Chapter 13: Racialized Poverty and the Promise of Schooling: The Search for Equitable Educational Outcomes for Aboriginal Peoples in Saskatchewan, Canada

Issues of equity and social justice are particularly acute in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, where massive disparities in income, employment, health, educational achievement, incarceration rates, and other indices of well-being currently separate Aboriginal peoples from the non-Aboriginal majority. In Saskatchewan, poverty is a racialized phenomena and is addressed here as a race/class intersection. In this chapter, we briefly trace the historical roots and current dimensions of these challenges. The bulk of the chapter addresses recent strategies designed to improve educational outcomes for Aboriginal students as a means of fostering greater equality between the two racial solitudes in the province. While emphasizing the critical role of publicly funded education as a means of mitigating disadvantage and promoting social cohesion, we draw on insights from postcolonial and neo-Marxist theory to argue that schools alone cannot effect the larger social and structural changes required to eliminate the racialization of poverty in Saskatchewan. Acknowledging that our colonial past continues to inform current disparities requires a painful confrontation with the realities of white racial privilege and necessitates a more equitable and ethical distribution of wealth than currently premised under neoliberal fiscal, social, and educational policies.