Browsing by Author "Griffith Brice, Melanie"

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Open Access
Ē-pī-wīcihtāsowin ahpō ē-pī-wīchisowin: non-indigenous learners in Indigenous language-learning spaces
(Taylor and Francis Group (Routledge), 2024-01-27) Daniels, Belinda; Ratt, Tammy; Custer, Andrea; Sterzuk, Andrea; Griffith Brice, Melanie; Fayant, Russell
While the 2019 implementation of Bill C-91 An Act respecting Indigenous languages is still unfolding and the impact it will have remains to be seen (Bliss et al., 2020; Fontaine et al. & 2019), there is much to be hopeful about for the future of creating new speakers of Indigenous languages in the territory colonially known as Canada. For example, the most recent Canadian census indicates that the number of Indigenous language speakers who learned their language as a second language continues to rise. In 2021, 27.7% of Indigenous language speakers learned it as their second language; this share increased from 24.8% in 2016 (Statistics Canada, 2023). Yet, along with these developments, come some ethical considerations. Are Indigenous languages in Canada languages for everyone or are they languages that should be learned only by Indigenous peoples? And if we accept or encourage Indigenous language-learning by non-Indigenous Canadians, are there parameters that might need to be implemented? At first, these questions might seem strange to anyone who has ever learned another language or worked in language education. In many present-day societies, learning of other languages can be seen as a way to improve social cohesion (Lo Bianco, 2009). Indeed, Canada has heavily invested in English and French second language education programs as a way to improve tensions between English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians (Hayday, 2005). Yet, we begin this paper from the position that there are contextual differences and considerations between learning an Indigenous language as a member of an Indigenous nation or community and learning an Indigenous language as a non-Indigenous person.
Open Access
Wena ka tapaymish ekwa kakway ka dipayhtamun? (Who Claims You and What Do You Claim?)
(Canadian Scholars, 2024) Griffith Brice, Melanie; Fayant, Russel; Sterzuk, Andrea; Lewis, Patrick J
Open Access
"Who did I get to be?" Racialized and gendered discourses and the shaping of Indigenous girls' subjectivities in a northern Saskatchewan high school
(Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2023-03) ChiefCalf, April Dawn; Cappello, Michael; Griffith Brice, Melanie; Salm, Twyla; Gebhard, Amanda; Gannon, Susanne
This study explores how school discourses of race and gender have shaped the subjectivities of Indigenous girls in a provincial high school in Northern Saskatchewan. Feminist poststructural theory, race critical theories, and spatial theory have been used as theoretical frames to examine how Indigenous female students have taken up racialized and gendered discourses from their high school experiences. This study also examines the relationship between discourses of race and gender and the formation of identity constellations, theorizing that socially constructed identity categories do not operate separately in the constitution of student subjectivities. Specifically, this study focuses on former students of Churchill Community High School (CCHS), a provincial school in La Ronge, Saskatchewan with a large school population of Indigenous students. Interviews were conducted with fifteen former students who identify as both Indigenous and female and who attended CCHS between 2010 and 2016. Throughout the interviews, the participants discussed experiences with messages of race and gender that circulated in the school during their time at CCHS, reflecting upon how they had responded to those gendered and racialized school discourses. Combining the research methodologies of Foucauldian discourse analysis and feminist poststructural discourse analysis, I analyzed the interviews to further identify and explore discourses of race and gender in the participants’ discussions of their school experiences. I also examined the subject positions made available through those discourses and the ways in which the participants took up, negotiated, or resisted those discourses and subject positions. Lastly, the analysis of the interviews was tied into an examination of various texts that contained wider discourses of gender and race within the historical, social, and educational context of Northern Saskatchewan.