Supporting Urban Aboriginal Social Justice in Education: A Case Study of the Educational Leaders' Roles, Responsibilities, and Relationships as Care Providers.

摘要

The purpose of this research study is to examine the educational leaders' perceived role as they become caregivers (i.e. mentors and role models) in response to meeting the individualized needs of urban Aboriginal youth in the Canadian public and separate school systems. The qualitative study explored an ethic of care and sought to understand the leadership models in place that guide the decision-making processes to identify how the caregivers recognize and address issues that target social justice in terms of not just academics and culture, but also social and economic issues at the school level. The proposed study looked at how educational leaders perceived their role as caregivers; the challenges in becoming a caregiver to a marginalized community; the limits or conditions that educational leaders put on themselves in providing an ethic of care; as well as, the approaches to caring that unite or divide people at the provincial, board, school, and community levels. More specifically, the study aimed to understand the perceived caregiving roles, responsibilities, and relationships that educational leaders need to realize before leading successful school-community change in an urban city centre. In so doing, the study analyzed transcripts from interviews, field notes from interviews, and notes from documents. The data collected helped to achieve a deeper understanding of the existing issues from historical and contemporary viewpoints that further took into account the existence of a double understanding between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal societies. A case study approach was taken whereby a social constructionist stance was used that takes into account the models of an ethic of care as a conceptual framework, and looked at social justice (harmony and balance) as the lens. Data was collected from one educational program with programming being delivered at three different educational settings in a Canadian city centre. It also involved members of various community-based Aboriginal service delivery organizations. The participants included educational leaders (i.e. administrators, teachers, program coordinators, classroom teachers, resource teachers, community-based volunteers, and mentors) who were responsible for the design and delivery aspects of the urban Aboriginal school programming. The results of the study examined and compared similarities and differences in the responses to formulate a culturally relevant educational leadership framework that defines caring relationships, as well as aimed to provide guidance and support to educational leaders who are faced with the challenges of reforming and/or enhancing programming to inspire and motivate urban Aboriginal learners to increase rates of student participation, engagement, and success. Through the distribution of results, this study will provide educators and organizations focused on advancing Aboriginal education in urban communities with an opportunity to initiate meaningful conversations and thoughtful planning with regard to the needs and future implications for the direction of urban Aboriginal education programming models and future research initiatives.