NOTE: Brock University announced the creation of its Indigenous Research Grant in 2021. This is one in a series of articles profiling the research of the 2025 recipients of this yearly internal award. Read more on the series on The Brock News.
Sarah Hein (BSc '23) has fond memories of attending an Indigenous elementary day school as a child in the Kawartha Lakes region.
"We learned about the land and traditions, and we studied interesting and important topics such as native plants and wildlife; topics I feel every person should have knowledge about," says the Brock Biological Sciences master's student.
The First Nations student found herself in the mainstream system at the age of eight after her Indigenous school shut down, an experience she says jolted her.
"At the native school, we had outdoor time with a lot of hands-on learning," says Hein. "But at the public school, it was sitting at a desk, listening and working on assignments, so it was less interactive, which for a kid who is eight years old seemed really challenging."
It was Hein's passion for preserving Indigenous education that led her to pursue a role as an Indigenous research assistant on a project examining government support for Indigenous and non-indigenous schools.
While education falls under the jurisdiction of provincial governments, the Canadian government administers Indigenous education through the current system of support in First Nations communities. Historically, this happened through the residential school system.
Leading the project, "How are Ontario Indigenous Schools Funded by the Federal Government?" is Professor of Educational Studies Xiaobin Li.
He and Hein are combing through documents and records on federal government financing for Indigenous elementary and secondary schools in Ontario and comparing that information with provincial funding for non-Indigenous schools.
Li had been studying various aspects of governmental education financing for three decades. Over the years, he has noticed some concerning trends.
"There's a gap between the learning outcomes of Indigenous students and mainstream students, with Indigenous students lagging behind," says Li, adding that these discrepancies include lagging performance in class, lower high school graduation rates and lower post-secondary education attendance rates for Indigenous students.
Li says there has been less money for Indigenous education in the past, a fact acknowledged by many scholars.
"Since 2016, however, there is a claim that funding for Indigenous schools provided by the federal government is similar to what the provincial government provides non-Indigenous schools," he says.
Comparing of federal funding of Indigenous schools with provincial funding of non-Indigenous schools will enable the researchers to determine whether a "funding gap" exists between the two systems, Li says.
But there are a number of challenges they will need to overcome first.
In the past, Li says he has noticed federal records tend to be missing data from Indigenous communities and schools that can generally be found about non-Indigenous schools in provincial records.
One important piece of missing information is "economies of scale," says Li, referring to the concept that the cost per person reduces when there are a greater number of people being served in a system. This can make Indigenous education more expensive to fund.
Despite the challenges of conducting their research, Li says understanding these issues is important for ensuring equity in learning opportunities and outcomes.
For Hein, access to early hands-on environmental education inspired her master's research, which focuses on reconstructing past climate conditions using jack pine tree ring records from the Northwest Territories.
"Funding Indigenous schools allows opportunities that provide and encourages a safe learning environment while including traditional knowledge," she says.
