Date of Conferral
2017
Degree
Ph.D.
School
Education
Advisor
Felicia Blacher-Wilson
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to describe the teachers' perceptions of pedagogy and examine their cross-cultural strategies regarding culturally responsive
teaching of K-12 students. Indigenous students of the Northwest Territories (NWT) face academic challenges in a Eurocentric educational system. Tribal critical race theory and Eurocentric diffusionism provided the conceptual framework in this study. Six participants were interviewed and their narratives were triangulated by a 5-member focus group. The research questions focused on the teachers' strategies for building bridges between the Eurocentric and Native ways. Participants were interviewed and their responses created individual stories, which added to the meaning making. Fifteen themes were identified using open and axial coding. The findings showed a teacher proclivity for pedagogy infused with Indigenous thought, and an understanding that residential schooling was intrusive to Indigenous life. Participants presented an anti-Eurocentric diffusionist stance, advocating for schooling that matches Indigenous life and is devoted to a dynamic home-school culture directed at closing the achievement gap with the rest of Canada. This study contributes to social change by providing supporting evidence for the need to involve Indigenous students in the development of their education.
Recommended Citation
Amprako, Francis, "Culturally Responsive Teaching of Indigenous Students in Canada's Northwest Territories" (2017). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 3585.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3585
