Curriculum Integration and the Forgotten Indigenous Students: Reflecting on Métis Teachers’ Experience

Abstract

Curriculum integration, or in other words, changing what students are taught within racially desegregated Canadian schools, has served as a primary but incomplete pathway to racial justice. In this paper, I present evidence from a qualitative critical race theory (CRT) methodological study with 13 Métis teachers to demonstrate how curricular integration has been framed as a key solution to inequitable outcomes concerning Indigenous students. This strategy has been instilled within the Saskatchewan K–12 education system by a wide spectrum of authorities over several decades. Although absolutely essential for multiple reasons, I argue that teaching students about Indigenous knowledge systems and experiences, as well as anti-racist content, cannot resolve the systemic racial injustices encountered by Indigenous students who attend provincial schools. In particular, three CRT analytical tools—structural determinism, anti-essentialism, and interest convergence—are utilized to examine the limitations of curricular integration as a strategy of racial justice. Keywords: Métis teachers; Indigenous education; critical race theory; integrated schools