An area that requires further research is how to implement different learning techniques, values and practices in education. Our team’s research and dialogue emphasizes the changing of the elementary curriculum as an intervention, but this area can be further explored to uncover multitudes of ways of how to accomplish change in all educational environments. For example, the creation of educational programs for teachers and students of all ages, about Indigenous cultures, would be a good step towards changing stereotypes and generalizations of Indigenous peoples. From our own research and dialogue, it is evident that there are writers, teachers, researchers, artists and individuals that are attempting to change the images of Native American culture highlighted in our past and current literature and media. However, so much of media and literature still neglects to focus on the impact of place and “by taking away the specificities in the places that First Nations live in … we’re essentially erasing their identities” (Chloe Lee, “Annotated Bibliography”).

We believe that further research should involve questioning why and how place has been ignored in literature and media. When place specificity is neglected, stereotypes and generalizations form because individuality something intangible. Cannupa Hanska Luger is an artist who has revealed and emphasized the issues with the generalizations and stereotypes of Indigenous peoples. His exhibits reflect stereotypes of Native Americans and the power in the destruction of them. Luger’s action of destroying his exhibits, supports an idea that individual identities cannot exist as long as stereotypes and generalizations consume literature and media. Nancy Marie Mithlo’s TedTalk also reveals that choosing not to think about the harm generalized and stereotypical images impose upon Native Americans, will result in continuous negative images and negative perspectives. Further research should involve finding proactive ways for ending generalizations and stereotypes, whether this is through literature, media, or personal conversations. In changing images of Indigenous people, we need to find a way to represent their diversity within Canadian literature and focusing on place’s relationship with identity is a good start. Through our research we have discovered that there are educational ways of promoting a change in perspectives about Indigenous cultures. Further research should also seek to provide creative ways of emphasizing the relationship between place and identity, such as through media projects like Matika Wilbur’s “Project 562” that connects place with identity by combining the voices of Indigenous individuals with photographs of each of them embracing their individualities and homes.