Decolonizing Inclusion: Partnership, Pedagogy, and Possibility in Canadian Teacher Education

Overview & Synopsis

At the University of Manitoba, Canada a team comprised of four faculty members from the Faculty of Education, an Indigenous Education Consultant, and a graduate student embarked on a change initiative entitled: "Indigenizing Curriculum, Pedagogy and Spaces in Teacher Education." In the spirit of reconciliation, the initiative involved collaborating with Indigenous stakeholders and knowledge-keepers in determining educational priorities and structures for teacher education in an Indigenous Community-Based Cohort in inclusive/special education, and in the area of inclusive/special education more broadly. The initiative sought to challenge existing norms within the academy that were maintaining institutional power and control over teacher education. In addition to building collaborative partnerships with Indigenous stakeholders, the change initiative involved conjointly deconstructing curricula and pedagogy, and infusing Indigenous content, perspectives, and worldviews. Special education is a logical place to begin this process because of the systemic structures and practices within this paradigm that employ deficit-based views of diversity. Based on Eurocentric standards of teaching and learning, special education has been particularly detrimental to Indigenous students, as it has been used to diagnose and label difference as disability, and disproportionately segregate Indigenous students in special education classrooms and programs. The authors of this paper describe this change initiative and provide recommendations for decolonizing the academy and teacher education, with a focus on inclusive/special education.