School Plus and Changing Demographics in Saskatchewan: Toward Diversity and Educational Communities

• Main Author: Carr-Stewart, Sheila
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: UBC Faculty of Education 2021
• Subjects: Canada; Indian; First Nations; Metis; Nakota
• Online Access: http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/CJNE/article/view/196357; https://doi.org/10.14288/cjne.v27i2.196357

Between 1871 and 1905 the Cree, Saulteaux, Dene, Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota peoples entered into treaties with representatives of the British Crown. In exchange for imperial commitments and services, First Nations agreed to share their tradi­tional land with the newcomers who journeyed to their vast prairie territory. Today the land known as Saskatchewan is home to a population of one million people of whom in 2001 13.3% self-identified as Aboriginal (two thirds First Na­tions and one third Metis, Saskatchewan Bureau of Statistics, 2002). The larger non-Aboriginal portions of the population are mainly descendants of settlers who moved from eastern Canada and Europe. Despite a century of residing together within provincial boundaries, the two communities—Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal—have mostly remained apart geographically, economically, socially, and educationally: separation fostered by culture, languages, lifestyles, and rural versus urban living, and legally by reserve boundaries, the Indian Act, and the Constitutional division of powers between the federal and provincial govern­ments.