Faculty Perspectives about the Impacts of Implementing Indigenous Content at Humber College in Ontario, Canada

This qualitative, multi-method study examined course outlines through a Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA), which then led to the Qualitative Interviews (QI) of faculty members who taught Indigenous content within their academic courses. The initial analysis focused on 180 course outlines from 8 different academic programs in the Faculty of Social and Community Services at Humber College. Degree and diploma program course outlines were included in the analysis, which was centred on locating Indigenous content within each of the 8 academic programs. The QI explored the perspectives of 12 professors in the Faculty of Social and Community Services at Humber College who had taught courses that had embedded Indigenous content. These interviews sought to understand the perspectives of professors about the challenges, success, and motivations to include Indigenous content in their curricula. Through the QDA and QI, critical themes were uncovered, and emphasized the importance of the relationships developed within the classroom setting between professors and students, and the diverse culture that each post-secondary classroom offers learners. Each academic program contained a different level of Indigenous content, and the professors offered critical insights into what content was taught and what the impacts of this learning were within the classroom. The professors who had integrated Indigenous content into their pedagogy and curricula demonstrated Culturally Responsive Teaching practices and were engaged in a variety of ways with Indigenous content and the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Professors’ approaches to teaching and learning, commitments to social justice, and interest in the decolonization and Indigenization of curricula had the most significant impacts on the implementation of Indigenous content.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leadership, Higher and Adult Education

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Borak, Katherine Ellen

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Waterman, Stephanie

• critical whiteness theory
• culturally responsive teaching
• faculty motivation
• focused curriculum
• Indigenous content
• student development theory

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/130404

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/130404