Aboriginal Education in Winnipeg Inner City High Schools

In this study the researchers investigate the educational circumstances of Aboriginal students in Winnipeg inner city high schools. The study is based on interviews with Aboriginal students, Aboriginal school leavers, adult members of the Aboriginal community, and teachers. Responses by Aboriginal people to the researchers questions about their experiences in schools reveal the existence of what the researchers have identified as a cultural/class/experiential divide between Aboriginal students and their families on the one hand, and the school system on the other. Aboriginal students experience the divide between themselves and the school system on a daily basis, and a good deal of what they experience in school is negative. Not surprisingly, many Aboriginal students resist and even reject this form of education. This is not the way in which this issue is generally understood. It is generally understood as a problem of Aboriginal students failing in school, of their having a 'dropout' rate double that of non-Aboriginal students. The evidence that the researchers have gathered suggests to us that Aboriginal people want the education that is needed to enable them to participate fully in Canadian society and in their own self-governance but they do not want to abandon what it is to be Aboriginal in order to do so.