Settler Starting Points: Toward Indigenizing Curricular and Teaching Practices in Canadian Higher Education

• In Event: Issues of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in the Recruitment, Retention, and Curriculum Within Graduate Education

Abstract

This conceptual exploration proposes a model for settler educators, in postsecondary education in Canada, who seek to decolonize and indigenize their teaching and curricular practices. Identifying key challenges and opportunities associated with Indigenizing higher education, the author aims to map possible starting points for this work by proposing a model called “Settler Starting Points,” through a visual representation, textual description, and a series of self-reflective, critical questions. Settler Starting Points incorporates a wholistic Indigenous framework: intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical, with starting points: humility, relationality, responsibility, and land.

Author

• Julie Mooney, University of Alberta