Discursive (re)productions of (im)possible students in the Canadian prairies

ABSTRACT

This article applies post-structural theories of discourse, power, and performativity to trouble dominant ways of knowing Aboriginal education in the Canadian Prairies that racialize student subjects. A discourse analysis of interview transcripts traces how discourses of innocent teachers and (im)possible Aboriginal learners deploy the historicity of colonial forces to (re)create the conditions of possibility for exclusionary educational practices. The author employs the concept of ‘impossible student’ to analyse teachers’ negotiation of discourses that position Aboriginal students as everything the ‘good’ student is not, and thus outside the bounds of studenthood – before they even arrive at school. The concept of discursive performatives is used to offer insights into how persistent inequalities in Aboriginal education might be shifted within everyday practices, and to argue the need for rethinking what it means to be a teacher and a learner in a settler society.

KEYWORDS:

• Aboriginal education
• colonialism
• feminist discourse analysis
• post-structuralism
• racialization
• racism
• teacher identity

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr James McNinch for his comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. The author would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions helped him to strengthen this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Amanda Gebhard http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6046-3838

Notes

1 ‘Aboriginal peoples’ and ‘Indigenous peoples’ are both terms meant to encompass peoples categorized or self-identified as Inuit, Métis, and First Nations. The term ‘Indigenous peoples’ is growing in popularity as a collective noun for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, and is becoming the preferred terminology over ‘Aboriginal peoples’. I considered consistently employing the term ‘Indigenous peoples’ in this paper; however, given that I employed the term ‘Aboriginal peoples’ at the time of my interviews and that the theoretical approach to this research emphasizes how language shapes how social groups are produced, I decided to keep the term ‘Aboriginal peoples’ when specifically referring to the study. At other times, I have chosen to employ the term ‘Indigenous peoples’. When I quote or paraphrase authors, I employ the author’s terminology to respect peoples’ right to name themselves. Métis people are of primarily First Nations–French mixed ancestry and trace their origins to Southern Manitoba, but today include other people of mixed ancestry. Canada’s Inuit population traces their origins to the far North.

2 I employ the terms ‘Aboriginal education’ and ‘Indigenous education’ to refer to educating Aboriginal/Indigenous learners, as well as educating all students about anti-Aboriginal racism, settler–Aboriginal race relations and history, and Aboriginal/Indigenous knowledge and perspectives.

3 The Sixties Scoop refers to the adoption of First Nation/Métis children in Canada between the years of 1960 and the mid-1980s. This phenomenon was named the ‘Sixties Scoop’ because the highest numbers of adoptions took place in the 1960s and because in many instances children were literally scooped from their homes and communities without the knowledge or consent of families and bands.

Additional information

Funding

This research was in part made possible by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant no. 752-2013-1297).