First Nations assimilation through neoliberal educational reform
Citations Over TimeTop 20% of 2013 papers
Abstract
The authors undertake a geographically sensitive analysis of the influential 2010 Free to Learn report. Free to Learn proposes a reform of the funding system for First Nations students to remove funds earmarked for First Nations education from First Nations government control, convert universities into managers of First Nations student funding, and convert First Nations community members into entrepreneurs. Free to Learn employs two strategies: scalar obfuscation and the cultivation of historical geographic ignorance to obscure the links between their proposal for neoliberal educational reform and the long‐standing assimilative strategies of the Canadian and pre‐Canadian state. The authors explore the economics and demography in the report and expose its deep links to colonial and assimilative policies of the recent and distant past. They link this report to the larger theatre of education in Canada where cultures are frequently reduced to mutable symbols in an ahistorical context. They close with a reflection on the challenges and dangers of taking a political stance with limited understanding of the forces at work in the environment of neoliberal reform prevailing in Canada.
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