Using Multiculturalism as a "New Way of Seeing the World": Ontario Aboriginal Educational Policy According to Foucault

Abstract

By considering the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Policy Framework (2007) from a Foucauldian perspective, the paper presents a policy discourse of knowledge, power, and identity from a multicultural education framework.  Through Foucauldian theoretical perspectives, the paper creates alternate possibilities in confronting the ways to understand public educational policy – considered the purpose of multicultural education. This paper invites teachers, administrators, district leaders, and policy makers to consider how educational policy in one Canadian province strategically situates Aboriginal peoples in a historical context, exercises Foucauldian notions of power and care and potentially endorses the subjectification of Aboriginal peoples through recommendations of self-identification practices.