Module 2: weblog 2 (Chantal Drolet)

Canadian Education Association: Aboriginal Peoples

An “Expected Outcome” of the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012) is to increase the literacy levels in communities or groups that are excluded from the mainstream, namely indigenous groups, where literacy is “inextricably linked to cultural survival.”

Resources available:

In Canada, […] the achievement levels and graduation rates for Aboriginal students are significantly lower than those of non-Aboriginal students. The majority of Aboriginal youth do not complete high school; leave the school system without skills for employment; without adequate language and cultural knowledge of their own people; and feel that schooling experiences erode their identity and self-worth.

• Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
• Historical context:  Indian Act
• Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
• Central goals for Aboriginal education and literacy
• Native Adult Education Resource Center
• Aboriginal literacy for non-aboriginals

Links to other sites:

• Cultural/Educational Centres Program
• Aboriginal Awareness Workshops
• Literacy Theory
• Literacy Learning
• Measuring Literacy
• Literacy and Curriculum
• Early Childhood Literacy
• School Age Literacy
• Adult and Workplace Literacy
• Family Literacy
• Aboriginal Literacy
• Media Literacy
• Cultural Literacy
• Information Literacy
• Literacy and Language
• Literacy and Justice
• Literacy and Gender

Usefulness for research on Indigenous knowledge, media, and community reality:

In the context of the struggle for cultural survival and self-determination faced by many indigenous groups, raising literacy levels in the dominant language of the larger community can be a tool for indigenous political action.

Address: http://www.cea-ace.ca/foo.cfm?subsection=lit&page=pol&subpage=lan&subsubpage=abo