Indigenous students is 58%, the 

off-reserve drop-out rate is 30%, and the overall Métis drop-out rate stood at 20% in 2011 in 

comparison to 10% of the non-Indigenous general student population (Dehaas, 2014). The on- and 

off-reserve disparity is widely attributed to the severity of funding gaps between provincially-

funded school boards, which operate off-reserve schools, and federally-funded on-reserve schools 

(Dehaas, 2014).  The funding gaps have been estimated to be as severe as 40% and upwards 

(Dehaas, 2014).  The rationale for the closure of such educational gaps is not meant for the well-

being of Indigenous communities and histories but for the purpose and benefit of the labour market 

agenda and Canada’s economic competitiveness and viability (Sharp, 2010). Sharp (2010) asserted: 

The desire for GDP increase, closing the education and labour gap by 2026 will allow a $36.5 

billion increase in GDP…this is a direct result of Canada’s initiative to compete in a global 

economy which relies on Canada being able to implement a productive workforce in order 

to maintain and perpetuate its neoliberal capitalist ideologies and ambitions. (p. 32) 

The policies which will be analyzed in the next section emerged as a governmental mechanism to 

once again deal with the ‘Indian problem’ by regulating, tracking, controlling and enforcing white 

supremacist, Eurocentric paradigms of knowledge, education and student success masked by the 

narrative of equality-driven multiculturalist discursive practices and dialogue (Cherubini, 2010).  

Indigenous Education Policies and the White Settler State 

Education has historically been a focal point of brutal, white settler colonial government 

sanctioned assimilationist and genocidal policies toward Indigenous people and the Indigenous 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               24 

community (Thobani, 2007).  There is an inherent degree of mistrust and fear among Indigenous 

communities in terms of colonial state-sanctioned educational policy initiatives toward Indigenous 

people (Cherubini, 2010).  Education as a means of genocide was enforced through the nation-wide 

residential school system implemented by the Canadian government and run by the churches with 

the ambition of assimilating, dehumanizing and ultimately intending the forced disappearance of 

“the Indian” from the white settler state.  The assimilation of Indigenous children was carried out 

by the indoctrination of children in Euro-Canadian, Christian values, which rendered Indigenous 

languages, cultural practices and histories as backward, savage and deficit in relation to Eurocentric 

norms (Thobani, 2007).  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) report 

highlights that the residential school system was based on assumptions of the superiority of 

European civilization and Christian religions to Aboriginal culture, which were portrayed as being 

“savage” and “brutal” (TRC, 2015, p. 2).  The schools were in place from the 1830s under Prime 

Minister John A. Macdonald until 1996.  Children were forcibly removed from their homes and 

family members and subjected to violence of all kinds, such as physical, psychological, sexual, and 

emotional.  Abuse was rampant and pervasive, as the TRC estimates that some 4,000 Indigenous 

children died or were killed at the hands of their abusers in residential schools.  An unknown 

number of children died by drowning or freezing while trying to escape their captors, while others 

committed suicide (TRC, 2015, p. 58).  

The Federal Indian Act was initiated in 1867 and it determined who was an Indian and could 

claim Indian status under Canadian law. Those who went on to higher education lost their status, 

and women who married non-Indigenous men also lost their status (TRC, 2015, p. 53).  In 1969, 

under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s White Paper proposal, Indian status was almost entirely 

revoked in a quest for the final elimination of the “Indian problem” (Turner, 2006).  The TRC 

report highlights that the Indian Act served as colonial legislation by which, in the name of 

protection, one group of people controlled another (TRC, 2015, p. 55).  Much of the discourse of 

the TRC assumes a post-colonial dialogue in which colonization is something of the past and that 

Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and government relations are post-colonial.  The 

descriptive language of the TRC is markedly presented in the past tense rather than the present, 

even though the Indian Act as a piece of colonial legislation continues to exist and continues to 

dictate who is Indian enough through blood quantum to qualify as Indian and who is not Indian 

because the goal of white assimilation has watered such Indigenous blood down.  

From the 1940s onward, residential schools also operated as orphanages and child welfare 

sites, as the colonial government conceptualized Indigenous peoples as unfit and incapable parents 

from white norms of parenting and child rearing (Comack, 2012).  Such derogatory discursive 

practices provided the state with the power to intrusively remove alarming numbers of children 

from their homes and communities (Comack, 2012).  By the 1960s, it is estimated that more than 

half of all children in residential schools were there as a result of colonial child welfare systems.  

In the “60’s Scoop” (Razack, 2015), social workers, operating under a Eurocentric, white 

supremacist paradigm of good parenting, violently and forcefully took children from their homes 

and placed them into foster care with predominantly settler families. Indigenous children at that 

time were either institutionalized in child welfare facilities or in residential schools (Razack, 2015). 

Abuse, neglect, malnutrition and child labour in the facilities was rampant, so much so that all 

documents concerning correspondence between the schools and physicians was destroyed.  The 

death rates for Indigenous children in such institutions were disproportionately higher that the non-

Indigenous school aged population (TRC, 2015).  The TRC (2015) noted the following:  

The high death rates in the schools were, in part, a reflection of the high death rates among 

the Aboriginal community in general. Indian Affairs officials often tried to portray these rates 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               25 

as simply the price that Aboriginal people had to pay as part of the process of becoming 

civilized. (p. 99) 

The document and the passage itself fail to grasp the irony of the continued murder, suicide, 

displacement, and ongoing genocidal practices and policies of the settler nation.  

Indigenous Self-Identification and Policy Making 

Until the 1940s, Indigenous people graduating from high school and enrolling into PSE 

institutions were required to surrender their Indian status and thus assimilate into mainstream, 

white, Eurocentric, Canadian society (Parliament of Canada, 2014).  This loss of status and identity 

reinforces the notion of education as a predominant facet or agent of colonization, as it resulted in 

the loss of the right to live on their reserves and communities, and, as Papovich (2011) reinforced, 

“further destroy[ed] Aboriginal families and communities” (p. 11).  In 1989, the Indian Studies 

Support Program (ISSP) was created to provide funding opportunities to Indigenous students 

pursuing PSE.  However, as it was funded by the federal government, conditions were attached 

which only permitted funding to those who held Indian status (Parliament of Canada, 2014). The 

controversial and problematic issue of status as a colonial divide-and-conquer tool has and 

continues to plague Indigenous families, communities and bands through rigid measures of blood 

quantum and authenticity. This conception of blood quantum and status emerge from Eurocentric 

conceptions concerning ‘what’, ‘who’, or ‘how much’ blood and ancestry constitutes legitimate 

Indian-ness and subsequently determines the eligibility of a person to claim their own identity, 

history and heritage.  The colonial government-imposed restrictions and definition prohibits the 

right of Indigenous peoples to self-identify and claim their own identity (Cherubini, 2010).  

The issue of status within education policy emerged in the 2007 Ontario EDU’s Building 

Bridges to Success for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Students, which developed policies to 

facilitate voluntary and confidential student self-identification within Ontario’s publicly funded 

school boards.  However, as colonial patterns demonstrate, conditions were attached to this so-

called liberating notion of self-identification.  Although the process of self-identification was 

presented as one which respected confidentiality, the Ontario EDU planned to rigorously track such 

identification for progress and accountability purposes by mandating that school boards release 

demographic statistics concerning Indigenous and non-Indigenous learners (Cherubini, 2010).  The 

Education Act asserts the obligation of such disclosure in the following excerpt: “a school board 

must understand its legal obligations with respect to disclosing the personal information of students 

to the Ministry of Education and Educational Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO)” (Ontario 

EDU, 2007, p. 12).  The Ontario EDU justifies such pervasive data collection and retention as a 

means to track Indigenous enrolment rates, EQAO test results, and course completion and 

graduation rates.  The Ontario EDU can thus track and publish the Indigenous and non-Indigenous 

demographic test scores, particularly the racially-biased, standardized EQAO tests (Cherubini, 

2010). Self-identification as policy re-emerged in the (2011) MTCU Aboriginal PSE Policy 

Framework, after the two 2007 policy documents outlined the following: 

The self-identification of Aboriginal learners within the postsecondary education  

and training system will be an integral component of the Aboriginal PSE  

Performance Measures Strategy. Self-identification is generally understood to be  

a process which learners/potential learners are asked to identify their Aboriginal  

ancestry or heritage, often at the time of the application to an institution or  

program. (p. 20) 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               26 

We explore the ways in which the proposal of self-identification is not for the well-being, 

healing and success of Indigenous learners; it is for the government to effectively track, regulate, 

know and control Indigenous students and formulate policies to exert colonial, paternalistic power 

and control over Indigenous students and communities. Cherubini (2015) emphasizes such 

imperialist power relations, noting:  

the respective public finances, human capital, and resources associated to the  

goods and services that the OME promises will be determined and managed in the  

best interest of Aboriginal students and their communities. There may be, at the  

very least, a scent of the assimilationist practices imposed upon Aboriginal  

peoples in the not so distant past. (p. 15)  

Cherubini argued that such policies fundamentally portray Indigenous people through a deficit-

lens in which:  

The derogatory depiction is further complicated by Eurocentric and capitalist rhetoric and 

paradigms…these rhetorical constructions within the policy Framework also seem to 

accentuate the OME’s status as provider of the necessary skills and services that will redeem 

the Aboriginal population and enhance their potential to more meaningfully contribute to a 

capitalist and market-driven economy-an intention that may not necessarily be too strikingly 

different from the assimilationist colonial practices of years gone by. (p. 15) 

Rooted in modernity, such paternalistic relationships are similar to those which enhanced the 

operatives of oppression through colonialism and imperialism. As such, this similarity 

demonstrates the issues in identifying the ‘post’ in post-colonialism. Policy-making approaches of 

today have neoliberalism and the need to compete in the market economy as their historical 

underpinnings.  It takes an anti-colonial framework to reconceptualise, re-imagine and resist such 

dominant, hegemonic and white supremacist agendas. 

Critiquing the Policy Frameworks and Documents through Anti-Colonialism 

The policy frameworks have contributed to the perpetuation of the racialization and 

marginalization of Indigenous people on the part of the white settler colonial state.  The dominant 

white hegemonic agenda imposes itself through the discourses of helping and bridging gaps to 

achieve its own neoliberal market agenda of economic productivity.  The documents claim they 

are “intended for the benefit of Aboriginal learners” (MTCU, 2011, p. 11).  The stated policy 

documents essentially dictate what Indigenous people need and what is good for conformity and 

success in a Eurocentric education system.  The policy documents cite the ambition for potential 

partnerships with Indigenous organizations including the Aboriginal Peoples Council of Toronto 

and Native Child and Family Services of Toronto.  However, none of the above groups mentioned 

for the purposes of facilitating such positive partnerships were consulted in the formation and 

implementation of this document or the 2009 Realizing the Promise of Diversity: Ontario’s Equity 

and Inclusive Education Strategy (Cherubini, 2010). 

The documents are not consensual or transparent, as they did not consult with Indigenous 

communities or organizations and thus homogenize Indigenous peoples through colonial, 

tokenized conceptions of Indigeneity.  Cherubini (2010) critiqued the policies’ assumption that 

Indigenous people and communities would even wish to collaborate with such an oppressive 

system in which white settler privilege remains the hegemonic status quo.  The policies and 

documents do not provide space for Indigenous communities and learners to address their own 

particular needs and concerns, such as endemic racism, discrimination, bias, institutionalized 

colonialism and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).  Furthermore, there is a lack 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               27 

of recognition of proposals and calls for autonomy over Indigenous education, pedagogies and 

epistemologies as the documents effectively and discursively speak for a homogenized Indigenous 

entity (Cherubini, 2010).  

The policy documents fail to acknowledge the fundamental differences of epistemologies 

and educational paradigms of Indigenous identities in relation to Eurocentric pedagogical 

approaches.  The documents thus prescribe what and how education ought to look like, be 

implemented, assessed, evaluated, tracked, monitored and taught.  Welton (2013) expands on the 

issue of whose knowledge is considered valid, important and legitimate and whose is deemed 

irrelevant. He describes how:  

The pedagogical encounters between European and First Nations peoples  

inhabiting the land were premised on racialized assumptions, which took shape in  

European thought rooted in Aristotle’s strange notion that some people were born  

as ‘natural slaves’ and not capable of being educated. (p. 21)  

The policy documents operate on multicultural discursive practices which preach equity, 

inclusiveness and diversity, while refusing to interrogate, disrupt or dismantle ongoing colonial 

practices masked by multicultural rhetoric.  Such documents serve to reinforce colonial 

dichotomies of oppressor/oppressed, white/Indigenous, dominant/subjective by perpetuating the 

colonial parent-child relationships in which the white colonial government decides which 

educational practices are best suited for Indigenous learners.  Cherubini (2010) described the 

racialized discourses embedded in the documents by focusing on two aspects: first, the documents 

conjure “rhetorical constructions that position the governing body as the ‘provider’”(p. 13); this 

positionality dichotomizes Indigenous people by relegating them to ‘children’ dependent on their 

‘parent’, the white, settler government. Secondly, Cherubini articulated that the “value-orientations 

of student achievement and accountability” are both questionable and problematic concerning the 

proposed methods in which Indigenous students are to be assessed and evaluated.  Such 

assessments follow specific criterion for success which is rooted in Eurocentric values of 

meritocracy, competitiveness, individuality and marketized educational priorities.  Cherubini 

stated the inherent and incompatible difference in education and knowledge has led to calls for 

Indigenous educational autonomy. He noted that “Aboriginal scholars have endorsed these calls 

for control over education and have referred to the notion that Aboriginal epistemologies are 

distinct from colonial paradigms of teaching and learning” (p. 12).  Welton (2013) reinforced calls 

for Indigenous autonomy of education, citing the  “discordant and outcast pedagogies,” which he 

asserts “arise in the interplay between dominant elite control of knowledge and learning processes 

and the forms of knowledge of those who are objects of control or domination. First Nations, 

workers, and women objectify discordance” (p. 22). The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) asserts 

that education is always imposed on Indigenous children “with a blatant disregard for First Nations 

languages, cultures and collective knowledge and wisdom” (2016, p. 2).  

The policy documents omit the necessary conversation concerning the historical, social, 

geographic and cultural barriers to Indigenous peoples accessing education, particularly PSE.  

Malatest (2004) indicated that many Indigenous people are distrustful of education and view it as 

an assimilationist mechanism due to the horrors of the residential school system.  As the CSJ 

articulated, “the legacy of Eurocentric, paternalistic views of the residential school system 

continues to affect Aboriginal children today in our schools” (2016, p.1). The delivery models used 

to teach and instruct children are based on European, Westernized thought and culture (CSJ, 2015).  

Calls for Indigenous autonomy of education have been administered by colonial 

governmental systems that dictate what such educational autonomy would look like and how it 

would operate.  For example, the proposal of Bill C-33 First Nations Control of First Nations 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               28 

Education Act under Harper’s Conservative government outlined its commitment to allow chiefs 

and council to administer on reserve schools (Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, 2014).  

However, as in the past, the document was drafted solely by Harper’s government and conditions 

were attached in order for educational funding to be released.  The language in the proposed Bill 

was racialized and reinforced white settler state control of Indigenous educational affairs, as the 

Bill would still remain under the control of the Ministry and its decision-making processes 

(Information on Bill-C33, 2014).  

Conclusion 

The policy framework documents are inherently problematic and one-sided, and they 

reinforce power dichotomies based on Eurocentric colonial theories of race, anthropology, 

eugenics and cultures, which privilege whiteness as the norm.  The discursive practices embedded 

in such documents raise grave concerns in terms of who is speaking on behalf of which community, 

who decides what needs they have and how to help marginalized people. The ongoing colonial 

narrative of white settler dominance is evident in the legislated policies to deal with othered 

Indigenous communities without their consent.  These narratives therefore perpetuate ongoing 

imperialism through assimilationist ambitions which seek to have Indigenous students conform to 

Western, market-driven knowledge, practices and standards that systematically devalue Indigenous 

epistemologies, and which are culturally unresponsive and irrelevant.  The policy frameworks thus 

conceptualize Indigenous communities from what Cherubini (2010) refers to as a “deficit lens” (p. 

15), by implementing strategies and initiatives to fill labour voids, rather than respecting 

autonomous Indigenous ways of knowledge and teaching practices.  

The notion and pervasive concept of self-identification removes any discourse of failure from 

the settler-colonial state, as the supposedly altruistic documents encapsulate the fallacy that the 

nation-state is making all the right decisions and providing the necessary resources; therefore, it 

cannot be held accountable should Indigenous students not meet Eurocentric, standardized 

measures of success.  Governmental policy-making towards Indigenous education continues to be 

met with resistance and mistrust by Indigenous communities and leaders due to the implications of 

past and continuing colonial legislation, which has had devastating consequences on Indigenous 

communities.  As mentioned previously, calls to autonomy over education have been 

bureaucratized and managed by intrusive and pervasive governmental conditions. Cherubini (2010) 

argues that only through self-determination can culturally-relevant pedagogical practices be 

realized; however, even what autonomous Indigenous control ought to look like is prescribed by 

the white settler colonial state.  The significant challenge that remains is the lack of governmental 

recognition and acknowledgement that Canada is a white settler colonial state, which sustains itself 

on the ongoing domination and marginalization of Indigenous people.  Such ‘altruistic’ proposals 

of autonomous educational self-determination remain rooted in colonial systems of domination, 

which seek to maintain authority and control over Indigenous lives, from overtly racialized control 

in terms of residential school systems and child welfare policies to covert policies such as the legal 

inaction concerning MMIW and ongoing police brutality toward Indigenous people.  For 

Indigenous autonomy over education to occur, it cannot be tainted by governmental intrusion and 

agendas; it must be formed among bands, elders and communities to address the specific needs 

among various Indigenous communities. The barrier that such activism will continue to face is the 

removal of the dominant colonial government voice which silences Indigenous voices and 

reinforces power relations.  For Indigenous voices to be heard and autonomous there must be 

admission that Canada is and remains a white settler colonial state with the ongoing pursuit of 



Abawi, Brady / Emerging Perspectives (2017) 20-30               29 

Indigenous assimilation and appropriation of lands.  Moving forward, it is essential that policy, 

similar to education, incorporates what Dei (2006) refers to as a “centric” approach whereby 

educational policy initiatives do not compete with one another for hierarchical reasons but rather, 

draw from one another (p. 177). The centric approach to educational policy allows for a multitude 

of perspectives, narratives and social locations to engage in dialogue as shared policy.  When 

dialogue is facilitated, and power relations among policy makers are interrogated, ‘courageous 

conversations’ (Singleton, 2005) based on the acknowledgment of one’s relative positions of 

privilege and oppression can occur, thus allowing binaries to diminish and a multitude of voices to 

inform educational policy.  

References 

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