Seeing education through two pairs of eyes : an investigation of community involvement in the education system of a Northern Cree community

Abstract

This qualitative emergent research study investigated the perceptions of involvement of Aboriginal community members in the formal secondary education system of a Northern Cree community by using a grounded theory approach. In researching, a deliberate attempt was made to work from an Indigenist and postcolonial paradigm by using a participatory approach which valued the participants as co-inquirers and included them in the determination of the research process. Participants were involved in negotiation of research questions, data collection technique, analysis, and in the interpretation of data. The research study found that parents are and wish to be involved in our children’s formal education, that community members feel disassociated from our community education system, that this disassociation results mainly from issues of cultural dissonance and the community’s historical experience with institutionalized education, and that community members long for a sense of ownership of and connection to the system we have chosen to use in educating our children. Above all, we found that educational success for our children is highly important to this community’s members.