Oppression to Empowerment: The Role of Education in Facilitating the Right to Self- Determination of Indigenous Peoples

This research investigates the role of education in facilitating the right to self-determination of Indigenous Peoples and investigates if education has evolved from a tool of oppression to one for the facilitation of the right to self-determination and Indigenous empowerment. The relationship between Indigenous Peoples and international law has been a turbulent one. Over the past sixty-five years, the status of Indigenous Peoples has slowly changed within the international legal regime which has seen Indigenous Peoples transition from objects to subjects of international law. This change has added immensely to Indigenous empowerment, transforming what were once deemed to be vulnerable groups in need of protection from the States in which they resided, to self-actualising and empowered communities demanding the rights to which they are entitled. This progression is not only due to the changing role of Indigenous Peoples within the international legal order, but also owing to a change within other vital societal infrastructures, including education systems. In the context of Indigenous children, the education systems of Colonisers have, in the past, played a sinister role. It has been used as a thinly veiled attempt to oppress indigeneity and to disrupt the transmission of intergenerational knowledge and customs. One example is that of the Canadian Residential School System, designed to eliminate Indigenous identity and hinder any advancement of the right to self-determination of Indigenous groups in Canada. In more recent times, mainstream education and educational institutions have become a beacon of hope for the promotion and preservation of Indigenous identity. This suggests that education and systems of education have the potential to be valuable tools in the process of maintaining Indigenous identity in a non- Indigenous setting, a powerful engine for Indigenous empowerment and perhaps a beneficial tool for Indigenous self-determination and empowerment. Utilising a descriptive-normative approach, this work explores these themes, analyses examples of their occurrence both past and present, and offers recommendations on how this right to self-determination can be advanced both currently and in the future through education systems. This research addresses how education systems, in the context of Indigenous Peoples, can be reformed to be a catalyst of empowerment from a tool of subjugation.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

National University of Ireland Maynooth

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Maguire, Gerard

Language dc:language

en