Discourses of Indigenous Self-Determination in Contemporary Education Policy: Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, and Canada

• In Event: Indigenous Educational Inequalities and Promised Solutions: Historical, Policy, and Transnational Perspectives on “Closing the Gap”

Abstract

This paper addresses the extent to which the discourse of self-determination as expressed by Indigenous scholars converges with discourse of self-determination as it appears in examples of contemporary education policy from the settler societies of Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. More specifically, this project uses methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine the extent to which the discourse of Indigenous self-determination in contemporary education policy converge with four key elements; knowledge, identity, advancement and decolonization. As a White Settler Canadian, and therefore a non-Indigenous researcher, I intentionally rely on the work of Indigenous scholars to synthesis these four key elements of Indigenous self-determination.

I investigate three policy texts, produced over the past decade in the settler societies of Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Canada at various different levels of governance. The policy from the Aotearoa New Zealand context is Ka Hikitia: Managing for Success: The Māori Education Strategy 2008-2012. The policy from the Australian context is Wannik Learning Together – Journey to Our Future Education Strategy for Koorie Students Victoria 2008 from the state of Victoria. The policy from the Canadian context is Ontario First Nation, Métis and Inuit Education Policy Framework 2007 from the province of Ontario.

My findings demonstrate that while many of the claims of Indigenous peoples in regard to self-determination have been incorporated into official state discourses, governments have largely rearticulated the meaning of self-determination, often diverging from the positions formulated by Indigenous peoples. The shift in the meaning and significance of the concept of self-determination towards a neoliberal orientation has focused on an assimilative language of competition and accountability. In education policy, this neoliberal focus has highlighted the importance of closing the gap through better educational outcomes for Indigenous learners, operating within assumptions of normative knowledge and skills. The rearticulation of self-determination is constructed in two ways: the prevalence of the discourse of audit culture (see Shore and Wright, 1999) as well as of deficit theorizing (see Sheilds et al, 2005).

The contribution of this research is that it disrupts the unchallenged Eurocentric and neoliberal power frames that exist in contemporary education policy as well as articulating how discourses of globalization and self-determination currently exemplify Indigeneity within the policy landscape. Many of the examples from the three policy documents construct a discourse which suggests that larger inequalities faced by Indigenous students are merely technical issues relating to lack of data or a failure to participate fully in an otherwise functional education system. In disrupting these assumptions, this research points out how such discourses fail to acknowledge are the historical and contemporary reasons for inequities that exist in the educational settings.

Author

• Marra Neilson, University of Auckland