The aim of this study is to understand how to increase social justice in education for Indigenous education programming on a federal, territorial, and local level, and to theorize the ‘value’ of education programming for Indigenous populations themselves globally. The research focuses on a case study of the Northern Adult Basic Education Program (NABEP) implemented by the Canadian Federal Government from 2011-2016 to bridge the socio-economic gap between First Nations in Canada’s North and the rest of the nation. Social science benefits from carrying out of important case studies, as case knowledge is vital to public understanding (Flyvbjerg, 2006). The NABE Program has been the focus of some controversy, at the centre of which lies a debate about the exact roots of academic inequality and how to measure student success. I take the position of re-framing problems with Indigenous education as a problem of knowledge, curriculum, and power instead of framing them as being caused by low educational attainment.

Grounded in the theoretical oeuvre of Basil Bernstein (2000), where concepts of power and control were used to generate analysis - from the macro, meso and micro level, this study highlights how policy documents reveal different priorities by key actors in Canadian higher education. Bernstein (2000) asserts that there are three, interlinked pedagogic rights that all students within any given nation-state need to gain access to through their education. These include the right to: enhancement (confidence from critical thinking), inclusion (wider social level involvement) and participation (political decision making). Enhancement can be applied to Indigenous evaluation frameworks at the classroom micro level, inclusion applied to incorporation of Indigenous knowledge at the meso level, and participation applied to Indigenous access to the educational decision-making process at the macro level.

Additionally, I explore the pedagogic identities produced in NABEP students and the effects of academic rules that control their access to powerful knowledge. Through a critical analysis of the multi-method case study data relating to the NABEP, recommendations include new holistic approaches that address personal, academic, and financial needs of marginalized students.

Analysis of the program data exposes the limited student access to university level pathways, powerful knowledge, and holistic evaluation methods. Furthermore, my NABEP research findings suggest different approaches to developing pedagogic identity took place at the federal (macro), institutional (meso) and classroom (micro) levels, but they all shared a commonality in forming a neo-liberal economic student identity. Barriers, such as curriculum content lacking in transferable math requirements, limited students’ options to access higher education opportunities, thus restricting social mobility. The value of this, and similar research, is to give insight into the relationship between the purposes of nation-state run education and the needs of Indigenous populations. Moreover, trying to understand what we can learn from these mismatches can reveal implications for social justice. 

The research methodology for this study was a multi-method case study on the Northern Adult Basic Education Program (NABEP). Literature review findings on Indigenous education helped shape the research question which was to explore tension between what First Nation communities themselves value in cultural education for their young people, and what social, bureaucratic and governmental structures require. For this purpose, I utilized documentary and existing data set analysis on the NABEP implemented at Yukon College in northern Canada. Multi-method approaches use multiple types of qualitative or quantitative data, in contrast to the mixed-method approach which specifically combines both quantitative and qualitative research tools (Yu, 2009). To answer the main research question, a thematic analysis technique of NABEP student data collection and larger policy documents was used based on Clark’s (1983) commonly used triangle of cooperation approach and its successful application to higher education research (Selvaratnam, 1985; Ashwin, Abbas, & McLean 2015; Lang, 2017). Thematic analysis done through identifying the reappearance of data and in conjunction with a method of closed coding, that highlights the importance of beliefs, control, and social hierarchies, is particularly useful (Lawless & Chen, 2018). My selected documents for analysis for this study, that relate to the various levels, include pertinent global and domestic policy documents (macro), NABE program and college documents (meso) and a survey of 282 students (micro). For example, the Canadian Government, education developers and international organizations, and their related policy documents, were chosen as the most influential voices on the macro (national and international) stage in influencing Indigenous student identity. At the macro level, I chose 10 actors and their policy documents that stated varied positions pertinent to Indigenous education and the NABEP case study. Then, I organized them into 3 groups (representing the state, academic professionals, and markets) as guided by Clark (1983) (Lang, 2017). To account for my findings, while collecting policy documents, I looked for how documents framed the value of Indigenous education, how actors understood them and if there was a diverse or shared understanding behind those beliefs.

The findings of this study show that various pathways to higher education are needed to increase social justice in Canadian education and around the world. Through Basil Bernstein’s social realist lens, I found that the Northern Adult Basic Education Program (NABEP) at Yukon College played a role in shaping education and employment for Canada’s First Nations living in the north. By positioning the analysis in terms of an ideal educational access to pedagogic rights for this type of program that is geared towards Indigenous learners, prospective pedagogic identity, market pedagogic identity and therapeutic pedagogic identity all fell short in meeting all three pedagogic rights (enhancement, inclusion, participation) and of being a holistic approach to increasing social justice in education. My NABEP research findings mirrored those found in the literature review. The study findings echo the sentiment expressed by Gaudry and Lorenz (2018) that nation-state funding for Indigenous education continues to be structured towards Indigenous marginalization and targets more towards neo-liberal socio-economic objectives of the state than the actual need of the Indigenous individuals and communities to advance themselves. Furthermore, the NABEP data findings at the micro level match Bernstein’s (2000) description of horizontal discourse practiced locally, distributed segmentally and socially communalized. NABEP data findings at the micro level unveiled local, isolated skill components and emphasis on teamwork linked to therapeutic pedagogic identity. Secondly, at the meso level, a market identity was present reflective of pressures on Yukon College to create workers for the labour market serving territorial government, First Nations governments and private industry. Thirdly, at the macro level, a prospective pedagogic identity was pushed by the state preparing students for entry-level jobs in the employment sector. All pedagogic identities converged to contribute to neo-liberal educational frameworks that primarily targeted economic objectives creating one overall economic student identity.

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