Inuit student teachers' agency,positioning and symbolic action: reflections from a qallunaat on music teaching in the Canadian Arctic

Abstract

This article examines how three Inuit student teachers in the Nunavut Teacher Education Program invested their social and cultural capital during a music course for classroom teachers, which the author taught in the Canadian Arctic. She describes how, through the musical games they invented for use in Inuit classrooms, these students positioned themselves as agents of their own learning and as wielders of power in the context of emergent Inuit education. Three examples of their invented musical games are presented to illustrate these processes. The author concludes that in increasingly culturally diverse teaching contexts it is important to be conscious of our students' habitus – the embedded history, the unconscious set of ideas, beliefs and emotions that guide how we think, feel and act – in our decisions regarding content, goals and evaluations of achievement.

Keywords

habitus social cultural capital

References

Addo, A. (2001). Children's expressions of cultural knowledge. In C. Paechter , R. Edwards , R. Harrison , & P. Twining (Eds.), Learning space and identity – learning matters: Challenges of the information age (pp. 57–66). London: Paul Chapman Publishing .

Adu-Poku, S. (2005). African-centred art education: An alternative multicultural curriculum and pedagogy . Arts & Learning Research Journal, 21(1), 247–272 .

Battiste, M. (2004). Animating site of post-colonial education: Indigenous knowledge and the humanities . Plenary address at a meeting of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education, May, Winnipeg. Retrieved 31 October 2005 from www.usask.ca/education/people/battistem/csse_battiste.htm

Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature. New York: Columbia University Press .

Brody, H. (2000). The other side of Eden: Hunters, farmers, and the shaping of the world. New York: North Point Press .

Burnard, P. (2005). What matters in general music? In D. J. Elliott (Ed.), Praxial music education: Reflections and dialogue (pp. 267–280). New York: Oxford University Press .

Campbell, P. S. , Drummond, J. , Dunbar-Hall, P. , Howard, K. , Schippers, H. , & Wiggins, T. (2005). (Eds.) Cultural diversity in music education: Directions and challenges for the 21st century. Brisbane: Australian Academic Press .

Elliott, D. J. (1995). Music matters: A new philosophy of education. New York: Oxford University Press .

Joyce, M. (2005, April). Tarnirmut Inngiqujauguma – I'm gonna sing when the spirit says sing! Creative tensions for music education in nunavut . Research paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal.

10.

Kanonhsonni/Hill, J. C. , & Stairs, A. H. (2002). Indigenous ways of knowing, thinking, and doing . McGill Journal of Education, 37(3), 281–286 .

11.

Lee, H. (2005). A socio-cultural-historical analysis of six Korean students' experiences in L2 learning contexts: Learner agency and symbolic power. Doctoral dissertation, McGill University.

12.

McConaghy, C. (2000). Rethinking indigenous education, culturalism, colonialism and the politics of knowing. Brisbane: Post Pressed .

13.

Maguire, M. (1994). Cultural stances informing storytelling among bilingual children in Québec . Comparative Education Review, 38(1), 115–145 .

14.

Mans, M. (2000). Using Namibian music/dance traditions as a basis for reforming arts education in Namibia . International Journal of Education & the Arts, 1(3). Retrieved 25 July 2006 from www.ijea.asu.edu

15.

Mauss, A. L. (1975). Social problems as social movement. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott .

16.

Nunavut Department of Education, Teaching & Learning Centre (2004). Catalogue/goals. Retrieved 20 November 2005 from www.gov.nu.ca/education/tlccatalogue/pages/goals

17.

Nunavut Department of Education (2005). Mission statement. Retrieved 20 November 2005 from www.gov.nu.ca/education/eng

18.

Orr, J. , San Salom/Paul, J. J. , & Kelusilew/Paul, S. (2002). Decolonizing Mi'Kmaw education through cultural practical knowledge . McGill Journal of Education, 37(3), 331–353 .

19.

Pelly, D. F. (2001). Sacred hunt: A portrait of the relationship between seals and Inuit. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press .

20.

Quissa, T. (1988). ‘Come to our place since you got a seal.’ In P. Petrone (Ed.), Northern voices: Inuit writing in English (p. 253-253). Toronto: University of Toronto Press .

21.

Russell, J. (2004). Essay review of S. Leong (Ed.), Musicianship in the 21st century: Issues, trends & possibilities . International Journal of Education and the Arts, 5(3). Retrieved 25 July 2006 from Ijea.asu.edu

22.

Russell, J. (2006). What's to be done with the fox? Inuit teachers inventing musical games for Inuit classrooms . Curriculum Inquiry, 36(1), 15–33 .

23.

Tompkins, J. (1988). Teaching in a cold and windy place: Change in an Inuit school. Toronto: University of Toronto Press .

24.

Tuhiwai-Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books .

25.

Wolcott, H. F. (1992). Posturing in ethnographic inquiry. In M. D. LeCompte , W. L. Millroy , & J. Preissle (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research in education(pp. 3–52). San Diego, CA: Academic Press .