Dream Weaving as Praxis: Turning Culturally Inclusive Education and Anti-Racist Education Into a Decolonial Pedagogy

Abstract

Utilizing the parameters of the dreaming phase in the decolonizing framework developed by Poka Laeuni (2009), this paper investigates how culturally inclusive education and anti-racist education philosophies have been posited as potential approaches to decolonizing Canadian K-12 schools. To examine how culturally inclusive education manifests in Ontario’s K-12 system as a result of the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Educational Policy Framework, this paper explores three topic areas. First, I provide a literature review of culturally inclusive education; second, I offer a literature review of anti-racist education; and third, having assessed the shortcomings of the two pedagogies previously, I conclude that neither culturally inclusive education nor anti-racist education are sufficient alone as decolonizing strategies. From this analysis, I hypothesize that by weaving components of the two pedagogies together, a possible decolonizing framework may be created. Keywords: education; culturally inclusive education; anti-racist education; Indigenous education; decolonization