Brooke Madden's research has the potential to shift how new and future teachers understand and integrate Canada's history and Indigenous knowledge into their teaching.
Toronto, September 27, 2018 - The EdCan Network is pleased to honour Dr. Brooke Madden - Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Education - as the Ph.D.-level category recipient of the 2018 Pat Clifford Award for Early Career Research in Education. This prestigious award recognizes Dr. Madden's exceptional leadership in designing pre-service teacher training that challenges students to consider how race, ancestry, gender and geography - among other identity-based factors - influence Indigenous -settler relations and engagement in truth and reconciliation education.
As a former classroom science teacher in Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay, Dr. Madden realized how the colonialist perspective of her teacher training lacked relevance to the learning contexts of Anishinaabe and urban Indigenous students who, in some cases, were highly connected to their First Nations culture, Traditional Knowledge and land-based practices. This experience, coupled with commitment to honour her Indigenous and settler ancestries in ways that acknowledge privilege and resist cultural appropriation, fuelled her passion to rethink, reform and decolonize initial teacher education and university course design. As an emergent scholar and member of the University of Alberta's Aboriginal Teacher Education Program Research Collective, Dr. Madden has mobilized research nationally on the importance of understanding and challenging the underlying theories and assumptions of reconciliation- including its complex histories, initiatives, partnerships, goals, policies and critiques - for educators to effectively pursue the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
The Pat Clifford Award Selection Committee praised Dr. Madden's highly creative approach to mentoring emerging scholars and teachers, especially her use of "walking interviews" (walking with early-career teachers in a location that best represented their passion for teaching and for Indigenous education).
"Almost all teachers led me to places outside of school, places that are typically considered nature.' It sparked insightful conversations about their challenges, sources of inspiration and goals for furthering their practice - all while underscoring Indigenous Knowledge as inseparable from land and spirituality," explains Dr. Madden.
In her article, "Tracing spectres of whiteness: discourse and the construction of teaching subjects in urban Aboriginal education," Dr. Madden boldly questions the absence of discussions on race within Indigenous education. She demonstrates how whiteness, Eurocentrism and patriarchy shape how teachers engage with Indigenous peoples and learning resources. Building awareness on these influences impacts teachers' professional identity as they work towards respectful engagement during this unprecedented era of critical questioning, collaboration and capacity building in Indigenous education.
"Brooke's research makes critical contributions to Indigenous education, teacher education and decolonizing education," says Dr. Heather Kanuka, Full Professor at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Education and Chair of the Pat Clifford Award Selection Committee. "We felt that her work has the potential to shift our current approach to pre-service teacher training, which is vital to advancing progress on truth and reconciliation."
Learn more about Brooke Madden's Research: www.edcan.ca
