Indigenous Course Pathways 2017/18

APD1290H S: Indigenous Healing in Counselling and Psychoeducation

This course seeks to define, redefine and locate Indigenous and traditional healing in the context of Euro-North American counseling and psychotherapy. In particular, the course will examine cultural and traditional healing within the broader economic, social and political practices of mental health care and in Canada. While the focus is in counseling psychology and psychoeducation (pedagogy), it also provides a critical site to highlight challenges and transformations within health care, thus the course will draw attention to the use of traditional healing in mental health care and counselor education. Explorations of the currents issues and debates concerned with the contemporary practices of Indigenous healing will be a key features of the course, for example, cultural respect and appropriation, ethics and confidentiality, competence of Indigenous healers and their qualifications and training. Through an in-depth analysis of international Indigenous helping and healing practices, with particular focus on Canadian Indigenous perspectives, the course will undertake to raise questions regarding the theory, practice, and research of Indigenous mental health and healing in psychology and education. As part of the exploration of Indigenous healers and healing, the course will also focus on how peoples from non-dominant cultures construct illness perceptions and the kinds of treatments they expect to use to solve mental health problems through individual and community psychology interventions. In this respect the course is also intended to contribute to community development and community health promotion.

CTL1320H F: Introduction to Aboriginal Land-centered Education: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

This course is designed as an introductory course for both Aboriginal (FNMI) and non-Aboriginal educators and professional practitioners focusing on issues related to teaching and learning in Aboriginal contexts in both urban and rural communities in Canada and more generally across Turtle Island (North America). We will be examining Indigenous ways of knowing and consider the ways this knowledge may inform teaching and professional practices for the benefit of all. Historical, social, and political issues as well as cultural, spiritual and philosophical themes will be examined in relation to developing culturally relevant and responsive curricula, pedagogies and practices. There is a particular emphasis placed on understandings of land and culture as it relates to constructions of the self in relation to education. The course is constructed around three modules. The first module focuses on exploring historical, social and political contexts, background and related factors that have and continue to influence current realities of FNMI students in Canada. The second module of the course focuses on examining where we are now – here in this time – particularly with regard to educational considerations which includes constructions of the self and community engagement. The third module explores some of the ways we might all move forward together in respectful relationships.

CTL1321H S: Aboriginal Civilization: Language, Culture and Identity

This course is designed for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educators and professional practitioners and examines Aboriginal (FNMI) perspectives on language, culture, and identity while looking at how this knowledge can inform teacher and professional practices to the benefit of all learners. In relation to developing culturally relevant and responsive curriculum, pedagogies and professional practices we will explore some of the tangled historical, socio-cultural and - political issues. We will also develop an understanding of FNMI peoples as a complete civilization (a complete way of being in the world) that includes the complex interplay of various aspects of civilization such as culture, literacies, language, arts, architecture, spiritual practices, and philosophical themes. Educators and professional practitioners will come away with enhanced critical thinking skills and active engagement with the issues through discussions and hands-on learning opportunities in order to move forward and be able to create more inclusive, fulfilling learning environments in both urban and rural contexts.

CTL1322H S: Literacies of Land: Narrative, Storying and Literature

This course is designed for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educators and professional practitioners and examines Aboriginal (FNMI) perspectives on literacies grounded in understandings of Land (capital “L”) while looking at how these literacies can inform teacher and professional practices to the benefit of all learners. In relation to developing culturally relevant and responsive curriculum, pedagogies and professional practices we will explore some of the various literacies and ways to support literacy success in classrooms.  We will explore culturally aligned texts, stories, and oral narratives together with symbolically rich themes that support literacies of land as living and emergent. Educators and professional practitioners will come away with enhanced critical thinking skills and active engagement with the issues concerning literacies through discussions and hands-on learning opportunities in order to move forward and be able to create more inclusive, fulfilling learning environments in both urban and rural contexts.

LHA1171H SV: Foundations of Aboriginal Education in Canada - Online Course

This course is designed to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of Aboriginal education in Canada. Emphasis is on understanding the influences of policies, programs, and institutions that affect the Aboriginal community in respect to Aboriginal education. One of the major data sources will be the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Aboriginal guest speakers will also comment on selected topics. Components of this course will include the Aboriginal world view; contemporary history/politics relevant to Aboriginal Peoples; and Aboriginal education and healing. Treaties were originally signed between First Nations and the Federal Government of Canada. These treaties for the most part have not been honoured. In this course we shall discuss the ways and means to redress this situation as we focus more specifically on issues relevant to Aboriginal education.

LHA1820H S: Special Topics in Higher Education: Advanced Student Development Theory

This course will explore the experiences of Indigenous students in higher education. In addition to academic readings, students will contrast and compare Indigenous experiences with other minoritized and racialized groups. Social media representation of Indigenous student services, academic departments, and scholars will also be explored.

LHA1854H F: Student Development Theory
This course will examine the origins, present status, challenges and future directions of student development within the context of higher education in western society. Sessions will focus on dimensions of student diversity, the role of institutional structure and function in facilitating student development and pathways to student success and retention. In addition, the social, psychological and cultural foundations of the student personnel movement as well as the role and functions of student services staff will be examined.

LHA1856H S: Advanced Student Development Theory

This course builds upon the knowledge gained in LHA1854, Student Development Theories in Higher Education. The course will more deeply examine psychosocial, cognitive structural, and typological theories. With a focus on intersectionality we will examine how race, culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and spirituality can influence development. Students will learn to use theories to improve our work with students. We will not do so without a critical examination of the theories.

SJE1930H F: Race, Indigeneity and the Colonial Politics of Recognition

This course explores histories of racism, displacement and legal disenfranchisement that create citizenship injustices for Indigenous peoples in Canada. It aims to highlight a set of decolonizing perspectives on belonging and identity, to contest existing case law and policy, and to deconstruct the normative discourses of law, liberalism and cultural representation that govern and shape current nation-to-nation relationships between Ongwehoweh (real people) and colonial-settler governments. The course is centered on exploring the possibilities, challenges and contradictions raised by resurgence strategies and reparation involving citizenship injustice from an anti-racist, anti-colonial and indigenous-centered perspective.

SJE1931H S: Centering Indigenous-Settler Solidarity in Theory and Research

What sets of intellectual and intercultural relationships exist between settler, diasporic, and Indigenous populations in Canada, and what possibilities, challenges, and limitations surround the building of these alliances in both theory and research? This course will examine these questions by exploring scholarly, theoretical, and research-based frameworks centred on the creation, maintenance, and rejuvenation of Indigenous-settler relationships and organizing. The objective is to engage with and assess these frameworks from a critical, Indigenous, and anticolonial perspective, and to understand the strengths, divergences and interconnections surrounding each of them. Through films, readings, group discussions, and guest speakers, emphasis will be placed on current and future research and mobilizing, considering in turn the implications for political, historical, and educational change.

SJE2999H S3: Special Topics: Decolonization, Antiblackness, and Settler Colonialism

This course will examine settler colonialism and antiblackness as entwined historical and contemporary social structures. It will appraise lived consequences for Indigenous peoples, Black peoples, European settlers, and other arrivals. It will consider theorises of decolonization and abolition within settler colonial contexts.

SJE2999H F: Special Topics: Indigenous Settler Relations: Issues for Teachers

This course seeks to name and consider the role of Canadian educators in transforming classroom-based, pedagogical, research-oriented, and programmatic initiatives aimed at settler, migrant, arrivant, and migrant Indigenous relationships.

SJE2999H S2: Special Topics: Truth Commissions, Reconciliation and Indian Residential Schools

This course considers, in part comparatively and internationally, the content and implications of Truth Commissions, especially Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in terms of delivering colonial reparations and redress. In June 2015, following six years of investigation and hearings across Canada, the TRC released its findings to the public. The findings were based largely on testimonies of over 6000 witnessess, mostly adult survivors of residential schools. The TRC  concluded that the residential schools were based on a policy of "cultural genocide", enforced as part of the very foundation of the Canadian state and sustained for over a century. Canada's TRC documented crimes exclusively targeting children, and an attack on Indigenous sovereignty. It also identified education as an avenue for reconciliation.

The course in general addresses histories of settler colonialism in Canada, historically and at present. It also works in particular to make comparisons with other Truth Commissions and cases of apology and redress. Attention is paid to recommendations for social justice related, political, and educational reform and practice;as well as their implications for settler/indigenous relationships-building and rejuvenation.

SJE5007H S: Special Topics in Social Justice Research in Education: Master's Level in Indigenous Land Education and Black Geographies

This course attends to research approaches coming out of two distinct literatures: Indigenous land education or pedagogy, and Black feminist geographies. Texts and assignments will focus on empirical and conceptual research projects which can be informed by critical Indigenous studies and Black studies engaging place and land.

SJE6000H F: Special Topics in Social Justice Research in Education: Doctoral Level Advanced Indigenous Feminist Research

This course engages Indigenous feminist approaches to research, and the application of theories of refusal to academic knowledge production. Prior coursework in Indigenous studies, women and gender studies, and permission of the instructor is required.