Conference Agenda

Given the historical context of assimilation and the enduring impact of Residential Schooling in Canada, Indigenous families and communities continue to approach educational systems with a degree of uncertainty and distrust. Globally, education has been a significant tool for suppressing cultural differences and perpetuating dominant cultural norms and perspectives (Gaudry & Lorenz, 2018). In a time when Canadians are being called to action in addressing the goals outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada (2015), education also holds the power to “shift cultural privilege” (Government of Canada, 2018, p. 88) and foster a sense of belonging among marginalized groups. Chief Commissioner of the TRC, Senator Murray Sinclair posits, “Education got us into this mess and education will get us out” (CBC, 2015). This statement speaks to the importance of school environments to reflect the cultural values, identities, and practices of the specific Indigenous communities they serve (Donald, 2012). Going forward, it is imperative to adopt educational approaches that prioritize trust, inclusivity, respect, and collaboration with Indigenous peoples. These advancements in Indigenous education reflect a renewed effort for Indigenous peoples to take control of their knowledge production, confront colonial structures, and prioritize their sovereignty and nationalism (Andersen, 2014; Simpson, 2014). In our commitment to advance the educational goals of Indigenous peoples, we actively work towards reshaping the research relationship. Our current collaborative project with Indigenous students, families, communities, and leaders of the Fort Vermillion School Division in Northern Alberta, Canada, seeks to identify and implement educational experiences that reflect and reinforce Indigenous (Beaver, Métis, Cree, Dene) youths’ cultural identities, well-being, and future goals. Through the feedback we receive from the youth themselves, we examine how best to partner with the school division and local Indigenous communities to bring Indigenous knowledge and distinctive histories into the youths’ desired curriculum. Following the youths’ suggestions for language revitalization, cultural knowledge and career preparedness, we adopt educational structures that embody holistic approaches that are aligned with Indigenous ways of learning. We create a teaching workforce composed of Indigenous educators and teachers working in collaboration with local Indigenous community members. Our primary goal is to ensure that Indigenous youths’ learning experiences aid in the development of a robust self-image and a deep sense of pride and belonging. Embracing a strengths-based and community-engaged perspective, our approach is grounded in the principles of social justice and ethical Indigenous research practices. By adopting decolonizing methodologies, we are intentionally shifting power dynamics, dismantling privilege, and amplifying Indigenous voices as we honour their knowledge and traditions. Our research team practices "ethical relationality" as articulated by Dwayne Donald (2012). Ethical relationality seeks a transformative and respectful collaboration that acknowledges and upholds the inherent value of Indigenous perspectives. These concepts can also be applied outside of the borders of North America and outside of Indigenous communities. Youth around the globe face many challenges in education – often due to systemic inequalities and continued discriminatory practices. Access to quality and meaningful education remains a persistent issue, with economic disparities, geographic location, and cultural biases often standing in the way of marginalized youth from obtaining equitable learning opportunities. Community-based practices can aid educators in dismantling systemic barriers, promote inclusivity, and ensure that educational systems around the globe prioritize equity and diversity.

Small and rural schools often experience what is commonly perceived as inequality school curriculum towards urban schools due to bad connectivity and poor technological equipment, high teachers’ turnover or inadequate teacher training in the use of new technologies for innovative teaching, risking increasing levels of non-attendance in remote areas of our country (Mangione & Cannella, 2021). As De Bartolomeis (2018) has noted, the school is to be regarded as a learning system that needs to shift from an “integrated learning system” to an “extended learning system”. In current practice, learning in relationships with external settings is very modest and marginal. Not research but outings or visits, not observation with instruments prepared in advance and modified in the field but a superficial gaze, not interviews conducted as part of encounters but a few questions, not documentation but a few notes that are difficult to organize. The research activity carried out by INDIRE on the forms of diffused and extended schooling (Chipa, Mangione, 2022; Mangione, Chipa, Cannella, 2022; Mangione, Cannella, Chipa, 2021) has made it possible to deepen those experiences that make use of third-party spaces to build a “community ecosystem” (Teneggi, 2020). During the pandemic the learning experience of lower secondary schools in Reggio Emilia as “extended school in third spaces” has been financially supported by the local administration and carried out to extend the classrooms out of the school walls to guarantee the continuity of the educational offer. It involved 11 comprehensive schools of the city and 19 spaces outside the school starting from the 2020-2021 school year. The model has been observed and monitored to be transferred and small and rural school context.

This experience of the “extended school in third spaces” which went on up to nowadays, involved teachers of the schools, experts working for the different cultural spaces and non-teacher educators to renew the educational contract, to create around the teacher a necessary support for the realisation of an extended educational system and provide to the students a situated learning experience on a daily basis in order to avoid situation of cultural and social exclusion due to a poor curriculum experience. The collaboration among teachers, non-teacher educators and experts defined in term of interprofessional collaboration opened new opportunity for learning to the students, redefined a new alliance between school and the local community and started a new social contract for teachers to professional learning. The schools opened the school walls, re-organise timetable and curriculum content to connect to their communities, foster ever-changing forms of learning, civic and social engagement (LABSUS, 2023).

This experience offers the opportunity for analysing forms of inter-professional collaboration working in which children and families work with frequently changing combinations of professionals (Edwards, 2012). The conceptual framework that underpins the interprofessional collaboration is the activity theory, which offer object-orientated analyses of complex, radically distributed work settings from diverse expertise over extended periods of time. The interprofessional collaboration have been observed and monitored to three primary schools out of 11 involved in the extended school in Reggio Emilia, in three different learning environments (a school in cultural spaces, a school in outdoor spaces and a school in exploration spaces).

Interprofessional collaboration between teachers and non-teachers educator could be approached as a drivers to promote renewed school-community relationship, to start a new alliance between the different expertise to improve the quality of the curriculum and could be applied to all those learning environment that suffer social isolation.