The Possibilities for Reconciliation Through Difficult Dialogues: Treaty Education as Peace-Building

• In Event: 16.050 - The Global Culture of Peace

Abstract

This paper discusses the ongoing effects of colonialism on Aboriginal peoples in Canada and how these might be revealed and disrupted through particular curricular initiatives, informed by understandings of critical peacebuilding education. One such initiative, treaty education, has the potential to disturb dominant national narratives in classrooms, and to invite students to think differently about the history of Canada as it seeks to acknowledge and challenge epistemologies of ignorance that often shape relationships with Aboriginal peoples. Specifically, the paper describes a high school-university student inquiry into the history and ongoing legacies of Indian residential schools, as one example of how treaty education might be used to foster the difficult dialogues necessary for critical peacebuilding education.

Author

• Jennifer A. Tupper, University of Regina