Urban Aboriginal Students At-Promise of Completing High School: A Community's Journey

• Author / Creator

  Steele, Loraine K

• This dissertation is based on high school completion being recognized as a public problem in Canada and Alberta since the mid-1960s, and re-surfaced in importance in Alberta during the early 2000s. I questioned how urban Aboriginal students, facing multifaceted challenges in areas of social, economic, judicial, political, health and education realms, fraught with hegemonic power and control issues, can become empowered to complete high school.
  
  The main purpose of this study is to engage urban Aboriginal students involved in a stay-in-school program operated by the Aboriginal Youth & Family Well-being & Education Society in four schools in Edmonton to critically examine and identify existing social structures that may marginalize them in completing high school. As urban Aboriginal students become aware, they can identify and gain support systems to challenge the status quo, learn to answer their questions, and become self-empowered to become students at-promise of completing high school.
  
  This study used Indigenous research methodology informed by a critical lens for research analysis with a goal of transformative action to liberate urban Aboriginal students and enhance their support systems. Critical theory provides an epistemology for addressing issues that exercise hegemonic control, through power blocs of racism, classism and sexism, and dominant forms of knowledge, to result in an ultimate shift in social inequality. Critical pedagogy points to solutions for students to become empowered, as well as for the development of educational policies and practices that create enabling conditions for urban Aboriginal students to complete high school. The methodology utilized was a holistic approach to research based on the four directions of the Medicine Wheel of physical, mental, spiritual and emotional dimensions, in which the knowledge of all involved in the research experience was valued. Talking circles and individual interviews were methods utilized to gather qualitative data through the research questions posed on barriers and solutions to high school completion, responding to issues of power and control. Indigenous protocols were adhered to in gathering data by celebrating cultural practices, building trust relationships and respecting all perspectives. The data collected were compared to other literature sources through a critical theory lens. A melding of voices for educational policy and promising practices emerged to enable high school completion of urban Aboriginal students. The learnings from this study may be developed into educational policies and practices to support Aboriginal students to complete high school. Also, parents, Elders and Aboriginal communities can become a strong supportive voice in the education of their children.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Critical theory
  • Aboriginal education
  • Indigenous researh methodology
  • Educational policy
  • Community voice
  • High school completion

• Graduation date

  Fall 2013

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3QF8JW1N

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.