Pedagogic Authority and Colonialism in the History of Education in Arctic Canada, 1955–1990

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Marxian Analysis of Society, Schools and Education SIG Roundtable

Abstract

This paper describes the results of a historical study in various Canadian archives with data relevant to colonial policy in the Arctic during the latter half of the twentieth century. The results of this study illustrate how colonial policy used education as a means of naturalising the imposition of a new pedagogic authority across the Arctic through formal state intervention and by deputising all white people working for the government to impress upon Inuit to norms and customs of Canadian, liberal, capitalist life. The subordination of Inuit was understood along humanitarian lines, contributing to their social, political, and economic evolution thus requiring the application of a decolonial critical theory.

Author

• Taylor Ellis, University of Manitoba