Crossing the Racial Hiring Divide in Public Education: First Nation Teachers Encounters with Employee Fit, Merit, and White Racial Innocence

• Main Author: Eastmure, Lori R.
• Other Authors: Schick, Carol, St. Denis, Verna, Tymchak, Michael, Hampton, Eber, Juschka, Darlene, Peden, Sherry
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina 2013
• Subjects: Canada; Regina; Yukon; First Nations
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10294/5409; http://ourspace.uregina.ca/bitstream/handle/10294/5409/Eastmure_Lori_190704708_PhD_EDUC_Spring2014.pdf

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education, University of Regina. ix, 240 p. In the Yukon Territory, significant social, political and legal efforts have been put in place to articulate equality between First Nations and non-First Nations people, not as equality based on good will, but equity as a legal right. These significant accomplishments in the advancement of First Nations rights include recent land claims agreements and self-government agreements, employment equity policy and staffing protocol. In contrast to these statements of legal equality, this study examines the ways in which hiring challenges encountered by First Nations teachers—as racialized individuals in Northern Canada—are made to appear normative and natural. The hiring challenges exist despite a pressing need for teachers of First Nations ancestry. The key mode of inquiry for this study is critical race theory that recognizes that racism is a systemic, normative, and everyday practice. Critical race theory takes into account the structural and institutionalized nature of racialization as expressed in liberal discourses of racism, racial inequalities and white supremacy. Critical race theory also acknowledges the importance of the legal and political status of Aboriginal people and their right to land claims. As a methodology, this study uses critical discourse analysis and institutional ethnography as interpretative methods to analyze discourses and documents related to hiring teachers in the Yukon Territory. These methods uncover examples of unequal power and hierarchical relations embedded in everyday discourses and reflected in the hiring policies and practices of public schools. The hiring criteria of what constitutes “suitably qualified” candidates was examined from three approaches: the concept of employee “fit”, meritocracy (and employment equity) and white racial innocence. These approaches used as hiring criteria ...