Aboriginal Worldview Analysis

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When I decided to move up to Thunder Bay from Ottawa in order to earn my teaching degree here at Lakehead, it never occurred to me that I would get to learn about Aboriginal Canadian culture and how to incorporate that culture into my classroom. As I have decided to remain and attempt to find a job in Northern Ontario, I now recognize the importance of my understanding Aboriginal culture. With the likelihood of having both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in my classroom, helping to provide them all with an understanding of the key concepts behind Aboriginal life, Aboriginal worldview, Aboriginal identity, Aboriginal learning, and cultural violence, will be beneficial for them as citizens of this shared multicultural society. These significant …show more content…
Walker’s article “Decolonizing Conflict Resolution”(2004), she describes the significant differences between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal worldviews. She references definitions that claim, in basic terms, that where Western worldview’s ideas of reality are managed by examining everything in parts, Aboriginal worldviews manages their ideas of reality all-inclusively. Western worldview sees handling human relations as a hierarchal system whereas Aboriginal worldviews believe that human relations should be handled with collective control. Western worldviews find humans to be the greater possessors of this earth and may treat it as such. Contrarily, Aboriginal worldview finds a profound connection with the earth and nature in which they are nature’s …show more content…
Identity is presented as the subject positions, which are made available and mobilized in specific historical context.” (p. 321). Aboriginal identity is not simply a blended product of all of one’s personal details. It is a title that encompasses and highlights each culture and identifying feature that a person holds as it pertains to the situation that person is in. Frierdes (2008) exemplifies how Aboriginal people can use different parts of their identities at different times, “For example, when Aboriginal people struggle for access to resources, they present their identity differently than they would in a non-competitive situation because they have learned to use different identities in different situations.” (p.

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