Decolonizing the Nunavut school system : stories in a river of time ...

• Main Author: McGregor, Heather Elizabeth
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2015
• Subjects: inuit; Nunavut
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0167161; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0167161

This research explores the recent history of educational change in Nunavut’s public school system, primarily between the years 2000 and 2013. During this time, decision makers mandated that schools deliver programs in accordance with Inuit foundations of knowledge, values and ways of being. I show how new school system initiatives were largely informed by long-term Nunavut educators—Inuit and non-Inuit—as well as Elders and Inuit knowledge holders, whose perspectives reach into the remembered past and towards an imagined future. My inquiry centres in-depth interviews with Cathy McGregor, an educational leader who carries 40 years experience North of 60°, and was responsible for facilitating many recent curriculum, policy, and leadership changes. Cathy is also my mother. Illuminated by her memories and vision, materials developed for the Nunavut school system, and my own research journey, I examine processes of bringing knowledge from and about the past forward in educational change. I describe three sites as ...