Public schooling and contested public discourses concerning reconciliation

Wotherspoon, Terry; Milne, Emily

Public schooling and contested public discourses concerning reconciliation

Author

Wotherspoon, Terry

Milne, Emily

Date

2020

Keywords

Canada, education for reconciliation, education policy, public opinion, schooling reform, Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Abstract (summary)

The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report and accompanying Calls to Action have prompted educational reforms in school jurisdictions across Canada. Drawing on data from a survey of public perspectives in Alberta and Saskatchewan, this article explores how these reforms are understood by community members to highlight the significance of competing discourses conveyed through public perspectives on reconciliation processes. General support for the idea of reconciliation conceals the limited extent to which respondents are willing to engage with important realities of settler colonial societies, embedded within discourses that are more likely to defend than challenge the dominant frameworks within which Indigenous–settler relations have been constituted in the Canadian context.

Publication Information

Wotherspoon, T., & Milne, E. (2020). Public Schooling and Contested Public Discourses Concerning Reconciliation. Canadian Public Policy 46(4), 445-457. https://doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2020-032