Fryberg, S. A., Troop-Gordon, W., D’Arrisso, A., Flores, H., Poniszovskiy, V., Ranney, … Burack, J.A. (2013). Cultural mismatch and the education of Aboriginal youths: The interplay of cultural identities and teacher ratings. Developmental Psychology, 49, (1), 72-79. DOI 10.1037/a0029056

This peer-reviewed study was co-authored by a team of eleven people, both indigenous and non-indigenous. They began their study out of a concern that existing literature focuses more on identifying what the deficits in Aboriginal education are, rather than on positive ways to improve it. They hypothesize that a lack of educational attainment in Aboriginal students springs from a mismatch in the cultures of teachers and their students – Aboriginal students’ cultures emphasize “interconnectedness and interdependence”, whereas mainstream education tends to value “independence and assertiveness”. This divide leads to Aboriginal students feeling alienated from the educational setting. The study included 115 secondary students in a Naskapi community, and looked at the correlations between students’ identification with their culture, students’ assertiveness levels, and students’ grades. They found that students who identified strongly with their own culture tended to score higher on measures of assertiveness and achievement than students with lower self-reported cultural identity. Additionally, higher levels of self-reported cultural identity correlated positively with their teacher ratings. From this, the authors concluded that one way to increase Aboriginal students’ school achievement and to foster positive relationships between non-Aboriginal teachers and their Aboriginal students was to support the growth of Aboriginal students’ cultural identity. This support requires the inclusion of Aboriginal philosophy and cultural experiences within the school setting. For my project, I believe that this offers concrete guidance into improving my own practice and the experience of my students. The conclusions also demand further research into the best ways to sensitively and appropriately include Aboriginal philosophy and cultural experiences.