http://www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca/acp/site.nsf/eng/ao35224.html
A comprehensive list of research publications dealing with Aboriginal issues specific to Canada. It is organized by themes ranging from education to governance to justice and policing. Being able to get a cross-section of research in one place is useful, as we can begin to see the interconnections between issues – for example, how are educational challenges related to housing issues? A site such as this one helps us to take a step back from our focused research areas to see a larger picture context of how topics may be connected. By jumping from this ‘research’ section to the ‘statistics and maps’ section, we can find information such as community profiles, children’s survey and language maps.

Emily

http://www.education.gov.sk.ca/AERN
This site is a central location for coordination of research activities dealing with Aboriginal education in Saskatchewan. Although it appears to be no longer updated (copyright 2007) there are lots of links here to relevant research dealing with Aboriginal education, as well as further links to useful research tools, such as how to conduct action research for teachers, and research journals that have similar research aims.

Emily

http://web.uvic.ca/icwr/imethod.htm
Siem Smun’eem – Indigenous Child Welfare Research Network. This organization is a group with membership coming from Universities, agencies and communities in British Columbia to create a unified vision of best practices in conducting research in Aboriginal communities. The mandate is to move research in the direction of local control and use. The site describes their goal, “to establish a Research Institute in the province of British Columbia to ensure our children and families are nurtured with stories, traditional teachings and practices relevant to our diverse territories, languages and teachings.” There are multiple links to relevant articles dealing with protocols and practices to conducting research within First Nations communities.

Emily

http://www.ciet.org/en/about-ciet/
This organisation seeks to “build research capacity in communities… .” After the considerable time spent on conversations surrounding research and indigenous communities, this site stood out to me as a possible resource for allowing research to emerge from within communities in ways that are in line with the local traditional knowledge, and yeilding results that are specific and usable to that community. Regarding the topic of Aboriginal youth, there is a targeted project within the site on resiliency among Aboriginal youth, specifically targeting the topic of suicide prevention. There are interesting links from this site, which focuses on health, but seeks to address local problems on a global scale.

Emily

I have been surfing the net to find resources that will help me with my focus of educating the First Nations child in a regular school. I need to find resources that will teach me ways to reach out to my First Nation students and tell me why these methods would be effective. There are lots of sites and documents but after our journey through this course I am very cautious about what I choose. From the plethora of information I have to find meaningful, authentic sources. After our readings about non aboriginal researchers and their tainted work, the wannabee Indians and their half-baked philosophies, and the passionate Indian radicals without sound traditional reasoning, I have to sift and sort to find some gold nuggets.

There is much work out there done by First Nation researchers or work by non-aboriginals that has the support and approval of the First Nations people. I have found articles about the history of First Nations education, the First Nations Pedagogical beliefs, challenges faced by First Nation students in schools on and off reserves, and learning styles that are conducive to educating a First Nations child. There are documents from various education ministries from all over Canada in which they propose and approve of ways in which First Nation beliefs can be incorporated into to regular teaching content to make the learning more applicable, and in my opinion more complete. Here are some of them:

1. Learning Styles of American Indian/Alaska Native Students: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Practice
By Cornel Pewewardy

2. Aboriginal Education in Canada: A Retrospective and a Prospective
By Verna J. Kirkness

3. Joining the Circle: A Practitioner’s Guide to Responsive Education for Native Students By Agnes Grant and LaVina Gillespie

4. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: First Nations Education in Canada
By Faith Maina

5. Teaching in a First Nations School: An Information Handbook for Teachers New to First Nations Schools
2006 by First Nation Summit of British Columbia

6. Some Ministry Documents:

INTEGRATING ABORIGINAL PERSPECTIVES INTO CURRICULA: A Resource for Curriculum Developers, Teachers, and Administrators 2003 Manitoba Education

Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework (2007) @

Shared Learning British Columbia

One of the things we did last year in Lutsel K’e was get funding for a major curriculum development project (2-3 years)  from TNC. This will involve staff, students and community members in generating some teaching and learning reesources in some digital format… Bella Bella started their project two years ago… so this site talks about some of the multimedia things they have done and links to TNC resources…. good stuff. Sheila

http://www.qqsprojects.org/multimedia/index.html