The Pennsylvania State University

The Graduate School

ICT AND STEM EDUCATION AT THE COLONIAL BORDER: A POSTCOLONIAL

COMPUTING PERSPECTIVE OF INDIGENOUS CULTURAL INTEGRATION INTO

ICT AND STEM OUTREACH IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

A Dissertation in

Information Sciences and Technology

by

Richard Canevez

© 2020 Richard Canevez

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

December 2020

ii The dissertation of Richard Canevez was reviewed and approved by the following:

Carleen Maitland Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee

Daniel Susser Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology and Philosophy

Lynette (Kvasny) Yarger Associate Professor of Information Sciences and Technology

Craig Campbell Assistant Teaching Professor of Education (Lifelong Learning and Adult Education)

Mary Beth Rosson Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Director of Graduate Programs

iii ABSTRACT

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have achieved a global reach, particularly in social groups within the ‘Global North,’ such as those within the province of

British Columbia (BC), Canada. It has produced the need for a computing workforce, and increasingly, diversity is becoming an integral aspect of that workforce.

Today, educational outreach programs with ICT components that are extending education to Indigenous communities in BC are charting a new direction in crossing the cultural barrier in education by tailoring their curricula to distinct Indigenous cultures, commonly within broader science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives. These efforts require examination, as they integrate Indigenous cultural material and guidance into what has been a largely Euro-Western-centric domain of education. Postcolonial computing theory provides a lens through which this integration can be investigated, connecting technological development and education disciplines within the parallel goals of cross-cultural, cross-colonial humanitarian development. This is a process that can be usefully illustrated by depicting how those undertaking it conceptualize its potentials and pitfalls, as well as what those depictions illustrate about ICT within broader STEM education.

To explore the challenges of this initiative, I used a case study focused on a nonformal, educational outreach organization from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver,

Geering Up. During the course a 2-month field study period gathering observations and interviews with Geering Up employees and members of a First Nations community working with

Geering Up (K’omoks First Nation), which in support from an analysis of documents from the organization, was used to identify key themes.

These themes include a Canadian work-force focus underlying Indigenous outreach, the immensity of commitment required to integrate Indigenous cultural material into a Western

iv STEM educational program’s curriculum, aspects of how identity and locality impact the process of developing curricula and lessons, and how resources shortcomings are particularly acute in

ICT education, as compared to broader STEM. Principally, the discussion of these themes highlights the importance of viewing integration as a process (as opposed to over-fixation on end- results in the form of educational artifacts). I also highlight the epistemological complexity of cultural integration by a Western outreach education program, how power circulates within a system that interacts with broader corporate and governmental alignments, ultimately leading to recommendations for scholars and community members working in the space of cross-cultural, cross-colonial technological design.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... viii

LIST OF TABLES ...... ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... x

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... xii

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

Integrating Culture and Education: From Reconciliation to Reality ...... 2 Topic Statement: A Postcolonial Computing Lens on Designing Cultural Integration ... 3 Definition of Terms ...... 5 The Purpose of the Study and Research Objectives ...... 7 Significance of the Study ...... 8 Organization of the Dissertation ...... 10

Chapter 2 Background Scholarship...... 12

Foundations of Cultural Integration in STEM ...... 12 Building STEM Diversity ...... 12 STEM Education at the Colonial Border ...... 15 Models of Indigenous STEM Education ...... 16 Indigenization Setting the Standard of Cultural Integration in Education ...... 19 Cultural Integration and Educational Models ...... 23 Ethnocomputing and Postcolonial Computing: Indigenous Cultural Integration and Computing Education ...... 26 Ethnocomputing as Cultural Integration into Computing Education ...... 27 Broadening Cultural Integration through a Postcolonial Computing Perspective ... 30 Summary of Research Objectives ...... 38

Chapter 3 Methodology ...... 39

Relationship Building and Background of Key Entities ...... 40 Relationship and Background of Geering Up ...... 40 Relationship and Background of K’omoks First Nation ...... 42 Geo-Political Context of Geering Up and K’omoks First Nation ...... 43 Evaluative Case Study as Overarching Framework: Structure and Rationale ...... 46 Grounded Theory Analysis Options and Rationale ...... 49 Integrating Case Study and Grounded Theory Methodology ...... 53 Data Collection ...... 55 Semi-Structured Interviews ...... 56 Geering Up Outreach Educators and Administrators ...... 57 K’omoks First Nation ...... 59 Additional Interviews ...... 60 Observation of Geering Up Practices ...... 62

vi Documents and Organizational Statements ...... 63 Data Analysis ...... 65 Semi-Structured Interviews ...... 65 Observations of Practice ...... 66 Document Analysis ...... 66 Application of the Straussian Grounded Theory Coding Process ...... 67 Researcher Positionality ...... 70 Acknowledging and Mitigating Limitations on Cultural Know-How ...... 71

Chapter 4 Report of Findings from STEM Educational Outreach Case Study ...... 72

Grounded Theory Coding Results as Structuring the Findings ...... 72 Context and Foundations of Geering Up Organization ...... 75 The Geo-Political Context of Geering Up: British Columbia ...... 75 Motivations and Valuations of Indigenous Program Customization ...... 76 The Canadian Workforce: Access and Underrepresentation ...... 77 Reconciliation and Colonization as Motivations ...... 79 Cultural Integration of STEM: A Process View ...... 82 Navigating and Crossing Cultural Distance ...... 88 Cultural Distance between Geering Up and Communities ...... 88 Cultural Distance between Western and Indigenous STEM ...... 94 Extent of Involvement in Cultural Integration ...... 97 The Primacy of Relationships ...... 100 Engaging Identity ...... 106 The Value of Exposure ...... 110 Engaging Place and Locality ...... 112 The Current State of Cultural Integration of ICT Education ...... 114 ICT Resources and the Impact on Community-Defined ICT Education...... 115 Imagining the Future of ICT Education ...... 119 The Difficulty of Conceptualizing Culturally Integrated ICT Education ...... 119 ICTs and Cultural Values ...... 123 Imagining and Highlighting Paths of Culturally Integrating ICT Education ... 124

Chapter 5 Introduction to Discussion Chapters ...... 128

Chapter 6 A Postcolonial Computing View of Designing Cultural Integration ...... 129

Generative Culture and the Impact on Cultural Integration by a Western Program ...... 129 The Alignment of ICT and STEM Education with Industrialization and the Workforce ...... 132 Circulation of Power and Potential for Indigenous ICTs ...... 134

Chapter 7 Extending Postcolonial Computing Theory ...... 139

Incorporating Resiliency into Design and Development ...... 140 Politicizing as a Design Formulation ...... 144 Computing’s Knowledge Enterprise and Implications for Postcolonial Computing ...... 150

Chapter 8 Concluding Remarks and Future Directions ...... 157

vii Evaluation of Research Quality ...... 160 Credibility ...... 160 Transferability ...... 161 Dependability ...... 165 Conformability ...... 166 Beneficence ...... 167 Limitations of the Research ...... 170 Reflexive Limitations ...... 170 Methodological Limitations ...... 171 Limitations on Theoretical Findings ...... 173 Theoretical Fit of Organization ...... 173 Limitations Stemming from Sampling ...... 174 Tensions in Transferability ...... 175 Personal Relationship to Geering Up Organization ...... 176 Future Directions ...... 177 Deeper Exploration of Cultural Integration, Indigenization with Indigenous Communities ...... 177 Longitudinal Effects Outside the Scope of Study ...... 177 Offering an Autoethnographic Perspective ...... 178 Final Reflections on Research and Learning ...... 181

Appendix A Interview Instruments ...... 183

Geering Up Staff Interview Instruments ...... 183 Geering Up Outreach Director Instrument ...... 185 Geering Up Follow-Up Instrument ...... 188 K’omoks First Nation Interview Instruments ...... 189 External Community Member Instruments ...... 192

Appendix B Code Listings for each Project Stage ...... 196

Code-Listing for Document Analysis Initial Coding Phase ...... 196 Code-Listing for Documents Analysis Axial-Selective Coding Phase ...... 197 Code-Listing for Interview Initial Coding Phase ...... 198 Code-Listing for Interview Axial Coding Phase ...... 199 Code-Listing for Interview Selective Coding Phase ...... 200

References ...... 201

viii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3-1: The adapted case study-grounded theory methodology framework (adopted and adapted from Halaweh 2012)...... 54

Figure 3-2: Mapping between data sources and research objectives ...... 55

Figure 4-1: Excerpt from Actua's website describing Geering Up's commitment to Indigenous students...... 85

Figure 4-2: Binary Bracelet Example...... 118

Figure 10-1: Adapted Case Study-Grounded Theory design from Halaweh (2012) that incorporates reflexive, autoethnographic elements (represented in gray)...... 179

ix LIST OF TABLES

Table 3-1: Table of Geering Up Participants...... 59

Table 3-2: K'omoks First Nation Interview Participants (NOTE: some names non- anonymized at request of participant)...... 60

Table 3-3: Semi-structured Interview Participants...... 62

Table 3-4: Supporting Document Analysis ...... 65

Table 9-1: Transferable Nonformal Educational Outreach Organizaitons ...... 165

x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are a great many organizations and people that have, in their own ways, enabled through their support the completion of this dissertation. First of all, I would like to thank the

Interinstitutional Consortium for Indigenous Knowledge (ICIK) whose funding support through the Whiting Indigenous Student Research Award enabled this research.

I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the wonderful people at the University of British

Columbia, in particular the leaders and friends I met at Geering Up. This project would have quite literally been impossible without the support and sarcastic teasing of Ms. Soundous Ettayebi, and the camaraderie and energy of Mr. James Shaw.

I likewise owe a great deal to the K’omoks First Nation community for helping me with my research, in particular Ms. Charlene Everson and Elder Mary Everson, without whom this project would have been all but impossible. Opening their doors to a mysterious stranger with a notepad such as myself can be a scary prospect (especially considering the harm scholars such as myself have caused communities in the past), so I am in awe of their courage in allowing me into their homes and their hearts.

To my family, who instilled in me a tenacity that defines my being, and is the essential component of any completed dissertation (which, to be honest, is much more important than overall intelligence, of which I am merely average). Perhaps it is result of growing up with three other siblings in a tiny home that I learned to be dogged in my pursuit of my goals, perhaps it is the social pressure of trying to keep up with three admittedly higher performing siblings (I was and always will be the runt of the litter), but regardless the reason, I owe a great deal to the environment that produced me.

To my advisor Dr. Carleen Maitland, whose guidance shaped me from an energetic ball of desire for meaning into a scholar ready for the next step. Without the kindness, lucidity, and

xi occasional kick-in-the-pants, I highly doubt that I would be in a state to even consider becoming a doctor. Although we may not always see eye-to-eye, I have come to appreciate the years of experience you bring, and I always leave our conversations ahead of where I was before.

Finally, to my wonderful partner Sam, whose unwavering support and patience throughout these last few years has served as the bedrock of my focus. Completing a Ph.D. is not an easy task, and I can only imagine how difficult it is for a partner of one attempting to complete it: late nights, coffee fueled writing binges, panicked emails at three in the morning to conference organizing committees, all while getting paid so little that you would drink to ease the pain, if only you could afford it. During the course of my study at Penn State, we purchased a house and planned a wedding, both of which tested the bounds of our personal patience with each other on top of the rigors of a doctoral program. The fact that I am not, as of this writing, divorced is testament to her love and commitment.

Lastly, I would be remiss to not acknowledge our dog Maya, who has been a steady presence throughout my time in graduate school. Maya was a constant reminder that no matter what the results of my professional aspirations are, whether they turn to gold or ash in my hands, that she will always look at me the same way: as a principle source of snacks. So thank you

Maya, for always reminding me what in life truly matters, no matter what.

xii LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I recognize that the research for this study took place on the traditional, unceded territories of the Musqueam Indian Band and K’omoks First Nation.

I also recognize that present-day Pennsylvania, where Pennsylvania State University and its satellite campuses are situated, has been the traditional territory of several Native American peoples, including the Chippewas, Leni-Lenape (Delaware), Erie, Honniasonts, The Iroquois confederacy (The Mohawk, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras), Mahicans,

Mississaugas, Odawas, Saludas, Saponis (ultimately merged with the Cayuga), Shawnees,

Susquehannas, Tutelos, Wenrohrenens, and Wyandots (Alchin, 2017; Pennsylvania Historical &

Museum Commission, 2015). I therefore acknowledge that this research and my broader study took place at an institution that is spread today on these traditional territories.

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

In 2015, The “Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established by the Canadian

Government completed its 7-year investigation into the nation’s residential school system, mandated for the nation’s Indigenous students during that time. Active throughout the 19th and

20th centuries, the commission detailed over a century’s worth of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of Christian missionaries, teachers, and church officials (The Truth and

Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015a). The policies and practices surrounding residential schooling have been likened to a genocide (MacDonald & Hudson, 2012), working to extinguish

Indigenous cultural practices through the educational system.

Seeking to transcend this insidious history, The Final Summary of the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission of Canada was accompanied by a set of Calls-to-Action that lay out the foundations of a nation-wide initiative to “redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation” (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of

Canada, 2015b). Among other various social and cultural recommendations of redress, the commission also spoke directly to the reformulation of educational principles by recommending the creation and proper funding of “culturally appropriate curricula” for Aboriginal youth (The

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015b, p. 2). This is just one of several points in reconceptualizing education with Canada’s Indigenous peoples, but an identifiable one that represents a crucial connection to emerging approaches in education that attempt to address what

“culturally appropriate” constitutes in practice. Compared to the other educational recommendations (for example, “Improving educational attainment levels and success rates”), it is in this simple line that cultural integration between Indigenous outlooks and Western

2 perspectives are most strongly called for. This, as I will show, is also one of the most challenging, yet pressing, developments in education and justice.

Integrating Culture and Education: From Reconciliation to Reality

The integration of ‘culturally appropriate’ educational content generates a space where epistemological primacy is contested, even as educators, practitioners, and community members seek balance. Embracing the ideal of inclusion, scholars, educators and community leaders have integrated Indigenous culture into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and information and communication technology (ICT) lessons and curricula (for example Kafai,

Searle, Martinez, & Brayboy, 2014; Miller & Roehrig, 2018). At the same time, the place of

Indigenous knowledges in the academy and institutions of learning continue to be challenged, either directly through portrayals of indigenization as threats to “open inquiry” (Hamilton, 2018) or indirectly through bureaucratic machinations that hamstring its capacity to be transformative

(Hauser, Howlett, & Matthews, 2009). As Marie Battiste (2005) points out, Indigenous knowledge butts up against long-held notions of what constitutes a modern education and the institutional practices and strategies produced over years to protect those notions and maintain

“Eurocentric thought”. The emphasis on the exotification of Indigenous knowledges and ways-of- knowing situated these epistemological outlooks as diametrically opposed to ‘enlightenment’ era conceptions of science and education. The frames Indigenous knowledges as a relic of the past with little relevance to the modern era (Battiste, 2005).

This is particularly true for what stands to represent a high standard of cultural integration in ‘indigenization,’ which seeks to be a transformative process for the Western academy,

“including Indigenous knowledges, voices, critiques, scholars, students and materials” in service to Indigenous knowledges becoming an essential element of educational institutions (Indigenous

3 Advisory Circle, University of Regina, as quoted by Pete, 2016). With the thrust of Indigenous voice and vision at the helm, indigenization is the Indigenous-led challenge to those entrenched structures of Western education. In its various forms, it also represents a high standard that organizations conducting Indigenous cultural integration seek to meet.

Thus, Canada’s institutions of higher education are increasingly integrating Indigenous culture into educational practices, often within or beside broader indigenizing initiatives, including in the ICT and STEM disciplines. Integration efforts attempt to tailor content to distinct

Indigenous communities, and those communities’ particular cultural outlooks. These initiatives combine education about technology and science largely sourced from Western scientific and engineering contexts with Indigenous cultural practices, as provided through direct work with representatives from these nations. How cultural integration of an ICT and STEM curriculum occurs, and how different motivations and valuations are expressed in the process requires further exploration. Specifically, explorations might portray the different factors shaping the process of designing indigenized curriculum and lessons, including psychological and political factors, as well as factors associated with the organizations themselves. In this study, I focus on one such organization offering and seeking to grow a culturally integrated curriculum with First Nations communities in British Columbia (BC), Canada, through educational outreach. The analysis uses a postcolonial computing and broader postcolonial theory framing, through which these factors are tied to technological design, through the idea of ‘designing cultural integration.’

Topic Statement: A Postcolonial Computing Lens on Designing Cultural Integration

The ICT globalization process has produced an industry of technological and human development that crosses cultural and colonial borders, while generating technologies that straddle multiple worlds. Within this industry, scholars and technologists with a humanitarian

4 orientation have created the fields of information and communication technologies for development (ICTD/ICT4D) and human-computer interaction for development (HCID/HCI4D).

These fields bring together scholars, the aid industry, and tech firms, all with a techno-focused ideal of human and societal development, for better or worse (Toyama, 2015). Within these fields, postcolonial computing emerged as a theoretical orientation incorporating insights from the broader realm of postcolonial theory, coinciding with techno-development scholars’ explicit recognition of the ongoing impacts of colonization in techno-development work. This criticality was directed at problematizing the role, positionality, and methodologies employed by scholars and technologists in this space.

To contribute to this connection, I believe that we need to view technological development within a broader social, cultural, and political understanding of colonial relationships today. Education, especially as we design cultural integration, stands to illuminate many of the considerations that must be engaged in tech-design practices today. Cultural integration in education as an imperative that stipulates engagement of Indigenous ways-of- knowing and cultural outlook in educational processes, products, and structures has strong implications and motivations for both educational impacts and justice, since it speaks directly to this epistemological border-crossing. The design of culturally integrated education as a process that brings representatives from both Western and Indigenous communities in service to a shared goal of production hearkens to many of the shared considerations present in both education and technological development. It is also a politically loaded domain, potentially highlighting asymmetries and power differentials between nations that characterize Indigenous-Western1

1 Although there are certainly non-Western nations and societies with relationships to Indigenous communities, I am largely bound to the Western context given the geography and focus of my study.

5 relationships, and that functions in the background of cross-colonial development work. Lastly, by framing these two processes in separate domains as parallel initiatives, I also frame these as intrinsically connected: the education of today will produce the technological perspectives of tomorrow, whether those perspectives are held by participants from Indigenous communities, or technologists and builders from those Indigenous communities themselves.

Definition of Terms

Cultural integration here pertains to the integration of Indigenous cultural material and practices into otherwise Western educational curricula and lessons. In STEM disciplines, culturally integrated curricula and lessons use culturally-based resources to teach both Western and Indigenous STEM concepts (B. G. Miller & Roehrig, 2018). Developing and deploying such curricula and lessons requires certain actions and mindsets, which is the focus here.

This is in contrast to indigenization, which foregrounds Indigenous leadership and voice in these practices (cultural integration practices do not necessarily stipulate this). While indigenization has many definitions, one perspective, offered by the Indigenous Advisory Circle at the University of Regina, views indigenization as a transformative process for the academy to

“include Indigenous knowledges, voices, critiques, scholars, students and materials” in service to establishing Indigenous knowledges as an essential element of educational institutions (as cited in

Pete, 2016). Similarly, Michelle Pidgeon (2016) describes this as a “movement to center

Indigenous knowledges and ways-of-being within the academy.” These views, indigenization as a transformation of the academy and a movement, give voice to the breadth of the endeavor, as well as speaking to a higher standard of Indigenous place in the academy than just cultural integration.

As this research involves informal education outreach programs, it is also important to differentiate indigenization from program customization. In this study, the latter is defined as the

6 tailoring of a program to a particular community’s particular needs and interests. This can include a community’s request for particular topics of focus, for example on water in the local ecosystem, or more pragmatic considerations, such as adapting to available facilities. However, indigenization processes may serve as a finer-grained example of program customization manifest in taking the further step of incorporating Indigenous cultural material directly.

The Formal vs. Nonformal vs. Informal Education Distinction is essential for understanding the context of the study and scope of educational contributions, even though I argue throughout that aspects of the findings are of benefit to formal educational institutions.

Kleis, Lang, Mietus, & Tiapula (1973) (as cited by Etling, 1993) define nonformal education as

“any intentional and systemic educational enterprise (usually outside of traditional schooling) in which content is adapted to the unique needs of the students (or unique situations) in order to maximize learning and minimize other elements which often occupy formal school teachers.” By contrast, formal education here can be thought of as learning that takes place within the traditional educational institutions, e.g. public or private K-12 age schooling within recognized schooling facilities. Informal education, by comparison to both nonformal and formal education, is “lifelong learning” that engages lived experiences in their own environment, outside any organized educational structure or enterprise (Coombs, Prosser, & Ahmed, 1973). Nonformal education can therefore be situated at the center of a formal-informal educational gradient.

As will be described in further detail in the methods section below, the key educational organization in this study is Geering Up, a nonformal STEM educational outreach non-profit organization working through the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, BC. They maintain a small permanent staff, but their educators are composed almost entirely of UBC students commonly drawn from the school’s engineering and applied sciences departments.

Organizationally, they draw their intellectual leadership primarily from the Faculty of Applied

Sciences, where their primary faculty host resides. They are a network affiliate of Actua: a

7 Canadian STEM non-profit organization that manages a network of educational outreach organizations throughout Canada. Each of their network affiliates is associated with an institution of higher learning. Actua maintains representation of industry and higher learning on their board.

Indigenous Knowledge is knowledge that embraces a particular context of an Indigenous people, including what is observed and unobserved, and qualities of the geographic context

(Battiste, 2005), which she points out is a characterization of Indigenous knowledge that is

Eurocentric in its categorizations. Indigenous knowledge also crucially includes the teachings of elders passed on through generations (Battiste, 2005, p. 2). It is inherently evidence-based, built on long-term observations, relationships between phenomena, and temporal notions of phenomena, in coherence with its ‘across-generations’ quality (Pierotti, 2011). By this definition, each Indigenous community has its own notion of knowledge, built upon its own contexts and histories, and accounts for the natural phenomena at the heart of and surrounding a people’s existence.

Finally, development within this piece can refer to either technological development practices such as design, or to human and societal development overall. Admittedly, this distinction can be blurry in fields like ICTD and HCID, where human and technological development are commonly dealt with simultaneously (as in, a techno-focused approach to human and societal progress). I will try to specify which one(s) I refer to where necessary.

The Purpose of the Study and Research Objectives

The purpose of this study is to explore of the process of integrating Indigenous cultural outlooks into educational outreach with First Nations communities, using use an evaluative case study of a STEM educational outreach program in British Columbia, Canada. These attempts to integrate STEM education are part of a broader national imperative to re-shape the nation’s

8 educational institutions in light of its colonial histories, although what that means in practice is still being understood and learned today. The study has two primary research objectives, which compose a pair of research questions each:

1. Interpreting Challenges and Considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education: a. How does the outreach organization and its employees motivate Indigenous STEM outreach? b. What do outreach educators and administrators report as challenges and considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education? How about ICT education within STEM? 2. Applying and Enriching Postcolonial Computing Theory: a. What can postcolonial computing theory suggest about the identified themes of challenges and considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education? b. Based on an identification of themes from the first set of objectives, how can these reported challenges enrich our understanding of postcolonial computing theory?

Significance of the Study

This study contributes to scholarship in both theory and practice. First, the creation of

Indigenous-sourced technologies requires educational practices that connect to cultural foundations, wherein postcolonial computing’s focus on cross-cultural design and development steps mid-stream: design connects people and communities with technological outputs. This study extends the view of postcolonial computing backwards along this stream to the source of the contexts that define technological design processes, specifically education.

Second, and more particularly, postcolonial computing as a perspective stands to both be informed by and inform educational practices. Both cross-cultural technological development and educational development processes exist within a space where themes of power, social structure,

9 and positionality circulate. Furthermore, education is an implicit, embedded factor in cross- cultural co-design of technologies, and that implicitness can obscure the fact that sources of power at play in the educational elements of co-design can obscure the foundations underlying the features of the co-design process. Thus, a more explicit link to education is warranted, but is a connection that has not yet been fully leveraged within the ICTD and HCI4D communities.

Third, nonformal education is a unique angle of cultural integration that is likewise relatively underexplored, as more formal education and institutions of higher learning steal much of the academic spotlight. Therefore, this study identifies the unique potential nonformal education creates for cultural integration through its connectedness with individual communities, both in terms of relations and geographic connections, as well as its tradition of program customization.

This study also has implications for educational practices more broadly, especially as cultural integration and indigenization, particularly in STEM fields, transitions from being a niche endeavor to a nationalized humanitarian goal. As previously argued, cultural integration and indigenization at a larger scale, as is suggested by a nation-wide initiative, is still in need of exploration. Current approaches are commonly at relatively small scale, typically with a single community engagement. Across Canada, the current state of these initiatives differ, ranging from

“intense” in British Columbia to indifference in Quebec (Kabatay & Johnson, 2019), indicating the contrast currently between different context and scales. How institutions and scholars conceptualize and apply this initiative more broadly, across multiple communities and institutions, defines the quality of integration and indigenization as it ‘scales up.’ This study seeks to portray the scaling-up process, contributing to our understanding of integration practices in a novel way.

Lastly, this study has implications for educational practices with regards to particular disciplines. While British Columbia continues to expand STEM educational opportunities, there

10 are undeniably differences that exist between each of the disciplines that constitute STEM.

Exploration of the indigenization process, in addition to contributing to our understanding of cultural integration in STEM (which is as broadly still in need of exploration), stands to expose how different sub-disciplines of STEM cohere with integration attempts. This is particularly valuable for ICT education, the discipline of which forms a fundamental aspect of Canadian (and by extension British Columbia) and Western society today. Offering a finer grained analysis of

ICT within STEM offers a comparative shift in STEM perspective, potentially informing organizations of the need to view ICT and technology education as distinct in the development of integration and indigenization practices.

Organization of the Dissertation

I first present the background literature to the topic (Chapter 2), motivating the primary research objectives throughout. I first cover the societal and humanitarian motivations for increasing diversity in STEM- and ICT- based disciplines in Canada, and the connection to educational initiatives seeking to engage Indigenous culture. Then I discuss the extant scholarship on educational models and practices, seeking to motivate the exploration of cultural integration by an educational outreach organization. Next, I discuss the particulars of ICT education within this discourse, through the views of ethnocomputing and postcolonial computing theory. I wrap up the background literature section by revisiting the research objectives.

Next, I present the methodology I used in this study (Chapter 3). I begin this section by presenting the narrative of building up relationships with key organizations and communities, foregrounded insofar as this narrative contextualizes many of the decisions made with the study’s design. I then introduce and motivate the evaluative case study – grounded theory methodology.

Next, I describe the avenues of data collection, including semi-structured interview, observation,

11 and documentation. Then, I present the style of analysis used, and data handling and care procedures. I conclude this section with a positionality statement, and the protocols to acknowledge and mitigate my reflexive limitations relative to the people and cultural practices this research touches on (but does not seek to make claims about).

Then, I report the findings of the case study (Chapter 4). I lead this section with a description of the results of the qualitative coding phase. Then, I break the remaining section up into three sub-sections: a) depiction of the contextual foundations of the organization; b) depiction of themes that capture the process of indigenization, such as challenges, obstacles, and considerations particularly prominent in the perceptions of employees and community members; and c) depiction of a narrower set of themes that focus on ICT education within STEM as it is undertaken by the organization.

Following the findings, I present several chapters discussing these findings, with Chapter

5 serving as a brief introductory chapter to the concepts and ideas I will present. I first present what a postcolonial computing perspective on ‘designing cultural integration in education’ illustrates (Chapter 6). I then present extensions to postcolonial computing motivated by the findings and analysis (Chapter 7). Finally, I wrap up this dissertation with a concluding chapter

(Chapter 8) consisting of concluding remarks, evaluation of research, limitations, future work

(both that I intend to undertake and that I hope other scholars will explore further or continue), and final reflections.

12

Chapter 2

Background Scholarship

Foundations of Cultural Integration in STEM

Building STEM Diversity

Increasing awareness of the need to build diversity in ICT and STEM forms the motivational foundations of indigenization initiatives. The efforts to increase the access to and quality of ICT education across national and cultural borders are prefaced by ICT’s ongoing globalization. This education requires access to hardware, software, and telecommunications and internet services. A lack of telecommunications infrastructure in the remote and disparately populated regions where Native American and Canadian First Nations, Inuit, and Metis live indicates the ongoing multitude of challenges infrastructure projects encounter. In one example,

Native American communities in San Diego County attempted, through their tribal ISP, to enhance wireless broadband access using new TV whitespaces technology (Caneba & Maitland,

2019; Vigil-hayes, Duarte, & Belding, 2017; Vigil, Belding, & Rantanen, 2016).

Once digital divide barriers are overcome, studies demonstrate the positive role of ICTs in community empowerment and representation (Caneba & Maitland, 2017; Vigil & Belding,

2014; Vigil, Rantanen, & Belding, 2015), as well as how much of the current benefit is juxtaposed against a history of misrepresentation in both social and mass media (Caneba &

Maitland, 2017). Infrastructure development and social media use are indicative of increasing involvement of Indigenous groups with ICTs, suggesting a trend of ICT engagement that broadly tracks with ICT globalization.

13 Within this developing ecosystem at the intersection of culture and technology, ICT education fulfills an essential role: it forms the foundation of not just ICT use and the assumptions of technological design (e.g. presupposing infrastructure, negotiating the interfaces of existing social media) through the learning it imparts to students, as well as giving those students a greater opportunity in the future to define technological development as engineers, scholars, and builders. For groups that have historically been left outside the purview of technological development’s regions and cultural groups of emphasis, this ideally means a move towards the ideal of greater control of the design and development process. Greater control hopefully yields two results: a) technologies made in-line with a cultural outlook, and b) technological development spearheaded by designers and developers who embody that outlook.

This ideal, of course, requires necessary representation in technological disciplines to enable.

However, building meaningful diversity in ICT development is an ongoing challenge.

Concerns about the overall lack of diversity in the ICT development workforce have been linked to several notable missteps in recent years, e.g. Google’s facial recognition software in 2015 misidentified the faces of black people as coming from gorillas, in a horrifying example that many perceived as stemming from a lack of diversity on Google’s development teams, as well as evidence of a broader industry-level problem (W. Lee, 2015; The Associated Press, 2017).

Scholars have examined examples like this as evidence of ‘bias’ in these technologies, implying

(and empirically classifying) the conveyance of values through technologies (Bender &

Friedman, 2018; Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018; Friedman & Nissenbaum, 1996). Although it’s been over 20 years since Friedman & Nissenbaum's (1996) seminal 3-category taxonomy of bias (pre- existing, technical, and emergent), recent scholarship illustrates that bias still tasks the development of ICTs (Bender & Friedman, 2018; Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018).

Lack of diversity in technological development has informed initiatives at various levels of industry and scholarship, for instance the development of design frameworks that explicitly

14 engage diversity through the inclusion of cultural value systems in value-sensitive design

(Friedman, Kahn, & Borning, 2008). There is now a broad industry-level awareness of the potentially negative implications of lack of diversity in development and the biases that can be present in the technology as a result, speaking to a host of issues that industry struggles to navigate (Braga, 2017; The Associated Press, 2017).

This theme is similar in Canada, where Indigenous peoples (First Nations, Metis, and

Inuit) are underrepresented in ICT and STEM fields. Indigenous peoples remain both underrepresented and underpaid relative to their white and non-Indigenous peers in the Canadian tech industry (Vu, Lamb, & Zafar, 2019).Likewise they are negligibly represented in leadership positions in tech companies (Wong, 2019). The Canadian government has, in recent years, developed several initiatives to promote diversity in ICT and engineering environments, at both the youth (Government of Canada, 2019a) and adult (Government of Canada, 2019b) levels.

Professional STEM organizations are also taking steps to develop the diversity of their own fields

(Engineers Canada, 2019). At the same time, Indigenous communities themselves are working to promote and develop their own technological capacities in ICTs as a path to self-determination

(Gilpin, 2019).

The need for diversity is particularly acute for peoples that exist in a structurally disadvantaged position. Philosopher of technology Andrew Feenberg points out two premises: a) the forms and functions of technologies like ICT (as defined by the problem(s) that technology is/are designed to address) are reflections of the ideologies of certain groups, defined by Feenberg as the “technical code”; and b) technologies exert controls and dominance over people by sacrificing those values that conflict “with its own reproduction and perpetuation of technical traditions.” He further notes, if we accept these premises, then, without the rights and powers to be directly involved in and exert some form control over technological design, these technologies simply perpetuate elite power structures, with perverse consequences for groups who experience

15 these technologies (either directly as agents or objects, or indirectly via exposure to their effects) but are sharply restricted from engaging in their design (Feenberg, 2005). What is needed to prevent this eventuality is the “democratization of technology,” i.e. the inclusion of values once excluded from the design process back into the development and deployment of these technologies (Feenberg, 2005)2.

STEM Education at the Colonial Border

Achieving the goal of racial and cultural diversity in ICT development requires a focus on the practices seeking to achieve these ends. This means an engagement of diversity in pedagogy and content, where an over-fixation on the need for diversity can obscure the particulars of this process (Bang, Marin, Faber, & Suzukovich, 2013; Bang & Medin, 2010).

Paralleling the observed difficulties in the workforce, STEM education in Western cultural contexts faces its own challenges in diversity. In the United States for example, the advanced placement (AP) exam in computer science has the worst gender diversity across all courses, in addition to poor racial diversity, where students of color comprise only 13% of CS test takers, despite the fact that people of color compose 65% of the entire US population (Code.org,

2019). Native Americans, in particular, represent on average, only .3% of awarded science and engineering doctorate degrees while comprising 1.2% of the US population (Stevens, 2016).

Similar themes are present for Indigenous peoples in Canada, where Indigenous students’ lack of success within STEM topics contributed to the lack of representation at the professional levels of STEM fields (Boyd & Tian, 2017; Hogue, 2016). A crucial factor in the seeming

2 A compelling example presented by Feenberg is air pollution standards, where the negative effects of air pollution were not directly felt by those in higher power positions, but it was only when these people were held accountable that changes were made to limit damage, driven by the collective action of those who are, individually, in lower power positions.

16 disproportionate challenges that face Indigenous students is being forced to learn within a

Western educational model (Bang & Medin, 2010).

For educational initiatives that seek to promote diversity in STEM fields which are already subject to numerous social and demographic determinants of success (Kvasny, Trauth, &

Morgan, 2009; Trauth, Cain, Joshi, Kvasny, & Booth, 2015), complexity is magnified when that educational engagement necessitates reaching across cultural and/or geo-political divides. In particular, complexity increases when the educational program’s origins and educators come from differing cultural contexts than their students.

The core of this complexity is in reconciling the differing cultural aspects of education: educational practices are an expression of a certain cultural perspective, both in terms of the content of that education (what is taught) (Battiste, 2005; Kawagley & Barnhardt, 1998) and the educational practices involved (how it is taught) (B. G. Miller, Doering, Roehrig, & Shimek,

2012). With regards to content, what is considered worthy of inclusion in curriculum is a reflection of that culture’s values, values which do not always translate across cultural and geo- political divides. Notions of the universality of Western values such as the emphasis on material culture and its technological artifacts both motivated and equipped the civilizing mission (Adas,

2015). Societal an development work has likewise inherited these notions, as Andrade &

Urquhart (2012) pointed out that ICTD rests upon assumptions of a modernist rationality, which privileges a conception of material progress and its technological artifacts over a people’s rights to their own social, cultural, and political liberties.

Models of Indigenous STEM Education

Indigenous education in Canada today continues to grapple with the challenges of navigating culture within educational spaces, a colonial-border crossing undertaken with

17 increasing regularity by Western institutions today. Barnhardt & Kawagley (1998) provide a temporal account of the relationship between the Western education system and Indigenous

Knowledge that progresses from assimilation to increased representation of Indigenous ideas in education, ultimately leading towards a “systemic integration” that fosters connectivity and complementarity between Western and Indigenous ways-of-knowing. Viewed through this progression, greater integration within education systems that supports this complementarity represents a marked transition from the assimilationist relationship exhibited in more explicitly colonialist policies. While Barnhardt & Kawagley were portending this development in the late

1990s through their efforts in rural Alaska education, we are increasingly seeing the attempts to embrace systemic integration in educational practices in Canada.

Indigenous ways-of-knowing, as distinct from Western ways, form the foundations of distinct educational models and approaches that stand apart from traditional Western views of learning. Opaskwayak Cree scholar Shawn Wilson, in his argument for the development of an

Indigenous research paradigm, distinguishes Indigenous Knowledge from Western knowledge as being crucially and principally relational. Knowledge is about comprehending a phenomenon’s relationship to all creation, from an Indigenous world-view (Wilson, 2001). Tewa scholar

Gregory Cajete focuses these relations within a notion of Native Science to a natural locale, as “a lived and creative relationship with the natural world … [an] intimate and creative participation

[which] heightens awareness of the subtle qualities of a place” (2000, p. 20, as quoted in Johnson

& Murton, 2007). Native science, or Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) (Rinkevich,

Greenwood, & Leonetti, 2011), is both place-based and generational, comprising of the passed- down local knowledge of a people’s territory and its resources (Battiste, 2005). Indigenous ways- of-knowing are therefore relational, generational, and ecologically situated to a particular context, namely the location of life of a given people.

18 Indigenous models of learning are defined by the educational processes encapsulating these epistemological views, building upon the relational, generational, ecologically localized nature of TEK and Native Science. Land-based learning as a model of education seeks to locate learning to the traditional place of their people (Restoule, Gruner, & Metatawabin, 2013), speaking to the foundation of ecological connection, and has been connected to the reclaiming of indigenous power and sovereignty (Haig-Brown & Dannenmann, 2002; Rollo, 2018; Simpson,

2014; Wildcat, McDonald, Irlbacher-Fox, & Coulthard, 2014), its contribution to Indigenous resiliency (Thomas, Mitchell, & Arseneau, 2016), and its benefits to learning outcomes (Adams,

Miller, Saul, & Pegg, 2014; Riggs, 2004).

An example of Indigenous learning model that speaks directly to foundations of tradition and generational connection is storytelling and ceremony, an approach to learning that connects history and truth to the pre-contact era for Indigenous communities (Armstrong, 2013). In these practices, stories are much more than simple narratives, carrying with them the capacity construct and re-construct meaning in a collective way that captures the social truth of a people (Hare,

2012; Iseke & BMJK, 2011). Ceremony, as a “pedagogical location” for the application of storytelling as a learning practice (Iseke & BMJK, 2011, p. 258), socializes the learning process into a shared, performative experience. It also has a technological appeal through the development of digital storytelling practices that foreground contemporary community social and political priorities as part of the learning process through digital mediums (Iseke & Moore, 2011).

The tacit, lived nature of Indigenous Knowledge that is both crucially connected to a place (Battiste, 2005) and therefore resistant to recording and storage (Bates, 2009) highlights an experiential model of learning, where students are live the content of learning, which can complement classroom based learning and written knowledge, in order to re-establish and maintain a connection to the lived nature of Indigenous Knowledge. This learning therefore build connection not just to the concepts of science, but also a connection to the ecology of their

19 community and existence within a global framework (O’Connor, 2009). Closely related is observation and imitation learning, where students observe an adult practitioner of a craft, and learn through imitating these creative processes (MacEachren, 2018). It also serves to build generational connection through the exposure of students to their elders over a skilled craft, as well as promoting awareness of a people’s ecological integration, for example in bush-craft

(Ohmagari & Berkes, 1997).

Crucially, all of these models of learning are conceptualized in relation to each of these foundations (as well as in many cases considered in tandem with each other), manifesting in theories of learning the relational nature of Indigenous ways-of-knowing. Despite their ostensible cultural connection to Indigenous learners and the benefits to those learners from effective application, they are not readily and easily adapted by Western educational structures due to the challenge to the ‘status quo’ of education that they represent (Bates, 2009; Battiste, 2005;

Kawagley & Barnhardt, 1998). Western educational systems today instead tend to opt for integration of Indigenous cultural material into Westernized conceptions of educational models.

Indigenization Setting the Standard of Cultural Integration in Education

It is into this stage of relationship between Indigenous Knowledge and Western educational structures that that the idea of indigenizing education today steps, including and

STEM education. A definition of this is offered by the Indigenous Advisory Circle at the

University of Regina, as quoted by Pete (2016):

"the transformation of the existing academy by including Indigenous knowledges, voices, critiques, scholars, students and materials as well as the establishment of physical and epistemic spaces that facilitate the ethical stewardship of a plurality of Indigenous knowledges and practices so thoroughly as to constitute an essential element of the university.”

20 Michelle Pidgeon (2016) expands on the transformative view of the academy as a

“movement centering Indigenous Knowledges and ways of being within the academy,” supporting Indigenous empowerment and success. An illustrative articulation of indigenization can be seen in the development of “two-eyed seeing,” where epistemological perspectives from

Western and Indigenous traditions are integrated to provide a novel and dynamic view of the various phenomena, including education, psychology, and the sciences (Hall et al., 2015; Hatcher,

Bartlett, Marshall, & Marshall, 2009; Iwama, Marshall, Marshall, & Bartlett, 2009).

The notion of indigenization is not altogether new, with discussions of similar ideas occurring as far back as 1928 in the Meriam Report, but those practices were not systematically implemented (Meriam et al., 1928; B. G. Miller & Roehrig, 2018). Therefore, although the idea of indigenization is itself relatively old, its systemic deployment is relatively new. Indigenization today continues to gather steam as an alternative to monocultural educational practices, primarily in nations that have both notable colonial histories and substantial Indigenous or aboriginal populations, such as Canada.

Based on interviews with Indigenous academics and allies, Gaudry & Lorenz (2018) describe indigenization along a gradient, from the simplest Indigenous inclusion to reconciliation indigenization and ultimately the more extensive decolonial indigenization. Reconciliation indigenization, as the middle stage, describes placing Western and Indigenous Knowledges on common ground and creating a space to explore the nature of knowledge in a more balanced way, for example through the hiring of Indigenous advisors to help articulate the vision of indigenization. By contrast, decolonial indigenization takes the next step and seeks to challenge the monocultural establishment of education and transform the academy through a new power dynamic, expressed through seismic structural shifts such as a “dual university” structure (p.

223). It is a vision that is largely outside the purview of educational administrators due to its

21 radical nature (although it is also considered by many Indigenous scholars to be the necessary structure to truly meeting Indigenous educational needs).

Indigenization programs implemented today within the Western academy that seek to transform the epistemological power relations in the academy speak most strongly to the middle of this spectrum in reconciliation indigenization. Today, reconciliation indigenization sets the standard of Western institution’s attempts to integrate Indigenous views education, not the least of which is because of its ostensible orientation towards a more just balance of epistemological power in the Western academy. The development of indigenization programs are just as much about their grounding in a broader campaign for Indigenous rights and self-governance as they are in educational outcomes (Richardson & Blanchet-Cohen, 2000). The indigenization perspective yields a view of that extends beyond just performance evaluations, itself a concept that has been considered inherently unjust to those not brought up in a Western cultural context

(Rollo, 2018).

The justice-oriented side of Indigenization is also motivated by a challenge to the history of colonial practices in education and the academy (Battiste, 2005; Deloria, 1969; The Truth and

Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015a; Wilson, 2003), through the infusion of Indigenous worldviews into Western academic practices, engaging administration, content, practice, and

Indigenous inclusion simultaneously (Ragoonaden & Mueller, 2017). Within this historical context, indigenization can represent a form of resistance against hegemonic forces. Examples include Armstrong's (2013) exploration of including storytelling in curriculum as a pedagogical practice and citing its power to counter the hegemonic stories that comprise the Western academy

(these hegemonic stories referred to as simply “history”), and Barnhardt & Kawagley's (1998) development of the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative to re-balance Indigenous and Western knowledges within a cohesive educational program.

22 The theoretical basis for re-balancing Western and Indigenous ways-of-knowing in curriculum development comes through the concept of “two-eyed seeing” or a “two-world” approach to curriculum and teaching that strives to meld educational practices and content across the cultural divide. This approach to curriculum indigenization speaks to an ideal practice, avoiding “knowledge domination and assimilation by recognizing the best of both worlds”

(Hatcher et al., 2009). At Cape Breton University (Canada) they referenced encapsulating a balanced, entwined perspective to scientific education as “integrative science” (C. Bartlett,

Marshall, & Marshall, 2012; Hatcher et al., 2009). Their approach was driven by Indigenous and

Western scholars working together to make science fields more appealing to Indigenous students and push back against the lack of Indigenous representation. Although developed principally in the environmental sciences realm, the point is made about the contrasting perspectives that different educational approaches take, placing Indigenous and Western scientific paradigms on equal and symbiotic footing, connecting the idea of representation and inclusion within the educational curriculum to educational outcomes (Kapyrka & Dockstator, 2014).

While the challenges of developing and maintaining this two-eyed curriculum echo the experiences of Hauser et al. (2009) and Gaudry & Lorenz (2018), and the warnings of Battiste

(2005), Tuck & Yang (2011), and Darlaston-Jones et al. (2014), who find evidence of conflict with the broader Western academic setting of the program, what is evident in two-eyed approaches to curriculum integration is the implicit acceptance of both Western and Indigenous scientific perspectives as being culturally-laden. Hence, this inter-mixing of scientific perspectives results in a coalescing of cultural perspectives as well. Educational practices that touch on ICT, STEM, and Indigenous cultures are likewise open to integration, with the potential to experience similar benefits, including contextualized understanding that pushes back against assumptions of universality of ICTs, providing space for Indigenous perspectives to factor in this process. How education programs seek to meld different forms of expertise, whether they are

23 conceptualized as based in Western notions of ICT and STEM or in cultural know-how charts various courses through a challenging space, especially when done over the colonial divide.

In the context of lesson (and in turn curriculum) indigenization, this means an infusion of

Indigenous worldviews, knowledges, and voices into the lessons themselves, so as to “constitute an essential element” of the lessons and curriculum. However, extension beyond just cultural integration of Indigenous material necessitates the prominence of Indigenous voice and vision, and ultimately, Indigenous representation and identity in the process.

Cultural Integration and Educational Models

Educational integration undertaken by Western institutions, such as that necessitated in a strong form by reconciliation indigenization, are still likely to follow Western educational models in their structure (although the influence of Indigenous models of learning previously described is welcome in these initiatives). Scholarship on cultural integration into Western educational models has largely focused on formal educational settings, such as within traditional primary/secondary age schools and institutions of higher learning. While scholarship on indigenization’s foundations and motivations are broadly conceptualized across educational practices, power dynamics change when we view education through the formal-nonformal distinction. Kleis, Lang, Mietus, &

Tiapula (1973) (as cited by Etling, 1993) define nonformal education as “any intentional and systemic educational enterprise (usually outside of traditional schooling) in which content is adapted to the unique needs of the students (or unique situations) in order to maximize learning and minimize other elements which often occupy formal school teachers.” This shifted power hierarchy where community involvement is integral to the educational practice itself stands to have significant impacts for how we can view indigenization, especially given the power asymmetries between Western educational administration and its scholastic foundations and

24 Indigenous communities. The illustrative potential of nonformal educational outreach was depicted by DeCoito & Gitari (2014), whose analysis of cultural integration into nonformal,

Western educational structure captured, rather broadly, many of the various tenets of an effective integration process, including epistemological considerations and Indigenous agency. In particular, they recommended the need for culturally relevant learning, experiential learning that honors traditions, programs that reflect learner control, and activities that highlight the cognitive and cultural conflict endemic to integrated Western-Indigenous educational programs. It also explicitly suggested the unique distinction of nonformal education, as taking a scaled approach and “getting it right one community at a time” points to the balance of a close one-to-one working relationship between the educational outreach program and the community, as well as the one-to- many operations of the outreach program that operates at scale.

The further uniqueness of nonformal education with Indigenous communities is explored more recently by Bonny (2018), who provided a valuable depiction of the day-to-day experiences of STEM educational outreach student assistants (as a form of nonformal education) with

Indigenous communities in Canada. The depiction focuses on meeting the substantial operational challenges of providing even basic services in light of the unique considerations each Indigenous community embodies. For those engaged in curricular reform, the account demonstrates how unique considerations at each site stand to impact the process of indigenization, as these practices, however idealistic, must still engage the very real logistical and political contexts within which they exist.

Nonformal education stands to be a domain of analysis where, given its atypical power dynamics, can illustrate what power dynamics outside of formal education (and its aforementioned structures and hierarchies) can lend to cultural integration, and ultimately indigenization, efforts. In comparative study of formal and informal educational settings where

Indigenous Knowledge was being integrated into the school system, Sumida Huaman &

25 Valdiviezo (2014) found that nonformal education can be much more inclusive of Indigenous

Knowledges, as well as being as rigorous, as formal educational settings, wherein which they found inclusivity to be largely symbolic. On the other hand, informal education typically has no institutional center (Coombs et al., 1973), which when compared to nonformal and formal education, limits the capacity to expose the sets of relationships and power structures that exist between Indigenous communities and Western institutions as they are evinced by educational administrative centers. That being said, when educational systems are viewed holistically, the value of nonformal education can be particularly beneficial to Indigenous learning, working in concert with formal and informal educational settings over the life-span of a learner (Semali,

2009). Tom, Suárez-Krabbe, & Castro (2017) highlighted furthermore the decolonial potential for nonformal education across multiple continents and Indigenous groups, including the development of a Native American program for urban Natives in California that engaged younger learners in traditional teachings such as traditional weaving.

Despite these inter-cultural benefits of nonformal education like outreach, there is still precious little scholarship that explores the cultural integration in this environment. Studies such as those conducted by DeCoito & Gitari (2014) and Sumida Huaman & Valdiviezo (2014) that examine Indigenous Knowledge integration and inclusion in nonformal education are valuable, but by themselves have not fully explored particularly themes of education, such as distinction between disciplines in indigenization like computing within STEM. The work by Tom et al.

(2017) illustrates nonformal education’s decolonial potential, but requires further expansion to novel socio-historical contexts to promote fuller understanding of cultural integration. In the meantime, much of the focus on education cultural integration has been on formal educational settings, potentially because it is in these much more identifiable, centralized structures that injustices and substantial power asymmetries are must evident, as well as where much of Western societies believe the brunt of learning occurs.

26 Progression towards reconciliation indigenization as the standard of cultural integration necessitates exploration of all channels, with the potential for lessons to offer formal educational practices in line with the holistic perspective offered by Semali (2009). Cultural integration in

STEM is a nuanced and sophisticated endeavor, and there is a need for scholarship to explore the intersection of nonformal education’s unique factors and indigenization’s complexities. This is further complicated by the hosting of these integration programs within Western institutions that orient the educational structures away from Indigenous models of learning towards Western ones

(for instance the formal, nonformal, and informal distinction), while simultaneously seeking to integrate Indigenous Knowledge in learning.

My first set of research objectives attempt to explore precisely this space:

1. Interpreting Challenges and Considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education a. How does the outreach organization and its employees motivate Indigenous STEM outreach? b. What do outreach educators and administrators report as challenges and considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education? How about ICT education within STEM?

Ethnocomputing and Postcolonial Computing: Indigenous Cultural Integration and Computing Education

Indigenous cultural integration into STEM, and more specifically ICT curricula through nonformal education, can be analyzed through two complementary frames. The first framing contends with the fundamental issues of integrating ICT education by drawing upon theories and attempts made in ethnocomputing, and in doing so exploring the epistemological underpinnings of integrating ICTs and Indigenous ways-of-knowing and pedagogy. The second framing attends to the broader socio-cultural context by connecting these processes to postcolonial computing

27 scholarship. Together, these frames allow for a holistic analysis required for viewing integration as it progresses towards reconciliation indigenization as a contextualized process.

Ethnocomputing as Cultural Integration into Computing Education

Combining an Indigenous cultural outlook with the concepts of ICT has been viewed in the past as a tenuous goal, requiring a bridging of perspectives possibly diametrically opposed:

“ICT education, with its emphasis on modernity, is often understood in opposition to traditional values and beliefs, be they Western or African.” ~Dalvit et al. (2008, p. 288)

Within STEM, curricular cultural integration efforts are found most frequently in the land-based disciplines of biological and ecological sciences (e.g. Bisong & Andrew-Essien, 2010;

Kimmerer, 2002, 2014; Snively & Corsiglia, 2001; Snively & Williams, 2016). While ICT rests comfortably under the STEM umbrella, as part of ‘technology’ or ‘engineering,’ fewer efforts target this discipline. This opens the possibility that practitioners view cultural integration into

ICT education as distinct, motivating a more granular approach to STEM education not captured in broader views of cultural integration of nonformal education (Bonny, 2018; DeCoito & Gitari,

2014).

Scholars and educators have explored a few differing avenues by which to combine ICT education with Indigenous Knowledge and cultural practices. Searle & Kafai (2015) engaged

Indigenous traditions of crafting to teach basic concepts of computing through electronic textiles

(e-textiles) with Native American students in Arizona. Searle, Casort, Litts, & Benson (2017) connected augmented reality and interactive storytelling (ARIS) education with students’ own cultural knowledge, guiding students through the process of telling stories of import to their local community through these technologies. In both these examples, traditions and cultural material

28 are engaged as the avenues by which computing education concepts (in the case of the former) or technical know-how (in the case of the latter) are conveyed.

These examples from the development of ethnocomputing, which seeks to move computing different contexts, and the sensitivity of that transfer to certain aspects of that context such as culture and society (Duveskog, Sutinen, Tedre, & Vesisenaho, 2003; Tedre, Sutinen,

Kähkönen, & Kommers, 2006). At its core lies the acceptance that “technological systems are socially produced, and social production is culturally informed” (Tedre et al., 2006, p. 128), and therefore calls for a reframing of the interactions between ICTs and local knowledges as a negotiation of cultural and technical expertise.

Ethnocomputing directly engages education as integral to this process. This amounts to finding “algorithms, data storage, or other informational structures” as they appear in cultural practices, e.g. “iterative patterns in weaving”, or “binary codes in divination” (Lachney, 2016, p.

7). In many cases, the cultural integration results in the development of culturally salient technological artifacts to assist in education, co-developed and co-designed with those communities. Searle & Kafai (2015) and Kafai, Searle, Martinez, & Brayboy (2014) engaged

Indigenous traditions of crafting to teach basic concepts of computing through electronic textiles

(e-textiles) with Native American students in Arizona. (Babbitt, Lachney, Bulley, & Eglash,

2015) instructed Ghanaian students on mathematical concepts, connected eventually to computing, through analysis of the form of Indigenous Adinkra symbols, using data collected with the community to develop educational software based on mathematics instruction with these symbols. Eglash, Bennett, O’donnell, Jennings, & Cintorino (2006) and Eglash (2007) presented a pair of studies conducted with Native American students, using culturally relevant beading practices to teach symmetry and cartesian mathematics concepts (ethnomathematics), as well as the use of digital technologies to simulate Indigenous technologies, e.g. camus root basket technology for educational purposes with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe. Searle, Casort, Litts, &

29 Benson (2017) connected augmented reality and interactive storytelling (ARIS) education with students’ own cultural knowledge, guiding students through the process of telling stories of import to their local community through these technologies.

Ethnocomputing approaches in education do not always result in artifacts of course, where some projects focus principally on the computing pedagogy itself, integrating cultural practices and knowledges from multiple perspectives into the curriculum. For instance, Dalvit,

Murray, & Terzoli (2008) integrated Indigenous Knowledge through culturally relevant metaphors and examples to teach an existing Computer Science course, arguing for the power of such approaches. Duveskog et al., (2003) leveraged the ethnocomputing concept of “culturally relevant entry points” to motivate students to learn basic programming concepts in Java to discuss normally culturally taboo topics, in this case sexual health (HIV/AIDS) in Tanzania, basing this approach on the perceived non-human nature of the computer as an ideal, non-judgmental space for such topics to be encountered.

These approaches in the extant scholarship shows that progress in integrating ICT education and Indigenous cultural outlooks is indeed possible. However, while the findings have remained largely constrained to the education discipline, the potential for the findings to shed light on broader phenomena is currently an underexplored opportunity. First, ICT education is commonly integrated into broader STEM programs, and a broader view of ICT education’s embeddedness can pull apart this homogenization of disciplines. Second, although notions of justice and power are granted as foundational to educational cultural integration (ICT or otherwise), more stands to be said about what the actual process of implementation suggests about the Indigenous-Western relationship. To this second point, scholars must make an attempt to comprehend what the true ‘end’ of cultural integration and indigenization of ICT education is.

Answering this requires not just conceptualizing the implications of findings to ICT education, but also much broader questions, in particular the shape and form of just and equitable

30 technological development in the future. Notions of justice are certainly touched upon in the ethnocomputing literature, for instance Searle & Kafai (2015) discuss the history of Western dominance of technological narratives and its ignoring of other views, illustrating a disciplinary appreciation of this work within broader notions of justice and equity, and in particular the history and structures that oppress peoples and their forms of knowledge. However, ethnocomputing scholarship does not necessarily explicitly represent these processes within broader postcolonial frames. Furthermore, the placement of ethnocomputing between the fields of computer science and education typically leads scholars to pursue goals of extending indigenous curricula across educational levels (K-12 into higher education) or integrating new technologies (for example

Searle's (2016) future directions), foreclosing the likelihood of a deeper treatment of power. As a solution, this study contributes to ethnocomputing scholarship by connecting a formalization of the role of justice within cultural integration of educational curricula to broader colonial frames.

Broadening Cultural Integration through a Postcolonial Computing Perspective

Postcolonial computing theory derives from the broader form, postcolonial theory.

Postcolonial theory has been succinctly described by G. Viswanathan: “as a study of the cultural interaction between colonizing powers and the societies they colonized…” (as cited by Bahri,

1995). A richer definition is offered by Fidel Fajardo-Acosta:

“A cultural, intellectual, political, and literary movement of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries characterized by the representation and analysis of the historical experiences and subjectivities of the victims, individuals and nations, of colonial power. Postcolonialism is marked by its resistance to colonialism and by the attempt to understand the historical and other conditions of its emergence as well as its lasting consequences.” (Fajardo-Acosta, 2006)

Postcolonial theory originates from literature scholar and cultural critic Edward Said’s seminal work Orientalism (Said, 1978) (although scholars have proliferated numerous

31 frameworks within postcolonial theory (Burney, 2012)), providing a broad theoretical background within which to analyze the perspectives of Indigenous and Western sources in contemporary educational development. Historically, this scholarship lent itself to a focus on linguistic constructions of the “other”, particularly through notions of discourse and who has the power to define the nature and content of that discourse.

While the ideas of postcolonial theory have enduring application, the rapid advance of

ICTs across those conceptual borders between different societies has led scholars to call for an updated view of postcolonialism sensitive to ICT’s power as a non-neutral, cultural and social force. This void has been filled by the development of postcolonial computing, which seeks to apply the principles of postcolonial theory to HCI and ICT4D projects. Just as postcolonial theorizing seeks to engage both sides of the colonial divide when relationships are conducted (and in turn reveal a great deal about colonizer societies and problematizing the privilege inherent to this perspective), postcolonial computing is about "understanding how all design research and practice is culturally located and power-laden" (Irani, Vertesi, Dourish, Philip, & Grinter, 2010).

In this sense, it calls for a “shift in perspective” based on the observed issues that arise when technical knowledge transfers across borders (Irani et al., 2010). The operating desire to

“deconstruct the binary between technologies and culture and study the impure crossing between them” (Philip, Irani, & Dourish, 2012, p. 11) coheres with ethnocomputing scholarship’s framing of ICT and local Indigenous Knowledges as a negotiation of cultural and technical expertise

(Tedre et al., 2006).

Given its intellectual origins in issues arising from HCI and ICT4D, empirical projects within the postcolonial computing orientation have focused on issues of design and technological deployments for development purposes. Research into the transfer of design has illustrated design implications for mobile devices as a result of distinct and different social and cultural contexts (S.

Wyche, Dillahunt, Simiyu, & Alaka, 2015; S. P. Wyche, Densmore, & Geyer, 2015b), while

32 research into the postcolonial issues that emerge in technological deployments has explored the critical assumptions made about the penetration and diffusion of ubiquitous computing (Ahmed,

Mim, & Jackson, 2015; Dourish & Mainwaring, 2012). Exploration of Indigenous interactions with ICT globalization that span disciplines conducted by Canevez et al. (2020) touches on both themes of design (albeit implicitly through reflections on educational implications for the future of design practice) and technological deployment for community development.

Philip, Irani, & Dourish (2012) analyze several examples that illustrate the key tenets of the approach, e.g. the Warumungu people's (in Australia) development of the Mukurtu

Wumpurrarni-kari Archive (MWA), built around their own cultural practices, as well as the other several examples collected by Irani et al., (2010), including the fascinating interactions between the Yolngu people’s cultural practices with storytelling (again in Australia) and the distance- communication affordances of Skype within the context of supporting their teaching of university courses in their language and culture.

In exploring these examples, Irani et al. describe several themes highlighting some of the issues with cross-cultural technological development work. For one thing, they point out the challenges with conceptualizing cultural differences between technological development ‘here’ versus ‘there,’ arguing for a more dynamic, “generative” vision of culture that incorporates the daily enactment of it in people’s lives (pp. 3-4). They also frame cross-cultural development work within a broader international development scope. Through this framing, cross-cultural technological development work inherits a class of critiques that includes a) humanitarian development regimes avoidance of challenging the actions of large-scale actors (like governments) roles in oppression; b) power asymmetries that come from development’s alignment with powerful corporate and governmental actors; c) the flow of technologies between the developed and developing areas paralleling historically established relations in colonialism; and d) development’s tendency to render the participants of development project’s as consumers

33 within a capitalist framework is inherently disempowering. Then, they point out that significantly uneven economic relationships can have powerful impacts on the legitimacy of design, as power centers can use legal and political means such as intellectual property to control design in the developing world. Finally, they illustrate that knowledge itself hinges upon a complex set of factors, including infrastructure and the socio-cultural, and that approaches to management of knowledge cannot be viewed uncritically as universal. By identifying themes like these, scholars in postcolonial computing provide us a means to analyze from a postcolonial perspective cross- cultural ICT-focused technological design and development.

Indeed, postcolonial computing scholars have explored contributions from Indigenous communities in the design of ICTs in service to development projects. The bulk of these projects focus on including Indigenous people as user populations in the design of technologies. Maja van der Velden’s (van der Velden, 2013) examination of the absence of an ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ page on Wikipedia identified alternative structures for knowledge archives that yield distinctly different relations between sources of knowledge, arguing for a ‘decentered’ structure that promotes epistemological plurality. Sultana & Ahmed (Sultana & Ahmed, 2019) identified similar themes with witchcraft and Indigenous Knowledge, calling for a further critical examination of the center’s view of design legitimacy. Other co-design projects with Indigenous communities not explicitly connected to the postcolonial computing scholarship include the development of file management systems in northern Australia (Verran, Christie, Anbins-King,

Weeren, & Yunupingu, 2007), development of inclusive instructional design (Mcloughlin &

Oliver, 2000), and the development of 3D visualization interfaces (Jensen et al., 2012).

Fundamentally, multi-cultural integration into educational curricula is an attempt to co- build something that engages the epistemological foundations of both Western and Indigenous communities, and is therefore akin to a cross-cultural design task. Attempts at integrating

Indigenous cultural material in some form, be it educational material or practices, lie at the heart

34 of many shared practices in both disciplines. In the previous section of this literature review, I presented literature of cultural integration attempts of Western and Indigenous educational and cultural norms into a cohesive program (e.g. Hewson & Ogunniyi, 2011; Miller, Doering,

Roehrig, & Shimek, 2012; Miller & Roehrig, 2018). This parallels the continuously growing scholarship on cross-cultural technological design with Indigenous communities (e.g. Awori et al., 2015; Jensen et al., 2012; Løvborg, Rodil, Jensen, & Rehm, 2012; Mcloughlin & Oliver,

2000; Verran, Christie, Anbins-King, Weeren, & Yunupingu, 2007; S. Wyche, 2020). Essentially, the notion of ‘designing cultural integration’ and potentially ‘designing indigenization’ relies on similar orientations of participation and cultural integration.

The shared issues of technological and educational design at the colonial border stem largely from key similarities in their foundations, which yields similar orientations and methods.

Foundationally, both disciplines encounter the challenges of representation: Indigenous peoples in Canada remain statistically underrepresented in tech fields (Gilpin, 2019; Vu et al., 2019), while Indigenous students in Canada remain underrepresented in teaching (Canadian Association of University Teachers, 2018) and lag behind non-Indigenous peers in student educational attainment (“Profile of Indigenous Canada: Trends and data needs,” 2020). Both disciplines also critically engage what it means methodologically to be inclusive in design: Indigenous education asks itself what meaningful inclusion in educational design looks like (Mckinley, 2013; Pidgeon,

2016; Wildcat et al., 2014); technological design likewise critiques its own use of participatory design in technological design, including its capacity to be reproduced across different contexts

(as is the case with working with many different Indigenous communities) (Muller & Druin,

2012) or challenging the capacity for participatory design to be empowering at all (Peters et al.,

2018). Crucially too is the rising awareness of the need to decolonize participatory design practices (Charlotte Smith et al., 2020; Peters et al., 2018; R. C. Smith, Winschiers-Theophilus,

Kambunga, & Krishnamurthy, 2020), a common method of community engagement in

35 postcolonial HCI4D and ICTD research (Irani et al., 2010). Decolonizing education has long been a concern of Indigenous education (Hudson, 2016; Padilla, 2019), representing a convergence of mindsets evinced by the nature of design work at the colonial border.

The upshot of these strong parallels is that each of these fields stand to have something significant to suggest about the other. Analysis of the shared design work at the colonial border engages similar foundations and concerns. Mindsets produced in technological design disciplines, such as that motivated by a postcolonial computing theoretical framing, can inform how we understand educational design at the colonial border. Conversely, designing culturally integrated educational programs can help develop our understanding of postcolonial applications in the technology domain through their shared space and ideological inclinations.

Furthermore, engagement with ICT and STEM education connects the present of design with its future: the students of today grow to be technology’s leaders and thinkers. While we’ve seen evidence of technological design and development projects designed with and for

Indigenous communities (the line between “with” and “for” becoming increasingly blurred as

Indigenous participation increases), what is less common is technological design and development projects spearheaded by Indigenous persons, in service to their particular needs and in line with their own social and cultural outlook. As we move beyond viewing Indigenous peoples as just consumers of technologies, educational attainment and access becomes an essential foundational element, highlighting the need for understanding of the transnational production of educational practices in translating technological designs. Through this study, I seek to speak more broadly to the value of educational engagement within postcolonial computing that has been underexplored, given its importance. Indeed, scholars in this field are aware of its relevance, even if it has been largely underserved:

"Taking a broader view, we argue that methods—the products of research communities, economic actors, and educational practices that span the globe— are always transnationally produced in situ". (Irani et al., 2010, emphasis added)

36 While it may very well be true, the actual ways by which the transnational production of educational practices in situ actually transpires appears to be taken for granted, placing education from this perspective within a black-box. As previously described, a fixation on the ends of diversity can obscure the importance of the methods employed to achieve it (Bang & Medin,

2010), which paradoxically negatively impacts the achievement of that goal itself (Mckinley,

2013; B. G. Miller & Roehrig, 2018). Therefore, I argue that postcolonial computing must necessarily engage the methods by which ICT education crosses transnational borders directly: many of the assumptions about technology that spurred the development of postcolonial computing thought are shaped by and shaping of ICT educational practices (or lack thereof) in all contexts, even when the practices are transnationally produced in-situ. That is to say, assumptions about technology are based on how people have been trained and educated, and how they conceptualize others have been trained and educated as well. Therefore, these assumptions presuppose the education and training of local populations, while implicitly making a statement about the ones making those assumptions as well.

I also argue that postcolonial computing must include in its analytical purview the particular relationship that colonizers and colonized peoples. Much of postcolonial computing scholarship critically examined how technologies are conceptualized and reconceptualized in the

‘global south’, including exploring alternatives of technological design (van der Velden, 2013; S.

Wyche et al., 2015), integration of ICTs within local cultural fabrics and day-to-day life

(Chandra, Ahmed, & Pal, 2017; S. P. Wyche, Densmore, & Geyer, 2015a), and the impact technological designs have on local built environments (Mim & Ahmed, 2020). These perspectives are largely juxtaposed against how those in the ‘global north’ make implicit assumptions about how technologies integrate with global south communities (Ahmed et al.,

2015; Dourish & Mainwaring, 2012) and the manifestation of those assumptions in technological design spaces (Merritt & Bardzell, 2011; van der Velden, 2013). However, this milieu of

37 postcolonial computing activity has focused on marginalized and oppressed communities in the global south, appearing to implicitly rely on a broader, vaguer belief that ‘marginalization is a result of a colonial circumstance’. This is distinct from framing communities within a discourse between colonizer and colonized: identifying the active (or formerly active) agents of an arrangement, as opposed to a passivized description of a marginalized community’s unfortunate set of circumstances. This obscures the fact that colonizers and colonized groups maintain a special relationship today, even in circumstances where the administrators of colonization are no longer present. This fact is not strongly reflected in the postcolonial computing literature, as manifested by the observation that studies conducted in global south contexts seldom identify or discuss particular colonizers that create marginalization (historical or ongoing), for example a postcolonial study in India that does not mention the British. This yields the question: have we forgotten the ‘colonial’ in postcolonial?

It is possible to interpret the ‘post’ in ‘postcolonial’ as suggesting a move beyond identifying agents of colonization, calling for an acceptance of colonization’s existence and in turn a forward-looking response. Or, in words drawn from postcolonial computing scholarship itself, to “move forward together, rather than remain mired in regretful contemplation of past biases” (Philip et al., 2012, p. 1). However, I return to the conception of postcolonial theory to argue that there is still a need for postcolonial perspectives (and in turn, postcolonial computing) to engage the colonizer-colonized discourse: how can we purport to understand the “historical experiences and subjectivities of the victims, individuals, and nations of colonial power”

(Fajardo-Acosta, 2006) when we cannot acknowledge or identify what those colonial powers are?

This study seeks to recapture the ‘colonial’ within postcolonial computing, by speaking directly to the colonizer-colonized discourse, and the actors within that discourse. This approach I believe highlights the historical specificity of colonial encounters by including the current or former colonizer in the analysis.

38 Therefore, given both a) the bidirectionality of influence between designing indigenization and designing technologies with Indigenous communities; and b) the fundamental value of understanding educational practices as foundational to inter-cultural design work, my second objective seeks to explore how education and technological design views can inform each other:

2. Applying and Enriching Postcolonial Computing Theory a. What can postcolonial computing theory suggest about the identified themes of challenges and considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education? b. Based on an identification of themes from the first set of objectives, how can these reported challenges enrich our understanding of postcolonial computing theory?

Summary of Research Objectives

In summary, these are the research objectives pursued in this study:

1. Interpreting Challenges and Considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education a. How does the outreach organization and its employees motivate Indigenous STEM outreach? b. What do outreach educators and administrators report as challenges and considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education? How about ICT education within STEM? 2. Applying and Enriching Postcolonial Computing Theory a. What can postcolonial computing theory suggest about the identified themes of challenges and considerations of Indigenous cultural integration into STEM education? b. Based on an identification of themes from the first set of objectives, how can these reported challenges enrich our understanding of postcolonial computing theory?

39 Chapter 3

Methodology

The methodology chapter presents the details and rationale behind the structure and process of the research design. Since the selection of the overall methodological design was driven largely by the pragmatic considerations of building relationships with participating organizations and communities (for example in terms of interest and access), I first present the narrative of building the relationships with the participating organization, Geering Up. I then continue this narrative to the building of relationships with additional sources from the community, particularly K’omoks First Nation on Vancouver Island. Finally, I close this section on relationships and background of key entities with a brief description of the geo-political context of the identified participating entities.

Then, with those pragmatic considerations in mind, I present the motivations for the selection of an overarching methodological model, followed by an introduction to the integrated model itself. This description of research model is followed by the particulars of data collection and data analysis, and closes ultimately with a statement of researcher positionality to connect the methods (as well as the study as a whole) to the background and orientations of the scholar. The methodological limitations this design presents are located in Chapter 8: “Concluding Remarks and Future Directions”, so located so as to allow for adequate context for limitations that emerged, once I had the opportunity to reflect on the connections and disconnections between the study design and what I learned in the field.

40 Relationship Building and Background of Key Entities

In this section I describe the development of relationships with each group that was involved in the study. I foreground this narrative because it is crucial to connect the decisions of research design with the pragmatic considerations of research conducted in an unfamiliar context and the challenges of building relationships. This focus on relationship building is imperative to take seriously for ethical research practices, which is especially important for research that involves Indigenous peoples (Ball & Janyst, 2008).

Relationship and Background of Geering Up

The development of this research starts in early 2018. In the interest of studying organizations that were seeking to combine Indigenous cultural outlooks with ICT educational practices in, I discovered a network of university-based STEM educational outreach organizations in Canada under the broader Actua organization3. In particular was their Indigenous Youth in

STEM (InSTEM) program that was seeking to enhance their STEM outreach to Indigenous nations, which had been taken up by almost all of their university based affiliates. Their mission is to provide “customized programs for Indigenous youth, girls and youth facing socio-economic challenges”4, which, however aspirational, is exactly the type of mission that is open to examination for a) what exactly a “customized program” entails in practice, b) how the program defines and meets its own objectives, and c) how this mission fits into broader decolonizing visions in Canada.

3 https://www.actua.ca/en/ 4 https://www.actua.ca/en/programs/all-programs/

41 I began contacting educational outreach organizations in the spring of 2018, in the hopes of building a project with one of these Actua affiliates as part of a funding opportunity for international research. Of the affiliates that were contacted, Geering Up at the University of

British Columbia (UBC) responded almost immediately, and I began correspondence with the director of the outreach team, Ms. Soundous Ettayebi. We corresponded regularly (via email and teleconferences) throughout 2018 and the first half of 2019 leading up to the study, where I kept them apprised of the shape and development of the project, and they offered helpful advice and information about their organization in addition to offering to host my study. In doing so, they helped shape the questions and approaches that this study ultimately took.

The Geering Up program was originally founded in 1995 by Christine Yeung, a student at UBC’s Mechanical Engineering program, originally titled as a YES camp. In 2000, now called

Geering Up, they began their Indigenous outreach program, in conjunction with a Girls Only program, focusing their STEM outreach on two underrepresented demographic groups. The organization would experience growth over the next decade and a half, including expansion to the

UBC Okanagan campus in Kelowna (2015) and broader geographic expansion, e.g. to North

Delta in 2018.

Today, Geering Up Engineering Outreach provides programming to schools in the

Vancouver area in addition to outreach programming for Indigenous and rural communities throughout the province, including over 20 Indigenous First Nations communities. Their current educational offerings range from educational workshops at local and remote communities to week-long educational camps offered to Indigenous and rural K-12 students throughout the province. During the summer of 2019 (the encapsulating time period of the field study) ranging from July 2nd through August 29th, Geering Up’s outreach camps schedule included six camps at

Vancouver School Board (VSB) schools (for example Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary

School) and 20 camps in communities outside Vancouver. Of these external camps, at least 13 are

42 First Nations community schools5. Crucially, they have been seeking to work more closely with their partner First Nations communities to indigenize their educational practices.

Relationship and Background of K’omoks First Nation

Getting interest in participation with First Nations communities entailed repeated contact via email and/or telephone (where available). Although contacts from several communities did begin the process of a relationship, only one resulted in concrete plans, and that was with

K’omoks First Nation, through the development of a relationship with the nation’s education coordinator, Charlene Everson6 (who also figures prominently in the analysis, and continues to be a crucial member of the research team at the time of this writing).

K’omoks First Nation is a relatively small First Nation community of only about 200 registered members as of 2016 (Government of Canada, 2016). Their reserve is situated on

Vancouver Island, near the town of Comox, British Columbia, although a fair number of their registered members do not live on the reserve (as reported to me by community members).

The importance of building relationships with the community that extend beyond simply the research outcomes is now a known expectation of any research that involves Indigenous peoples, and so extra effort, care, and attention was paid to ensuring that our presence was respectful and beneficial to the nation. This process with K’omoks First Nation began with an email, where I arranged a teleconference with Ms. Everson alongside Geering Up’s outreach student assistant, James Shaw (Anishinaabe, Batchewana First Nation). During the teleconference, we were introduced to each other and discussed her nation as well as what our

5 I say “at least” because there were certain schools on the Geering Up schedule that it was unclear whether they were explicitly First Nations community serving or simply within the territory of a particular First Nation community. 6 Full name used in write-up upon Ms. Everson’s request.

43 hopes were with this relationship. Ms. Everson was supportive, and we proposed that James and I come visit the nation prior to any formal research capacity, in order to meet people in the

K’omoks First Nation, become acquainted the local geographic and cultural context, as well as begin the process of research approval (please go to the section on “Research Protections” for more details of the research protections approval process).

This first visit took place from July 14, 2019 to July 17, 2019, during which time we conducted pilot interviews with community members (without an official research agenda), sat down with employees in the band office to collect their thoughts on not just the research, but also what Geering Up can do or continue to do to provide optimal educational programming, and spent time in the local community. Once the relationship had been established, we arranged research protections approval and a second visit, this time with the intention of conducting research activities. This second visit took place from July 31, 2019 to August 7, 2019, during which time I conducted semi-structured interviews with community members when possible.

Geo-Political Context of Geering Up and K’omoks First Nation

While Actua’s network of affiliates like Geering Up operate across the whole of Canada,

British Columbia presents its own unique social, cultural, and historical context with regards to its relationship with Indigenous peoples in the province. British Columbia joined Canada as a province in 1871, four years after the “Dominion of Canada” was established in 1867. In the time span that followed this inclusion, the federal government in Ottawa, Ontario, was concerned with imposing federal laws and statutes on their newly acquired province, for fear they may elect to leave the young nation to join the United States to the south (Campbell, Menzies, & Peacock,

2003).

44 From this foundation, the tenuous relationship that existed between Canada’s federal government in Ottawa, British Columbia’s provincial government, and the Indigenous peoples of

British Columbia came into being. An example of when this was felt was when, upon a large protest organized by Stó:lø people to push back against the reduction of reserve sizes in British

Columbia, the Federal Government in Ottawa realized that the British Columbia provincial government had never signed the treaties with the Indigenous groups in the province (Campbell et al., 2003). The Federal Government, out of fear of British Columbia’s possible departure, did not take action and the protest’s requests went unheeded.

This in turn points out the unique treaty history British Columbia has with its Indigenous communities. In broader Canada, these so-called ‘Numbered Treaties’ were signed between the

First Nations and the Canadian Government (eleven in total). These treaties governed relations and policies between these sides (Equay, 2018), and covered a wide swathe of Canada. However, in British Columbia, only the northeast corner signed such a treaty, Treaty 8 in particular, signed over a century ago in 1899 (Campbell et al., 2003). The result leaves the vast majority of British

Columbia’s territory and Indigenous peoples without a formal treaty in place. Although this left certain communities exposed to unjust treatment, it has paved the way for modern treaties to be negotiated without the baggage of established legal agreements. One example is the creation of a pseudo-independent government by the Nisga’a people (Campbell et al., 2003, pp. 200-203).

Hence, many communities maintain an ‘unceded’ status of their territory, and as such are able to negotiate rights and land-ownership independently if desired. This process continues for many of the province’s Indigenous communities today.

At the same time of course, nation-wide policies still impacted British Columbia’s

Indigenous peoples. Of particular importance was the passing of the Indian Act in 1876, thus culminating the chain of events that labeled Indigenous communities “wards of the state”: unwittingly brought under control first by the British Columbia provincial government, then

45 through the Indian Act at the federal level down through to the provincial government, now a part of the Canadian Federal Jurisdiction (its inability to strictly enforce policy on British Columbia notwithstanding). Of the deleterious effects of the Indian Act, notable was the designation “wards of the state” that prevented Indigenous people from owning land, paving the way for implementation of the federally and/or provincially allotted reserve system (Campbell et al.,

2003).With the disenfranchisement of land also came the implementation of the residential school system. The schools were developed in partnership between the Department of Indian Affairs and various Christian churches of varying denominations, and British Columbia’s now enforced reserves were divvyed up among these various actors (Campbell et al., 2003). It was in 1920 that the federal Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs, Canadian poet Duncan

Campbell Scott, amended the Indian Act to make attendance by Indigenous students compulsory

(The BC Teachers’ Federation, 2015). He made no secret of his assimilationist agenda:

“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone... Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department...” (Duncan Campbell Scott, as quoted by The BC Teachers’ Federation, 2015, p. 8)

The residential school system in Canada would go on over the remaining 20th century to subject Indigenous youths in Canada to all manner of cruelties, including appalling living conditions that resulted in high mortality rates among students, abuse by teachers and religious officials, and explicitly outlawing any outward expression of their own culture (The BC

Teachers’ Federation, 2015). In British Columbia, there were at least 22 residential schools mandated by the federal government, operated by various Christian denominations (The BC

Teachers’ Federation, 2015). The sins of the residential schools were laid bare when Canada’s

Truth and Reconciliation Commission revealed the findings of its major report on the treatment,

46 conditions, and long-term effects of the schooling (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of

Canada, 2015a).

Overall, British Columbia’s Indigenous populations have uniquely distinct relationships with their provincial government, indicating that this exploration is crucially tied to the British

Columbia context, At the same time, relationship to broader federal policies may nonetheless suggest a shared experience between Indigenous peoples in Canada more broadly.

Evaluative Case Study as Overarching Framework: Structure and Rationale

In selecting and justifying an overall framework for this study, I need to first describe the considerations influencing the choice. The primary consideration was based on a tension at the outset of the study: that a) I had limited first-hand experience beforehand about the study context, and what to expect in terms of on-the-ground reality, while b) nonetheless seeking to connect the data to a predetermined theoretical framework (postcolonial computing theory), both in terms of framing an interpretation of the data with that lens and enriching the understanding of that theory itself. This tension influenced the choice of a methodological framework in the following ways:

1. Emphasized the need for pragmatic focusing in order to to narrow the scope to a particular

entity, maximizing understanding while limiting extraneous explorations in a pragmatic

way, given limited researcher time and funding. This consideration is not driven

necessarily by the content or theory of the study, but rather by the perceived benefit of

focusing the scope of the research in an otherwise unfamiliar context.

2. Suggested the value of an exploratory tack, given the lack of a priori knowledge of the

context, and how the particular phenomenon would manifest. This consideration of initial

research standpoint points towards a qualitative view that is constructivist in nature. By

contrast, a positivistic view would instead suggest a measurement of a reality and

47 accompanying propositions to test in a hypothesis-like manner which I could not justifiably

claim to have developed beforehand.

3. Emphasized the need for the overall framework to support both inductive and deductive

uses of data to account for the aforementioned application and enrichment of the theoretical

lens.

The first consideration in this list strongly suggests a case study approach, which necessarily restricts the study to a singular, bounded phenomenon (Merriam, 1998, p. 41), a notion drawn from L. M. Smith (1978). Thus, work with a singular educational organization, exploring its practices and employee perceptions with regards to its own operations is a natural fit for an overarching research design. With the time and energy intensive nature of developing relationships with organizations in order to support scholarly inquiry (see the upcoming section

“Relationship and Background of Geering Up”), a focused examination with a singular interested organization is a pragmatic choice, given the limited funds and time available to conduct the research.

This first consideration also motivates a deeper focus on the shape and organization of the organization, as the bounded phenomenon. While the overall goal of the study is to explore the integration of Indigenous cultural material into STEM educational curricula, the structure of the organizations, its social units and its context of existence all stand to impact this process. It is therefore imperative to include these considerations, which case study can support through engaging the entity within its “real-life context”, while nonetheless observing the borders that exist between the bounded system and its context (Yin, 2003). An organization’s goals and practices are impossible to cleanly separate from the nature and shape of the organization itself, and so a case study that maximally engages the relevant aspects (as they are identified) of the organization is warranted. Merriam (1998, p. 41) further supports the use of case study for this

48 purpose, pointing out its ability to investigate multiple complex social units in service to understanding a singular, bounded phenomenon.

The next consideration suggests a particular approach to case study. Yazan (2015) provides a comparative analysis of the three principle conceptions of case study, between the methodologies’ three principle leading scholars: Robert Yin, Robert Stake, and Sharan Merriam.

Perhaps most prominent among these three scholars’ view is their epistemological foundations: both Stake (1995) and Merriam (1998) share constructivist epistemological foundations, rendering the differences in their overall approaches stemming from this base as more complementary as opposed to contrasting. Instead of testing initially defined propositions, both the Stake-ian and Merriam-ian accounts lend credence to the construction of meaning, and therefore speaks much more strongly to qualitative data, particularly that involving discourse with participants. By comparison, the well-known case study account provided by Yin is informed by a positivist epistemology, and is geared towards exploring initial propositions, and making use of quantitative data sources (albeit in conjunction with qualitative ones). These differences carry through to the forms of data sources used, where Stake and Merriam restrict their views to qualitative sources (e.g. interview, observation, document analysis) and a constructive view of the connection between theory and data, while Yin’s perspective relies on mixed quantitative and qualitative sources in order to test initial propositions. Given the emphasis on an exploratory nature given the lack of a priori knowledge at the outset of the study, I opted for a constructivist framing of case study.

While narrowing the case study options to a Stake-ian and Merriam-ian account, I noticed ultimately that the particular differences between these two accounts are so minor so as to render the differences almost a matter of semantics. However, an additional consideration that helped me is the desire to be able to provide recommendations to the organization and other significant actors in this space, which necessitates an evaluative view of the phenomenon. Towards this end,

49 case study is uniquely appropriate for taking an evaluative approach (Guba & Lincoln, 1981;

Merriam, 1998; Stake, 1983, 1995; Yin, 1992, 1993). In fact, Guba & Lincoln (1981) make the claim that case study is the best way to present an evaluation due to its ability to provide “thick description, is grounded, is holistic and lifelike, simplifies data to be considered by the reader, illuminates meanings and can communicate tacit knowledge” (Merriam, 1998, p. 39). An evaluative approach is also a style of case study design that Merriam explicitly articulates

(Merriam, 1998, p. 39), with the goal of producing a judgement as an end-result of the research.

In a nutshell, this can mean recommendations for these actors in integrating cultural material into

STEM outreach. It is this articulation by Merriam that therefore oriented me towards ultimately adopting a Merriam inspired case study framework for this study, which does distinguish it slightly from Merriam’s other classes of overall intent-based case studies, but nonetheless draws from the same epistemological structure.

It is worth noting too that case study is a method that I have had familiarity with using in the past (e.g. Caneba, Maitland, & Rantanen, 2019), and therefore I was admittedly biased in my selection of method. While the previously stated rationale forms the scholarly basis for the selection, a nonetheless significant driver of this choice was what I felt I could and conceptualize effectively, given my previous training and experience.

To account for the third consideration, I turn my attention to the mode of analysis to be used in this case study.

Grounded Theory Analysis Options and Rationale

Although Merriam’s model of qualitative grounded theory does come with suggested strategies of analysis, such as ethnographic analysis or phenomenological analysis (Yazan, 2015),

Merriam also in her own writing points out about her model of case study that it “does not claim

50 any particular methods for data collection or data analysis” (1998, p. 28). This lends a further degree of flexibility to the study’s design, provided that certain features of Merriam’s case study design can be made consistent with the method of analysis proposed, as well as consistent with the nature of the proposed research objectives.

Additionally, while the flexibility of Merriam’s case study has a certain strength with regards to how data collection is conducted (especially not being immediately familiar with the context at the outset), I desired a more structured approach to the analysis. The goal here in exploring additional options of analysis was to guide that stage of the research in a cleaner, clearer manner than seemed to be suggested by the very open Merriam case study framework.

I drove my selection of an analytical strategy by the following considerations:

1. Inductive and deductive flexibility: the analytic strategy must support the inclusion of

inductive and deductive reasoning with regards to the data, in response to the third point

of my primary considerations.

2. Data source consistency: the analytical strategy must cohere with the forms of data that the

case study framework suggests, which in this case is qualitative.

3. Epistemological consistency: the analytic strategy should support a qualitative view most

closely tied with a constructivist view of data, in accordance with the case study

framework.

While there were several methodological options that could have fit these stipulations to varying degrees (ethnographic analysis comes to mind, and indeed was actually quite close to the ultimate resulting method), I selected a grounded theory method in no small part due to my own comfort and familiarity with the structured thematic coding process defined by the method.

Furthermore, grounded theory analysis accords a degree of flexibility that is beneficial when one is not entirely familiar with the research context beforehand (as is the case here, given that my

51 cultural perspective is neither First Nations nor Western Canadian), as well as, perhaps most crucially, enable a critical self-questioning of my own assumptions throughout the study

(Charmaz & Belgrave, 2012).

Halaweh, Fidler, & McRobb (2008) identified two primary strands of grounded theory:

Glaserian (named after Barney Glaser) and Straussian (named after Anselm Strauss), both of whom are considered the original progenitors of grounded theory. The first question that must be answered between these is whether the style of grounded theory is receptive to treatment as a method as opposed to a full-fledged methodology. Here, the Glaserian tradition perceives itself as a methodology (Halaweh et al., 2008; Hekkala, 2007), and is therefore resistant to incorporation into a broader methodological framework. Incorporation into broader methodological frameworks is more closely tied to the Straussian tradition, which Glaser claimed was the extent to which the

Straussian approach could offer (Halaweh et al., 2008; Hekkala, 2007), and hence did not meet the threshold of being considered a full methodological approach. Therefore, by incorporating grounded theory into a broader case study framework, I seek to sidestep this debate by adopting grounded theory as a method of analysis.

With regards to the first consideration of analytical choice, the Straussian method of grounded theory maintains an inductive-deductive view of the data, allowing for both the enforcement of theory upon the data while allowing for emergent themes to nonetheless appear from an analysis of that data, which stands in contrast to the purely inductive view of Glaser

(Halaweh et al., 2008). Across both approaches to grounded theory, qualitative data analysis through similar methods of coding are developed, and so both views would support the second primary consideration.

With regards to the third consideration about the epistemological fit with a constructivist paradigm, both Glaserian and Straussian methods are interpretive in their tack, as befitting the overall orientation of grounded theory as a qualitative method or methodology (Halaweh et al.,

52 2008). There are, however, crucial differences in their other features that paint this interpretive view in a different light, in particular their capacity to cohere with a constructivist overall perspective. First of all is the positionality of the researcher with regards to the research itself, where the Straussian tradition acknowledges the researcher as active and involved in the context of the research (Halaweh et al., 2008; Hunter, Murphy, Grealish, Casey, & Keady, 2011), which influences the nature of the interpretive view as being potentially a co-developed one with participants. By contrast, the Glaserian tradition maintains a passive, independent role of the researcher (Halaweh et al., 2008; Hunter et al., 2011), which seems more distant from what a constructivist perspective would stipulate.

Second, the a priori positioning of the scholar in the Straussian tradition accepts the role preparation has in informing the progression of the study from the outset (e.g. in terms of literature and experience), while the Glaserian tradition strictly adheres to an open mind, even going so far as to explicitly recommend against literature review at the outset of a study (Hunter et al., 2011). The absence of inclusion of initial knowledge and preparation likewise affects the interpretive stance, as previous knowledge is undeniably a factor in how data is collected (for example, which questions are asked in interviews), and in turn the ultimate shape and form of the analysis.

Although I acknowledged previously that I lacked significant prior knowledge of the context to the point where I could justifiably make powerful claims to structure the research design from the outset, I believe that the Glaserian account goes too far with regards to the nature of the research here. For one thing, I would argue that crossing a cultural border in order to conduct research without due diligence in attempting to understand the history, issues, and social context of research would be irresponsible and unethical. I would also argue that it denies the fact that researcher’s have a reflexive positioning relative to the work, and therefore absolve the

53 researcher of the responsibility of their interpretation of a situation, rendering it ‘the voice from nowhere,’ with universalizing tones.

Based on the provided rationale, I opted for a Straussian approach to grounded theory as a method of analysis within the broader Merriam design case study framework. It is worth mentioning that the original case study-grounded theory design, as it was presented by Halaweh

(2012) and Halaweh et al. (2008) placed a Straussian grounded theory perspective within a Yin- ian case study design. This combination therefore represents a departure, but I believe that, given the balance of objectives with the study and methodology here, there is not a compelling enough reason to believe that a Straussian and Merriam based framework cannot be reasonably adopted.

Integrating Case Study and Grounded Theory Methodology

I have thus far sought to justify the following:

1. The use of a a particular case study framework (Merriam);

2. The use of grounded theory as a method of analysis (Straussian);

3. The consistency (and potential inconsistencies) between the Straussian grounded theory

method and the Merriam case study framework.

Further specification is therefore needed to illustrate how the framework and method of analysis fit together into a cohesive structure. To provide a foundation for cohesion, I turn to the work of Halaweh, Fidler, & McRobb (2008) and Halaweh (2012). This research design combines an overall case study framework with grounded theory style analysis of multiple data sources (see

Figure 3-1 for an adapted form of the overall study design used in this study). An integrated framework such as this allows the researcher to structure a case study while being informed by a grounded theory analysis, identifying emergent themes through coding that pertain to the bounded phenomenon.

54

Figure 3-1: The adapted case study-grounded theory methodology framework (adopted and adapted from Halaweh 2012).

The resulting combined case study – grounded theory framework consisting of a Merriam case study orientation encapsulating a Straussian approach to grounded theory as a method of analysis is an interpretivist, constructivist, and purely qualitative overall framework. The approach to analysis within this structure is open to both inductive and deductive reasoning, as prior literature and theoretical exploration can be used to apply the data to particular contexts of interest in a deductive manner, while still supporting inductive reasoning that allows for emergent themes and theoretical development and enrichment to occur. The combination of case study and grounded theory together renders this framework somewhat a mishmash of methodologies, with the principle conflict occurring in the aforementioned deductive form of reasoning that is not necessarily considered within Merriam’s case study design (see “Methodological Limitations” in

Chapter 8 for this crucial discussion).

55 Data Collection

Here I outline the data sources that compose this evaluative case study. In order to assist in understanding the methods used and their connection to the previously described objectives, I provide a brief mapping chart between these two components of the study.

Figure 3-2: Mapping between data sources and research objectives

As the diagram above suggests, there were three primary data sources that were used in this case study: 1) semi-structured interviews, 2) observations, and 3) documents. I treated semi- structured interviews as the primary data source for this study, focusing on the perceptions, descriptions, and aspirations pertaining to selected topics. That being said, contributions of observation and documents enable a “triangulation of sources” for the phenomenon of education indigenization within this case study (Patton, 1999), a form of triangulation that is used within broader triangulation approaches within case study (Stake, 1995), although I conceptualize these addition two data sources as subordinate to the semi-structured interviews. Observations allow an exploration of some of the practices of the education organization in its natural setting, and may elicit certain phenomena that participants may not be aware of, not come up in the course of an interview, or be withheld but are nonetheless relevant to the topics (Johanson & Williamson,

56 2013, p. 374). Document analysis enables a deeper examination of the meaning behind curated messages that are purposefully shared by the organization and other justifiably related organizations (Johanson and Williamson, 2013, p. 424), which likewise may contribute additional angles on interview themes, or present novel themes themselves. Additionally, Observations and documents as data sources can not only provide support for findings from interviews, but also identify breakdowns in the data when conflicts between how participants describe a phenomenon and what can be either observed manifesting in practices or gleaned from writing. Thus, the function of observations and document analysis in a support capacity allows for a deeper exploration and analysis of phenomenon elicited during interviews.

Semi-Structured Interviews

My first method of data collection consists of semi-structured interviews conducted with members of a STEM educational outreach program, members of a First Nations community who work with that educational organization, and other community members who work with the educational organization. Each interview took approximately 1.5 to 2 hours. Where given permission, I recorded each interview private cellular phone, and then immediately transferred to a secure file repository for storage, transcription, analysis.

Although I have characterized these as semi-structured interviews, my personal approach to interviews is oriented towards conversation, which supports a more story-like telling of data that is in line with an Indigenous research paradigm (Kovach, 2010). Thus, although informed and in line with certain aspects of methodology and acknowledging of its value, I do not claim indigeneity and therefore would have found it epistemologically and reflexively suspect to adopt a full Indigenous paradigm as the foundation of the methodology (as well as the primary

57 participant pool being drawn from non-Indigenous, Western-educated students and administrators).

In this section I will present the entities (organizations and communities) from which the various interviews were drawn, describe and rationalize the sampling procedure, and then provide some description of the features of the sample drawn from that group. Semi-structured interviews were used to be inform all primary objectives of this study, including 1) the process of indigenizing STEM education, and 2) extending a postcolonial computing view to ICT education indigenization.

Geering Up Outreach Educators and Administrators

I use a theoretical sampling procedure for Geering Up’s educators and administrators, popularly connected with grounded theory methods (Coyne, 1997). This sampling procedure is emergent, with participants being identified as data is collected, reflected on, and analyzed in the field (Coyne, 1997), in addition to being open to opportunities for data collection as they appear.

This resulted in conducting 13 semi-structured interviews with 9 staffers, 4 of these interviews being follow-ups. All of the staff of Geering Up’s outreach team were current or past students at

UBC. With the exception of the outreach coordinator, staff that were past students of UBC (i.e. have graduated recently) were planning to return to UBC to continue their studies. In the case of the outreach coordinator, she had completed her studies at a university in Ontario, and moved to

UBC to attend a Master’s program (Management) and is now a full-time employee of Geering

Up.

The student staff outside of the outreach coordinator was within the age ranges of 20 to

25, and composed primarily of upperclassmen (Juniors, Seniors, recent graduates, and graduate students). While most hailed from British Columbia, three of the staff hailed from Ontario, while

58 another was from the United States (Maryland). The Indigenous outreach coordinator was one of those who hailed from Ontario as well, and spent time working in the United States before coming to UBC for her Master’s.

All of the staffers (including the Indigenous outreach coordinator) had come from either a

‘hard’ sciences undergraduate major (e.g. molecular biology) or from an engineering undergraduate major (e.g. materials sciences engineering). Notably absent was anyone coming from any of the social sciences or humanities fields, although one staffer was pursuing an additional undergraduate degree in education at UBC in conjunction with their already earned

B.Sc. in Science and Biology. Racially, only one of the student staff identified as Indigenous (the aforementioned James Shaw). Please see Table 3-1 below for demographic information of the staffers included in this study.

PARTICIPANT ID POSITION MAJOR/DEGREE INDIGENOUS GU10 Outreach B.A. Biology/Masters in No Coordinator Management GU5 Indigenous Materials Engineering Yes Outreach (Anishinaabe, Student Batchewana Asst. First Nation) GU3 Outreach Pharmacology/Pre-Med No Student Asst. GU4 Outreach Chemistry, Life Sciences, Earth and No Student Environmental Sciences/Education, Asst. Biology GU2 Outreach Materials Engineering No Student Asst.

59 GU7 Outreach Biology/Education No Student Asst. GU1 Outreach Materials Engineering No Student Asst. GU9 Outreach Biology No Student Asst. GU8 Outreach Materials Engineering No Student Asst. Table 3-1: Table of Geering Up Participants.

K’omoks First Nation

With supporting contributions from K’omoks First Nation, I elected to use a snowball sampling procedure (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981; Goodman, 1961) based on building a relationship first and foremost with the nation’s education coordinator, who serves as the primary point of contact between K’omoks First Nation and Geering Up7. This sampling procedure has the added advantage of revealing structural information about the group that I may not be directly aware of due to cultural differences or initially unknown political structures. In this sense, snowball sampling is particularly suited for contexts where insider knowledge is required to identify participants (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981) and is a boon to mitigating an outsider’s cultural perspective. This resulted in 4 semi-structured interviews conducted between July 31,

7 Although this sampling procedure does not reflect the commonly related theoretical sampling method of a case study – grounded theory framework, this was deemed a better perspective on sampling this community, given the importance of being sensitive to the community.

60 2019 and August 7, 2019. Additionally, members of the community were given the opportunity to elect whether they were to be anonymized for the purpose of presentation and publication.

All four of the participating community members hailed from the same family, although their age ranges and relationships to the community varied significantly. Of the two youngest participants, one is an undergraduate student currently attending the University of Victoria

(Social Work) while the other is a school teacher at the primary age level (K-12), the two of whom are sisters. The education coordinator also served as a research participant, who is an early middle age woman who had spent significant time in other parts of both the United States and

Canada prior to her return to her home community at K’omoks. She is also the aunt of the two younger participants. Finally, a community elder rounded out this sample, who was an elderly woman who lives on the reserve with her family. She is the grandmother of the two youngest participants, and hence the aunt of the education coordinator. This single-family focus likewise limits the overall contributions from Indigenous sources with regards to Geering Up’s operations, which is discussed further in “Limitations on Theoretical Findings” in Chapter 8.

PARTICIPANT ID/NAME COMMUNITY ROLE

KFN1 College student from K’omoks First Nation

Keisha Everson Teacher of K’omoks First Nation membership

Charlene Everson K’omoks First Nation Education Coordinator

KFN Elder Elder of K’omoks First Nation

Table 3-2: K'omoks First Nation Interview Participants (NOTE: some names non-anonymized at request of participant).

Additional Interviews

In line with the theoretical sampling approach used for Geering Up, I also conducted additional interviews where possible with individual who work with or around the Geering Up

61 organization, as these participants emerged as potentially valuable sources. This included an in- person semi-structured interview with a non-Indigenous community member (she identifies as

Chinese-Canadian) who works with Musqueam First Nation as an Indigenous Technology

Educator. I met her first when she visited the Geering Up outreach team to conduct a workshop on Indigenous technologies, and she agreed to an in-person interview in the weeks following that visit.

I also conducted a semi-structured interview with a member of the Actua leadership board in charge of Indigenous education, who herself is Anishinaabe and a member of the

Tootinaowaziibeng First Nation in Manitoba. I met her first when she visited the Geering Up organization to meet with the leadership structure, and to present to the entire organization on teaching in Indigenous communities. After sitting down with her following her presentation over a meal with another team member, she agreed to a phone interview in the weeks following her visit.

Finally, I conducted a phone and email-based semi-structured interview with an educator and scholar from a First Nations community in northern British Columbia, who develops community-based education programs for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants alike in order to share and promote his community’s culture. I met him first through his involvement with scholars at UBC who are interested in increasing Indigenous student enrollment and engagement, who likewise work closely with Geering Up and the outreach team. After reaching out via email, he agreed to speak with me over the phone to share his perspective on indigenizing of educational practices and his work. Following that phone discussion, I asked whether I could use the notes from our discussion in the research, to which he gave consent. I then sent him my notes from the discussion via email, which he validated.

62 NUMBER OF NUMBER OF

PARTICIPANTS INTERVIEWS

Geering Up Engineering Outreach 9 13

K’omoks First Nation 4 4

Other Community Member 3 3

Table 3-3: Semi-structured Interview Participants.

Observation of Geering Up Practices

I used an unstructured observational approach, which minimized preconceived notions of observed themes (Johanson and Williamson, 2013, p. 375), allowing these observations to be adaptive to the situation (which was constantly evolving, as I was arranging research relationships and strategies while I was engaged in observations). I conducted these observations during my time embedded with the Geering Up outreach team on the UBC campus, over the two months field study time. This was separated by in-office and out-of-office observations, the latter of which could take place in different communities or in local schools. In-office observations took place during a standard workday (8:30AM to 5:00PM, 5 days a week), where I was given a desk within the Geering Up office (a room with about 7-10 employees at any given time, situated within a building that, during the summer, is dedicated to Geering Up) and allowed to participate in morning meetings, speak and interact with employees, and participate in training activities, in addition to planning research logistics and analyzing and transcribing data. During this time I observed the team’s educators and administrators in daily tasks, including developing curriculum, reaching out to and coordinating with various communities, planning their schedules for the summer. I was also invited to participate in team activities, including regular morning check-ins, off-site team bonding activities.

63 Off-site observations included placement during outreach education activities, including one day in a Vancouver area school to observe and support Geering Up educators as an ‘auxiliary counselor’ on a Vancouver School Board (VSB) trip8, one day in the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation community, and approximately three days in the K’omoks First Nation community, the latter two as part of Indigenous community outreach. Each daily camp session tended to last from approximately 8:30AM to 3:00PM, participation in which supported the building of an

‘embodied’ perspective of the organization (Malinowski, 1922).

Additional observations include those on activities and visits to sites on the UBC campus and general Vancouver area, which helped likewise build a stronger notion of the context of

Geering Up’s activities and relationship with First Nations communities.

During this time, I took extensive field notes which serve as the primary basis for this data source (Johanson and Williamson, 2013, p. 376). Total hours of observation were therefore approximately 300 hours. That being said, reported observations are restricted in scope to how they connect to interview data in order to protect the organizations and individuals involved, and so they ought to be conceptualized within this study as subordinate to the interview findings, and in turn guided by them.

Documents and Organizational Statements

While the other two previously described methods of fleshing out the case of Geering Up involves responses to stimuli (in the case of interviews) or with varying degrees of researcher obtrusiveness (in the case of observation and participation), document analysis enables me to

8 VSB outreach activities are workshops and camps that take place in VSB schools in the Vancouver area, and are distinct from Indigenous community outreach, which takes place in the communities themselves. That being said, in particular instances, VSB schools can have a significant number of Indigenous students.

64 examine the meaning behind curated messages that are purposefully shared by the organization and other justifiably related organizations (Johanson and Williamson, 2013, p. 424). That is to say, the provide a depiction of the context of the other forms of data (Bowen, 2009), which crucially includes how the organization at hand seeks to operate and touches on external factors that influence these operations.

In addition to providing a perspective to understand what context and stated intentions are behind attempts to indigenize education and how these intentions may or may not synthesize with the organizational messages behind their digital technology education initiatives, they also are a means of identifying potential breakdowns and inconsistencies between the organization’s employees perceptions of the work, its practices, and the stated goals and intentions that convey a forward-facing image to the broader community. Therefore, fulfilling an additional role as both an additional source of research data as well as verifying other sources of data (Bowen, 2009).

I focused on two organizational sources for document analysis: 1) Geering Up and 2)

Actua, the latter of which whose goals and intentions set the context for their network members, including Geering Up. In this study, the types of documents that I focused on are:

a) web pages from each organization’s website that convey the goals intentions of the programs, e.g. mission statements, b) web pages from each organization’s website that convey organizational practices and programs, and c) media releases from each organization’s website that announce noteworthy events and milestones.

For each of the web pages (a and b above), due to the relatively small number of them given the restricted sample analyzed, I elected to analyze all of them, resulting in 8 total pages to be analyzed.

For the media releases, I initially screened the articles for relevance to the primary topics of examination in this case study. A paper is excluded if 1) it is not relevant to work with

65 Indigenous communities, AND 2) it is not relevant to ICT education. I also time restricted the articles to include only articles published after January 1st, 2016, which is the year that British

Columbia announced its provincial focus on increasing ICT educational access at the K-12 grade level (Lehmann, 2016; Shaw, 2016). This resulted in a total of 51 documents analyzed, which ranged in length from around 100 words to around 2500 words.

SOURCE OF DOCUMENT NUMBER OF DOCUMENTS Geering Up Website 8 Documents Actua Program 11 Documents Descriptions Actua Blogging 5 Documents Actua Media Releases 25 Documents Other Actua Report/Media 2 Documents Table 3-4: Supporting Document Analysis

Data Analysis

As specified within the selected framework, I used a Straussian style grounded theory analysis that prescribes a formal coding procedure consisting of open/initial coding, axial coding, and selective coding (Strauss, 1987). I will first present the preparation and handling of each data source, specifying the analytical approach used. Then, I will present the actual data analysis procedure as specified by (Strauss, 1987), and how they were handled during the analysis phase.

Semi-Structured Interviews

Upon return to my home institutions following the field study portion, I transcribed the audio from the semi-structured interviews into text files for the purpose of analysis. This resulted in approximately 30 hours of transcribed audio. Interview audio and transcripts were labelled via

66 a code so as to protect the identities of the participant in the PI’s file system (when anonymity was requested). The code-sheet that links participant name and contact information is stored on two separate locations: a password-encrypted external hard drive that remains in the PI’s private residence, and a password-encrypted flash drive that remains with the PI at all times.

Anonymized audio files are also stored at these two locations, as well as on the private computer of the PI and PSU’s secured Box repository, for online backup. Notebooks that hold observational data are kept in the PI’s private residence as well.

Observations of Practice

The extensive field notes I took during the 2-month field study portion were reviewed upon return to my home institution, following preliminary analyses of the semi-structured interview data. As subservient to the interview data, I did not independently code these notes, treating them instead as contextualizing information for interviews and document analysis, orienting me towards a deeper understanding of the semi-structured interview findings.

Therefore, they are not included in the grounded theory analysis.

Document Analysis

After collection of the previously specified document selection criteria (composed of web pages and media clippings), the printed documentation was stored on a file on my private, password-protected computer. They were then analyzed using the aforementioned grounded theory analysis independent of the other sources, with an eye towards the document’s abilities to provide context for the other sources of data as well as identify potential breakdowns, contradictions, and opportunities for corroboration.

67 Application of the Straussian Grounded Theory Coding Process

Strauss (1987) describes coding within his grounded theory method as seeking to accomplish several goals, including 1) leading to generative questions from the data; 2) fracturing the data, supporting abstraction at higher levels; 3) enabling the discovery of categories; 4) enabling an ultimate integration of the entire analysis; and 5) yielding desired conceptual density.

By following the open coding → axial coding → selective coding process, the hope is that the researcher accomplishes each of these goals through analyzing the data, emerging with a cohesive integration across multiple core categories with a requisite density of relationships and internal development between and within those categories Braun & Clarke's (2006) description of thematic analysis likewise bears useful recommendations for conducting grounded theory analysis, especially since they point out that grounded theory is commonly used as a means of thematic analysis (as it is applied here), that lessens its theoretical boundedness and requirements of offering an ultimate theory grounded in the data. Grounded theory, when applied in this manner, becomes a distinct form of thematic analysis, where we can consider the categories in grounded theory to be a form of theme identification where themes are “a pattern of shared meaning, organized around a core concept or idea, a central organizing concept” (Braun, Clarke,

Hayfield, & Terry, 2018, p. 3).

As previously described, I only conducted grounded theory coding procedures over the semi-structured interview data and the document analysis data, leaving the observational data as a sensitizing data set outside of formal coding procedures, yet undeniably influential of them. I will now break down the analytical steps, as they manifested during the analysis in this study.

Before the actual coding procedure, I sought to familiarize myself with the data by reading through each document or interview. This is in line with the recommendation of Braun &

Clarke (2006), as step 1 of their 6-step process of conducting thematic analysis. A pre-reading of

68 the data yielded a broad, high-level impression of the data, and oriented me towards certain phenomena prior to the start of formal coding.

The open coding procedure prescribes the goal of producing an “emergent set of categories” (Glaser, 1978, p. 56) from the data, and in turn leading to generative questions and ideas for sampling further that can influence next step analyses as well as potentially further data collection. Admittedly, this analysis phase was seeded by sensitivity to the postcolonial context of the organization as well as a particular interest in ICTs, as suggestive of the a priori positioning of the scholar within a Straussian grounded theory tradition. An example of this in my case was that I conducted follow up interviews with several members of Geering Up) based on a generative questioning of the ICTs in this practice: it was initially unclearly stated to what degree cultural integration practices were being extended to ICTs, which lead to the development of follow-up interview questions to maximize conceptual density at later points of the analysis. This response was also an instance of the constructive and active-researcher nature of the overall framework, as my own awareness of ICTs as well as the increasing social interest in Canada in ICT education made these themes prominent, motivating a constructive process of exploring the knowledge and awareness of Geering Up employees with regards to this challenging issue. Furthermore, I did not think deeply about cohesion between the categories and concepts identified at this stage, although ideas for broader relationally defined categories that comprise multiple initial emergent themes began to develop. I conducted this open coding procedure separately between both the interviews and documents, which although conducted independently (i.e. they were conducted in separate analysis files), I did not strictly separate the thoughts and ideas they produced, allowing for shared initial, emergent themes between different data sources.

Once a series of emergent themes or codes were identified, they were connected together in various ways, identifying a series of ‘axes’ based on shared properties between the themes

(Strauss, 1987, p. 64). This integration moved the analysis into a higher level of abstraction. For

69 instance, the notion of navigating cultural distance emerged across several categories, connected by a property of employees and community members speaking to the Indigenous-Western cultural distance that is exacerbated by cultural integration educational practices. This step captured a refining of focus, as progression toward core categories began to emerge from the data. Once again, I maintained a separation of analysis between the interview and document data

(that is to say, their analyses were confined to separate analysis files), but allowed ideas to be shared between them, lending themselves to supporting a cohesive final step that brought categories together not just within particular data sources, but also across different data sources.

Finally, the themes identified through the axial coding were brought under more well- defined core categories, where remaining categories were brought under these core categories, which were in turn adapted to fit a broader set of observed phenomena. One example of this that is reflected in the structure of the findings is the placement of cultural distance navigation as an aspect emergent within the actual process of cultural integration, which speaks to challenges in culture, but also other themes that impact the progression of the practice, such as the impact of personal identity on how employees approached their work. The goal here was to move towards an ultimate integral analysis, which largely bears out the aforementioned structure in the findings presented here. While interview data drove the final selective coding step, the results of the axial coding procedure from the documents were related to the core categories identified.

That description of the process being said, there are several notable shortcomings in my application that became apparent once I had an opportunity for reflection following the initial reporting of the study. While I will cover these shortcomings in greater detail in Chapter 8’s

“Methodological Limitations”, I can preview them by stating I was somewhat non-committal about certain key analytical decisions posited by (Braun & Clarke, 2006) that connect a study’s goals and data collection methods to analytical styles for cohesion, the outcome of which is once again a degree of framework-analytical mismatch, and a challenge with achieving desired

70 conceptual density. In essence though, this study sought to use a grounded theory analytical method to explore and depict a large amount of data gathered while the researcher was still coming to grips with the context and appropriate approaches to the phenomenon, and so this shortcoming, although notable, is an undeniable aspect of attempting to manage these challenges.

Researcher Positionality

Informed by the approach taken by Wyche, Dillahunt, Simiyu, & Alaka (2015), I reflexively describe myself at the outset of this research in order to clearly state a) my cultural context of origin, b) my perspective of the topics relevant to the study based on my personal history (informed by my context of upbringing and lived daily experiences), and c) illustrate the limitations I may have in interpreting data in a way that does service to the differences I bear in relation to my research participants, which is particularly important for any grounded theory approach (Bowen, 2009; Mills, Bonner, & Francis, 2006). I am a cisgender male Filipino-

American born and raised by Filipino immigrants in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in a rural town. I was educated throughout my life in Western institutions, and was raised with an awareness of the long-term issues that colonialism has presented in the Philippines, passed down to me through my parents. As such, I cannot claim to have first-hand knowledge of the cultural outlook of the First Nations peoples in Canada, although I take into this study my own experiences with being borne from a colonized people.

Additionally, taking a postcolonial perspective, I am admittedly oriented towards a more probing examination of the educational program and existing hegemonies defining ICTs and more broadly STEM. I do not hide my biases to be more critical of Western sources as it fits my lived experiences as a man of colonized identity but nonetheless raised within a Western cultural context. That being said, I likewise do not close the door on casting a light in both directions of

71 the Indigenous-Western divide, or that there is value in what is offered by the educational program at the center of my case study. To mitigate my own potential biases and ensure that I am able to deliver a balanced interpretation of the data, I worked closely with my advisor to ensure that my interpretations were still well-reasoned and justified.

Acknowledging and Mitigating Limitations on Cultural Know-How

To mitigate the limitations that I have with regards to the cultural context of the sites included in this study, I built relationships with Indigenous scholars at UBC and Indigenous community members in K’omoks First Nation. Having spent a reasonable amount of time with

Indigenous scholars in both sites (in particular James Shaw, whose import in this study cannot be overstated), they provided me the necessary cultural perspectives on the research that I am lacking. Communication continued post-study with both Mr. Shaw and Ms. Everson, and writing intended for publication has been sent to them to validate that, indeed, writing is adequately reflective of their perspectives.

72 Chapter 4

Report of Findings from STEM Educational Outreach Case Study

In this section, I report the empirical findings from the field study period. I begin with an introduction to the results of the grounded theory coding, specifically the core themes that represent the structure of this chapter and its properties. Then, I move into the actual central themes, first with a description of the context of Geering Up, in particular the geo-political and organizational foundation, and the motivations and valuations behind Geering Up and Actua’s work with Indigenous communities. Next, I present a process-driven perspective of Geering Up’s outreach team’s operations, which forms the operational context of a descriptive exploration of cultural integration of STEM education as perceived and undertaken by Geering Up staff and members of K’omoks First Nation, as well as other community members. Then, I extend this discussion of the process to the challenges of factors that influence the shape and form of customization, including the challenges associated with delivering Geering Up’s conception of a customized program for Indigenous communities. Finally, I narrow the scope of vision to the ICT educational perspectives within STEM outreach.

Grounded Theory Coding Results as Structuring the Findings

As previously stated, the selective coding process resulted in a set of core categories that defined the structure of the presented findings. These core categories are 1) the context and foundations of Geering Up and its work in cultural integration in STEM educational outreach; 2) organizational factors in the process of cultural integration; and 3) integration of Indigenous cultural material into ICT education. While the first two of these core categories can be viewed as results that stem from a somewhat balance between coding that emerged from the data and the

73 researcher’s a priori theoretical and contextual sensitivities, the last core category (ICT education) was much more informed by the connection to the postcolonial computing framework as a selected priority of the examination, before any data was actually collected.

The context and foundations of Geering Up and its cultural integration activities consist of categories linked by being foundational, in terms of their temporal relationship to the actual process of integration itself. In other words, this core category lays out the precursors to Geering

Up’s activities. This manifests within the analysis across two broad categories: first, through the depiction of the geo-political context that surrounds Geering Up (although this presentation was not the result of direct coding so much as preparatory research, included in the findings to foreground the context of the subsequent themes); second, the motivations undergirding the cultural integration practice by Geering Up. Overall, this core category relies on a semantic reading of both documentation and participant response, as opposed to a latent view which seeks to more deeply explore the hidden meaning behind these utterances (Braun et al., 2018, p. 11).

Factors that define how process of cultural integration proceeds as a process form the most prominent core of this analysis, incorporating the largest range of categories. This core theme was produced as depicting the various challenges that the employees and community members reported, with added interpretation of these depictions from direct researcher observation of Geering Up’s practices. This included the previously described challenges with navigating cultural distance, which acted at multiple levels, the primacy and challenges with building relationships between Geering Up and communities, navigating the difficulty identity issues that emerged in crossing the cultural and colonial border necessitated by these practices, and the necessary aspects of engaging local practices and local ecologies. In sum, these categories are thought to present an in-depth illustration of what organization’s like Geering Up encounter in their attempts to conduct STEM educational outreach at the colonial border today. This core category likewise relies primarily on a semantic reading of what was reported by Geering Up

74 staff and community members, although deeper interpretation (such as gleaning an anxiety) necessitated connection to personal observation as well as viewing between the lines of utterances, thereby hinting at a latent perspective.

The final presented core theme concerns the placement of ICT education within the cultural integration imperative as undertaken by Geering Up. This core theme represents a bit of an oddity compared to the other two, whereby its composition was driven by a focus evaluation of the data stemming from a pre-selected theoretical perspective, specifically postcolonial computing. Treated as a sensitizing perspective for the axial and selective coding stages, driven by explicit questioning of ICTs in STEM education, this core category sought to capture the current state of cultural integration into ICT education through themes of resource availability, examining and co-constructing the epistemological challenges to the possibility, and ultimately, the imaginations and future views that appear to define the current state overall. In this sense, while the other two core categories are driven by a bit more of an inductive perspective, a forced exploration of ICTs within this data set was much more theoretical and deductive (Braun &

Clarke, 2006), which fortunately is supported by the Straussian grounded theory (Halaweh et al.,

2008). This reading of the data was also primarily semantic as opposed to latent, focusing on explicitly reported ideas.

There is however an inherent difficulty in the reading of the data as largely semantic, and in turn essentialist, due to its conflict with the constructivist orientation of the overall case study framework as prescribed by Merriam (Merriam, 1998; Yazan, 2015). For more on this shortcoming, please see Chapter 8’s “Methodological Limitations.”

75 Context and Foundations of Geering Up Organization

The Geo-Political Context of Geering Up: British Columbia

British Columbia as the provincial region of Geering Up represents a relatively unique geo-political situation with regards to its First Nations peoples. The most influential set of treaties between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian provincial and federal governments were the

“Numbered Treaties” which negotiated the surrender of Indigenous lands for the purpose of settlement and resource extraction (R. H. Bartlett, 1978; Filice, 2016), covering a large swath of modern day Canada. However, these treaties did not cover a large portion of British Columbia

(save for a section of northeast British Columbia that is covered under Treaty #8) (J. R. Miller,

2009), meaning that today, the province must recognize that the territories of the First Nations communities in the province are ‘unceded,’ and therefore settler communities and institutions are in principle being hosted as guests. UBC therefore exists on unceded Musqueam land, and is as a matter of principle referenced as an opening to many meetings or events in the form of a land acknowledgement, (for example, "I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered today on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people" (UBC Life Team, 2017)).

For its part, UBC makes a concerted effort to acknowledge the relationship they have to the

Musqueam Indian Band and more broadly Indigenous peoples through small reminders such as bilingual street signs (English and Musqueam) and larger institutional centres such as the Indian

Residential School History and Dialogue Centre.

As is the case for many Indigenous communities in North America, the borders that exist between Indigenous communities in British Columbia and the enveloping Western cultural environment can be considered ‘soft’: the migration of people, knowledge, values, and technologies takes place almost seamlessly, to the point where passing a border entering or

76 exiting an Indigenous community feels akin to entering a city or town centre as opposed to a true trans-national border crossing. These soft borders today are a direct consequence of the geo- politics of colonization in North America, covering any number of past and ongoing practices including forced relocation and explicit policies that limit the political autonomy of Indigenous peoples. This has resulted in many shared norms, values, and technologies.

The Indigenous reserves in British Columbia are examples of this, existing as relatively small pockets within the province where the border entering and exiting the nation can seem almost invisible. While many communities work in their own ways to protect, further, and revitalize their own distinctive cultural practices, the influences are obvious: English is the predominant language, formal schooling follows Western models, and routine use of ICTs is the norm. As a connected community, the influence of technology on day-to-day life was directly observable on K’omoks First Nation. The spread of STEM and ICTs migrates the associated knowledges, and it was within this migration of knowledge that Geering Up and Actua conceptualized their mission.

Motivations and Valuations of Indigenous Program Customization

In understanding STEM education programs that cross the post-colonial bounds, given the history of education in Canada, it is valuable to explore the motivations and valuations behind this initiative, inclusive of the broader scale of the parent organization down to the on-the-ground educators who seek to implement not just their own organization’s mission, but the mission of the parent organization as well. Here I present those motivations and valuations from document analysis and interviews, focusing on themes that speak to what mindsets underlie the development of STEM educational outreach with Indigenous communities today.

77 The Canadian Workforce: Access and Underrepresentation

Website pages and media release published or shared by the parent organization Actua made a focus on the Canadian workforce as a primary motivator of Indigenous outreach education. For instance, the very first description’s from Actua’s About page lays out these foundations of career choice and workforce readiness:

“Our world is changing fast. We don’t know what the jobs of the future will be, but what we do know is that foundational skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) will help prepare youth for any career path they choose to pursue.“

“Actua is a national charity that is preparing youth, age 6-26, to be innovators and leaders by engaging them in exciting and accessible STEM experiences that build critical employability skills and confidence.” ~Actua – About Webpage

The focus on preparing students for a workforce is couched in a sense of empowerment for students they reach, with the associated focus on the development of critical skills. The conception of critical skills for students included a focus on maintaining pace with a fast-moving workforce, such as this excerpt from Actua’s Future Skills Program introduction:

“So what are future skills are what [sic] people need to enter and succeed in the global workforce?

1. Digital skills and literacy: Every job now and in the future will require at least a basic level of digital skills and literacy.

2. Adaptability and flexibility: As technology evolves, employees must be able to adjust to new conditions, expectations, and skillsets in the workplace.

3. Critical thinking: With automation taking over more remedial tasks in the workplace, people will have the opportunity to exercise more creativity, critical thinking, and decision making.

4. Leadership skills: Leadership in helping and inspiring others to take on new issues and develop solutions.” ~Actua Programs– Future Skills

Actua strongly tied skills to innovation, and fostering that ability for students to employ digital literacy skills towards this end:

78 “It’s not just computer engineers and computer scientists who use digital skills in their work. Whether you are a writer, a graphic artist, a dancer or musician – digital skills will be essential and will drive future opportunities to innovate and disrupt in these fields. Digital literacy is a new literacy and all youth, regardless of background, geography, gender or socio-economic status, should have the opportunity to be empowered to create new technologies to make their world a better place.” ~Actua Programs – Digital Skills

This was even connected to broader movements in computing, such as the progression of artificial intelligence:

“While youth interact with AI on a daily basis, AI concepts are not yet embedded into Canada’s elementary and high school curricula. In order for youth to be prepared for the jobs of today and tomorrow, they need foundational digital skills and literacy, which now includes understanding and applying AI. AI education not only gets students to think critically about their personal interactions with everyday technology, but also how they can leverage AI to solve global challenges.” ~Actua Programs – Digital Skills AI Handbook

Actua further connected innovation in digital technologies to Indigenous and aboriginal youth in their media releases:

“So do Actua and Google. Codemakers is a three-year project developed by Google engineers and Actua experts that will transform the way youth engage with computer science. The program has an ambitious goal: to inspire more than 100,000 young Canadians, including girls and young women, Aboriginal youth and youth facing socio-economic challenges, to become the computer science builders and innovators of tomorrow.” ~Post by Jennifer Flanagan, President & CEO, Actua

The workforce motivation from the higher level perspective of Actua was built upon the foundations of skill development and underrepresentation in STEM disciplines, informed by known resource divides that continue to affect Indigenous communities. They did also delve into promoting their integration of cultural practices within STEM lessons, such as this excerpt from a media release about using throat-singing practices as a way of teaching digital storytelling:

“Throat singing is how we can pass on the traditions of our past.” Nelson told me as he helped the children mix and digitize the stories they shared in song. “By learning to code and remixing our voices, these kids have created something that’s new and totally amazing but still rooted in our culture. And we can now share it with the world.” ~Post by Jennifer Flanagan, President & CEO, Actua

79 While much of this tends to appear like more-or-less boilerplate material (in that this focus is to be expected of a large scale educational organization like Actua), it does suggest that the primary conception of value at the higher levels of the organizational chart are strongly attached to the state of the workforce, and its concerns, whether they be representation of minorities or on the ability of students across demographics to fulfill them. Actua did however connect their work to the potential for Indigenous innovations, especially within digital technologies.

Of note from the analysis of the documentation that was shared on Actua’s website was what was not as prominent as the themes of workforce, skill development, and cultural integration with STEM: discussion of colonization and its ongoing impacts on the Indigenous communities of Canada (and many others worldwide). Additionally, the high level of Actua’s understanding renders many of these valuations potentially distinct from educators and administrators that are closer to the action.

Reconciliation and Colonization as Motivations

With the findings and calls-to-action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of

Canada (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015a, 2015b) still fresh in the collective consciousness of the nation, many of the staffers pointed to the fit of Geering Up’s cross-cultural educational outreach activities as fitting within the broader reconciliation narrative.

The outreach coordinator backgrounded the TRC’s calls-to-action with her impression of

Canada’s history of oppression, a perspective lacking in Actua’s self-portrayal:

“Well, I think, you know the history of Canada, I think there's been a lot of people that have been discriminated against, their cultures sort of erased, things like that. But especially in BC, a lot of our Indigenous communities are very strong and have held onto their own culture, and I think the whole creation of this country, in some ways, was kind of stemmed from their own culture, and ways of

80 knowing. So I think it's just important that, especially Canada right now, that we need to follow the TRC's calls-to-action, and give opportunities to everyone, and recognize everyone's knowledge.” ~GU10

Other senior staffers at GU likewise cited the movement towards reconciliation in their own valuations of their program. While the relationship between education and colonization that formed the key component of the TRC’s report, in particular the residential school system, the student from K’omoks First Nation pointed out that the impacts of colonization on her community are much broader:

“How do you know about the potlatch ban if you've never been taught about it? Yes, you hear about residential schools, but that's it, right? And a lot of institutions like elementary school and middle school, you get the run-down on elementary schools. It's not potlatch ban, it's not Indian act, it's not land claims, repatriation, missing and murdered Indigenous women, enfranchisement act, the red paper, the white paper, you can go on and on and on, but it's left to the residential schools because “oh the kids and the institutions and that created a lot of cycles of abuse”, which is true, and we see it today on our reserves. But there's so many other factors, and other laws and policies and things wrong today that are still oppressing Indigenous peoples, but we don't talk about it, because we're willfully blind. If it's not my problem, then it's not my problem. I don't have to think about it. And everyone does that to some extent. Why would I care about the wars in some country if I'm not a part of it. But what makes it crazy is that, it's local. It's always local. The Indigenous people are the first peoples of the land. Why wouldn't it be a priority, for at least schools, to make it known.” ~KFN1

Here, the education system as a whole is taken to task. While the education system is fixating on its own role in colonization through the residential school system (which Keisha clarifies is valuable still), what education still does not necessarily handle effectively is the broader view of colonization and the west’s ongoing role in it. This coheres with Actua’s documentation that, while ostensibly empowering in its tone, does not directly deal with the broader view of colonization, and in turn, mitigating the potential for their network members, including outreach, to play a role in educating people and students about ongoing colonial oppression.

81 Towards that end, with the knowledge that suppression or extermination of Indigenous ways-of-knowing was a consequence of colonization, Geering Up staffers also conceptualized the value of their cross-cultural educational outreach in terms of an awareness of these practices, particularly with regards to STEM practiced by Indigenous communities. One senior staffer put it succinctly:

“[…] I think a big motivation is realizing and trying to rectify the fact that Indigenous ways of knowing have been suppressed, and been labelled, and I'm not quoting anyone, but maybe it's been labelled as not legitimate, and that the Western way, the empirical, scientific way of thinking is the way to go.” ~GU7

In the words of another staffer, “science isn't something that the west invented.” It was certainly a point of emphasis in training, and staffers who mentioned this as an aspect of valuing cross-cultural educational outreach pointed to the importance of maintaining a balanced mindset with regards to the perspectives of STEM. Relatedly, another senior staffer spoke to the need to be aware of the possibility of viewing themselves as “white saviors”, spreading the privilege of

Western STEM to Indigenous communities commonly left outside its reach (bolding added for emphasis):

“[…] that we're trying to break away from the way we've approached things in history, and that we're supposed to learn from the other ways that these people have been treated, and even as an organization from UBC wanting to do Indigenous outreach, it can still be done wrong. Like, just because we're doing it doesn't make us great. We can do it in so many wrong ways that don't make us great. What makes us great, what makes us successful is how we do it and how the other people feel about what we're doing. It's not how we feel about what we're doing, it's not the self-fulfilling philanthropy that you're like “oh we're great, we're doing these great things.” It's so much less about that, it's less about us, and more about them, and the communities succeeding.” ~GU1

During engagements with communities, staffers therefore spoke to the importance of acknowledging the potential for privileging a Westernized STEM view over the STEM practices that had been present in practices with Indigenous communities for generations. It was a mindset that was regarded as essential to any notion of determining the value of their work, specifically how it can become non-valuable and downright harmful. In essence, while the TRC’s calls-to-

82 action represented an identifiable national-level artifact to motivate cross-cultural educational outreach (and the accompanying awareness and progressive motivations that this espoused in the organization and its staff), the actions of the organization could be seen as the implementation of the vision. It was however a vision that appeared to exist in tension with an awareness of Western

STEM promotion and implicitly continuing the epistemological violence of colonization.

Cultural Integration of STEM: A Process View

Geering Up’s educational services compose a much broader spectrum than purely the community outreach portion (this sub-group being the principal focus of the case study). There are roughly three geographic ranges of Geering Up’s workshops and camp: 1) on UBC’s campus, b) in the broader Vancouver area in conjunction with member schools of the Vancouver School

Board, and c) communities outside Vancouver area, which themselves can be in anywhere from other cities to remote communities with populations of just a few hundred. The different conditions of each regional focus require slight shifts in training and expertise. This was of course reflected in the outreach team whose primary educational focus is on Vancouver schools as well as communities external to the Vancouver area. As a university-based organization, their staff is almost entirely comprised of active or very recently active UBC students, generally drawn from the science and engineering fields of study, although one of the outreach team members was most recently pursuing a degree in education. Outreach team staff was explicitly vetted for the type of work they would do with Indigenous communities, including evaluations of their mindset with regards to the relationship between Western STEM education and STEM knowledge as it exists within Indigenous communities. Although in many cases outreach staff had begun working with

Geering Up on other teams outside of the outreach team, the outreach team was distinctive insofar as their engagement with communities involves significant travel, time away from home, and the

83 greater possibility of navigating unfamiliar cultural environments (something that they were trained for through the variety of cultural sensitivity and awareness trainings each outreach instructor experiences).

The outreach team handles its planning and logistics internally, using a rotating staff of the more experienced members of the Geering Up team that are not currently deployed in the field on outreach activities, in addition to the outreach coordinator herself (who seldom has the chance to visit the communities themselves). The process of building a relationship with a community generally begins with Geering Up reaching out to the band office via email or telephone, briefly introducing what Geering Up does and what it can offer their community in terms of educational outreach. While communities may reach out to Geering Up to begin the process themselves (possibly by hearing about Geering Up’s work with other First Nations communities or through university media), typically Geering Up begins the process with this initial invitation. At this point, it is generally the responsibility of the communities to respond to

Geering Up’s inquiry.

Geering Up usually offers their services free-of-charge to Indigenous communities, although the actual means by which outreach workshops and camps are covered can vary. For some communities the camps are covered by Geering Up’s own funding drawn from more profitable camps such as those conducted right on UBC’s campus or from corporate sponsorships for the whole of Geering Up. Other community’s funding can also be covered by corporate sponsorships that are negotiated between Geering Up, the community, and that company. For instance, Actua lists Google Inc., Microsoft Inc., and Lockheed Martin, to name a few, as external

Actua supporters at the time of this writing. Additionally, the Government of Canada and non- profit foundations like The McCain Foundation all were listed as supporters as well.

Corporate sponsors did not always have positive relationships with the communities, which employees reported has led to painful interactions in the past: one community ended its

84 relationship for Geering Up for several years due to a disagreement with one of Geering Up’s sponsors. Thus, while sponsorship is a welcome way to cover expenses of Indigenous outreach, it is a difficult space to negotiate given the complexity and unpredictability of many of the relationships that communities have with regards to corporate interests.

Building the relationship at this early stage typically involves the trading of emails and teleconferencing to establish what Geering Up can offer (in greater depth) in terms of their STEM educational offerings, coordination and scheduling, and what the community itself is interested in. According to Geering Up staff, logistics was an organizational bottleneck at times, as even once interest in hosting a camp is stated, communities are not always responsive to follow-up organizing queries from Geering Up. I personally observed the arrangement of housing for educators in the community during a camp butting up within one week of the actual camp, which was a source of stress for staffers handling logistics (although staffers were relatively accustomed to coordination issues like this). One staffer who was significantly responsible for logistics voiced many of these challenges of communication and navigating the particulars of the local context:

“[…] it's happened where we booked something early in the summer and then we show up in August and then they don't expect us. Nothing is booked…so if I can book things and make sure, and get in touch with them the week before to make sure things are set, I think that makes us feel more comfortable. The really remote ones, I mean, if it's some place where you don't get there by conventional means, like “there's a little boat” that comes by every morning and picks people up, if they're able to communicate that too us, that's usually really helpful. Or like, “bring cash for this boat”, I don't know, things like that, that are obvious to people who live there.” ~GU3

Additionally, knowing who to contact within each community for the purpose of logistics could be a moving target, as people moved in and out of positions sometimes unpredictably, as well as optimal means of contacting them (e.g. a preferred office phone number) likewise could shift without warning. While commonly Geering Up would commonly interface with a community education coordinator (or someone with an analogous position), the primary contact person would vary from community to community, ranging from educational administrators like

85 a principal at the local school all the way to motivated community members without explicit office in the band council. The process of building serviceable relationships with the over 20 First

Nations communities in British Columbia was, for all of these reasons, an impressive feat that took place across multiple years through a rotating and ever-changing staff.

It is in surmounting these challenges in the stage of relationship building and camp and workshop logistics that the meaning of a ‘customized’ program first comes to be realized, as per

Actua’s description of Geering Up’s services:

Figure 4-1: Excerpt from Actua's website describing Geering Up's commitment to Indigenous students.

This description as it is presented here is one that is shared across the vast majority of

Actua’s network member universities, indicative of a broader imperative for educational programming that is in line with individual community interests. Towards that end, building a customized program begins with establishing these relationships with communities insofar as it allows staff to work with communities in planning not just logistics (such as housing) and administrative communication channels that work for each individual community, but also allows them to identify the shape and form of STEM educational outreach that is in line with each community’s interests. Customization is the broad view of tailoring Geering Up’s services to a community’s overall needs and interests.

86 One form of educational customization is in the form of which services are ultimately selected. Geering Up’s services to Indigenous communities are not strongly distinguished from the other rural communities that they service, which includes day-long workshops, week-long camps, and professional-development (Pro-D) geared towards training teachers in the local school systems. For workshops and camps, their primary students range quite significantly in age, all the way from kindergarten through high school, and depending upon the number of students in total, can be separated into multiple different age groups, e.g. ‘Juniors’ (elementary school) and

‘Seniors’ (middle and high school). Workshops comprise single day-long outreach events where various topics selected by the host community or school are taught. Camps, by contrast, are typically a week-long engagement across multiple days, once again teaching various STEM topics selected by the community.

More recently, their offering has evolved to include ‘land-based’ learning in a slightly different form of camp that explicitly connects STEM learning with a place. It is, in the eyes of

Actua, one of the key tenets of Indigenous learning:

“Building on the premise that Indigenous people have always known about STEM and that land-based learning is Indigenous learning, high school students that participate in for-credit land camps and in-school land-based courses, gain high school credits. Undergraduate instructors (Indigenous whenever possible) deliver additional STEM content that is integrated with the land-based learning. Students emerge with renewed pride in their Indigenous identity and appreciation for the value of their unique Indigenous perspectives. They show increased confidence in their ability to succeed in school and increased interest in pursuing further studies and careers in STEM.” ~About InSTEM

Land-based learning is, in the eyes of Actua, a style of teaching that is more tightly integrated with Indigenous cultural outlooks. This has been further reinforced on a broader provincial level with the move towards land-based coursework contributing to school credit within the Canadian school system.

The integration of land-based learning into the services for select and interested communities illustrates a staged relationship with communities: customization does not

87 necessarily seek to engage Indigenous cultural practices or materials in their services, but is a broader view that adjusts the program to a community’s needs and the pragmatic considerations of working with that community, e.g. scheduling or working through community-specific transportation for instructors. The trend towards closer integration with communities at the time of the field study in 2019 included the integration of local knowledge from the Indigenous communities that they work with into their STEM curricula, leading to a more culturally aware reading of their own STEM lessons. The question of can we better integrate our STEM education with a community’s cultural practices became an operating principle, most notably leading to the hiring of an Indigenous outreach student assistant, whose primary role was building and developing relationships with the communities in service to developing lessons that integrate cultural practices in a cohesive manner with STEM content. The relationship between program customization and cultural integration is a transition that takes place along a gradient, where increasing a relationship based on service to a community’s particular needs opens the door to more complex forms of engagement that build not just on pragmatic and logistic considerations, but also cultural aspirations.

During the field study, I spent considerable time working alongside the Indigenous outreach student assistant, becoming familiar with their cultural work with First Nations communities in their service range. It is during this time that I observed that Geering Up’s work did not quite achieve the threshold of what would be considered ‘indigenization’ in the traditional sense, given the lack of Indigenous voice and vision internal to the organization itself. As such, cultural integration, as a somewhat lesser expectation of engagement with Indigenous culture emerged post-study as the appropriate framing of Geering Up’s activities.

Thus, during the time of the field study, I explored the theoretical transition from customization to cultural integration, working to establish closer working relationships in service to Geering Up’s goals as well as the research goals of exploring cultural integration in STEM and

88 ICTs. At the same time, exploration of the perceptions of cultural integration of STEM curriculum was explored with the Geering Up staff, yielding collectively several main factors that influence the shape and form of cultural integration as implemented by Geering Up in its current state. Here I report those factors, as well as the associated challenges that accompany those primary factors in integrating Western and Indigenous ideas in informal STEM education.

Navigating and Crossing Cultural Distance

The cultural distance that exists between Indigenous communities and Geering Up’s educators and administrators was observable and echoed by staffers and community members at multiple levels, especially as it influences the organization’s ability to deliver a truly customized experience for Indigenous communities. I categorized these distances at two levels: a) between

Geering Up and the communities, and b) between Western and Indigenous STEM practices. Here

I present these levels in turn.

Cultural Distance between Geering Up and Communities

The outreach team did not have significant Indigenous representation despite their focus on servicing Indigenous communities, a fact that has been historical for them (insofar as it has been this way for Geering Up throughout the organization’s history), as well as an ongoing source of consternation. When asked to think somewhat critically of their own and Geering Up’s practices, especially with regards to cultural integration and its challenges, Geering Up staff acknowledged their own lack of cultural knowledge when it comes to the communities they work with. When asked about the challenges of cultural integration, one staffer acknowledged their limitations and experiences:

89 “Once you're started, you can always get inspiration and ideas from other people. But when you're sitting there with a blank page, and they say “I want you to connect chemistry, I want you to make a lesson”, and you're like “who does that relate?” Especially not coming from that, the biggest challenge is not having that background. I don't have experiences to draw from, surrounding Indigenous knowledge and culture and ways-of-knowing. It's coming from nowhere, and I don't want to just fabricate these connections that don't exist. I want them to be real and authentic, and I want them to be honest, and sometimes you just have to admit you don't know.” ~GU1

This staffer continued to describe her awareness as related to a fear of mistaken connections within STEM, and of overreaching the bounds of her own knowledge:

“I'd be afraid if it was inauthentic or I wasn't able to create a successful curriculum, I'd give more people a negative view of science than a positive one. And at least I want to keep the view neutral! If I'm not going to have a more positive view, I at least don't want it to go downhill.” ~GU1

The consequences that this staffer feared of overstepping their own cultural knowledge limitations was that of compromising the integrity of the relationship between the organization and the community. For one senior staffer who had been with Geering Up for several years, navigating the cultural distance in making lessons ‘culturally relevant’ was an ongoing challenge, necessitating a trial-and-error approach:

“I think ever since I started, even when I was the Sponsorship coordinator, there already, like we would always put in our applications “culturally relevant” content, so it's always been there in, like, words. I mean, I don't know how well it was put into practice, I still don't know how well, or are putting it into practice. There was definitely some…I mean, not just in content, but also in communicating with different communities, there are things that come in around being more culturally aware, and I think those things we learned by making mistakes and then figuring out how to do better.” ~GU3

They continued to extend this fear of overstepping to the necessary contribution of community members (e.g. elders), and also crucially that, without this community engagement, that their activities ought to be restricted to just “the science part of it”:

“In terms of content, I think it really got big, like, we would always be trying, but then it'd be like “oh, I don't know where we can”…like, we wouldn't want to be overstepping our own expertise or our place, so usually we would be having, we would be brainstorming, and we'd be like “oh, we're on the land, maybe we can talk about, like, smokehouses” or this or that. But we wouldn't be bringing in the

90 culture piece unless there was an elder there. We would be just teaching the science part of it.” ~GU3

To just teach the “science part of it” was a point of indirect conflict between sources that were training Geering Up staff to work within Indigenous communities. This senior staffer recounted this conflict in the form of, within a short time span, receiving mixed messages during training, one from the manager of Actua who oversees Indigenous outreach (and is herself

Anishinaabe of Tootinaowaziibeng First Nation) and the other perspective from a UBC employee who conducts cultural awareness training through the University’s library system (herself non-

Indigenous):

“I […] have not reconciled in my mind what is okay for us to do. […] I think the perspective, literally for almost the same question, the answer I got from [UBC library employee] as someone who's also not Indigenous and working with Indigenous communities, was so different from the answer I got from [Actua manager], as an Indigenous person who works with other communities. Because I think, maybe [UBC library employee] empathizes a little bit more with that outsider feeling, because…so with [Actua manager] when we talked about the cultural significance things, she was like “oh, you can…well, she said try to bring in elders” which we obviously try, that's the ideal, right? And then she was like “oh, if you want to mention it, it's fine. Just do your research […]” ~GU5

On the one hand, the UBC library employee had strongly recommended that Geering Up stay away from cultural integration, as the cultural aspects of their work were not their specialty and that, if communities were interested in cultural content, they would have hired an organization to do it that can do it well, or themselves contributed it personally from within the community, with the implication being that this sort of activity was or ought to remain outside the scope of Geering Up’s services. Ironically, the manager at Actua, herself a person of Indigenous heritage, was much more open to the idea, and the trust involved in that process. It was, as you can imagine, a source of intense discomfort. They continues:

“And that makes me so intensely uncomfortable. I mean, regardless of how much research I do, I'm not a historian, I don't want to rely on whatever I think is sufficient research is…and I never want to be in a position where I'm teaching someone else their culture, right? And if I'm making an activity that's around a cultural activity, I would either want to kind of leave that cultural connection

91 kind of ambiguous, so I can be “oh, can you guys think of anything” and see if the kids can bring it in? But then, on the other hand, from what [Actua manager] was saying, that could also be, you're not…you're discounting that.” ~GU3

Further complicating the matter navigating cultural distance was the fact that, even within certain communities, cultural knowledge and cultural expertise (especially as those who can serve as a guide for cultural integration) can be difficult to assess. The teacher from K’omoks First

Nation described the level of cultural practices among communities as being variable:

“So…one thing that's important to remember is that, not every community, not every child in every community has a strong cultural backing or cultural experience, so it's always really important not to assume that a community is extremely cultural, or extremely not cultural, if that makes any sense. That, some communities have, have had that kind of embrace the colonizer experience, that are very removed from cultural teachings and cultural experiences. Or there's factions within the community that are, and other factions that aren't.” ~Keisha Everson

In some ways, this perception makes it difficult to ascertain the value of cultural integration of curriculum, given that cultural distance exists not just between the organization, but also internal to the communities. In this way, identifying which sources of cultural knowledge within a community appeared to itself be a loaded political decision, with the potential for alienating individuals and groups within those communities. The student from K’omoks First

Nation put this challenge in stark relief with regards to her own community:

“Yeah. So, to me, an elder is someone who is culturally knowledgeable, has been cultural, who is cultural, and passing down their teachings. What if it's just a really old Indigenous person? Are they an elder? They're old, but maybe they were…put in residential school and made to feel ashamed, so they never spoke their language since they were 6. And they are maybe Christian, or maybe they're catholic, and following those teachings, because it was beaten into them, right? Are they an elder? Are they culturally knowledgeable? Right? And then, I mean, you don't know. So how do you vet it? It's a lot of questions, right. If the community doesn't even know, how would someone from Geering Up know? Who wants to incorporate Indigenous [through] an Indigenous person, knowledge keeper, elder, to help? Right?” ~KFN1

Who is an elder, who is a keeper of knowledge, who has authority to culturally integrate curriculum is an anxiety not limited to the organization, but likewise appears to reflect the

92 internal structure of a community, both politically as well as socially. Towards the end of the field study period, when asked to reflect on some of the learnings from the time building relationships and working with communities, the Indigenous outreach student assistant corroborated this difficulty (albeit likely informed by his own work with the same community):

“So, over the summer I learned that there's, another thing that I learned is that there's a lot of politics within communities. And what I mean by politics is, pre- existing relationships that don't come up in website, that don't come up in one or two conversations with people in the community, that you learn from talking to multiple people in different positions, and these might span across communities, these might span between the nation and the communities that you visit.” ~GU5

The lack of cultural knowledge was further influenced by an awareness of the cultural differences that exist between communities, in particular the fear of pan-indigeneity in their curricular offerings. In this way, Geering Up’s large reach across multiple nations and the associated logistical challenges of this coverage produced significant limitations on how much time, energy, and overall resources could be dedicated to any individual community, but also exposed it to the risk of pan-indigeneity. In response to this, staffers emphasized taking the distinction between communities seriously when considering cultural integration:

“Well, I was going into it kind of thinking “oh we should connect everything back to what First Nations have done in the past”, and what they've done and the science behind that, but she made that point that it it's not necessarily because it's relevant to one First Nation community doesn't mean that it's relevant to another. And I think, I don't think I'd realized it as much in my head that I'd kind of been lumping them, I mean obviously not intentionally, but I think that kind of shifted my views…yeah, when you're trying to create a culturally relevant thing, it's hard because they don't all have the same culture. I don't know how to do that, because there's a lot of things that are specific to small towns, and I'm sure there's certain things you can maybe be general across multiple First Nations communities, but I think when you're there you kind of have to adjust the way you use the space, and the way that you're teaching to the group that you have, if that makes sense.” ~GU9

The challenge of connecting the broad coverage of educational outreach with the need for individual attention in cultural integration was laid out clearly by members of the community when responding to Geering Up’s initiative:

93 “Yeah, that's really tricky, because, especially in British Columbia, because we have…36 different languages, and a hundred and something odd different nations, that the cultural education you give here is not going to be the same that you would do even in Qualicum and Campbell River, that the cultures in those two areas are vastly different. In some parts in BC they could be very similar between two communities, but in others you're looking at languages, cultures, teachings…ecosystems that are totally different. So, I don't know how you do that, because I really hate the propensity in Indigenous education, and education in general, to pan-indigenize curriculum, like “oh, we're gonna make dreamcatchers and that's Indigenous”” ~Keisha Everson

Despite the challenge of handling pan-indigeneity, Geering Up staffers reinforced that, this across-community diversity lies close to the heart of the cultural integration initiative:

“And we know that each community has its own rich history, own cultures, own norms and things like that, and so that's why I think it's important to customize everything. Because we can't just say we're doing an “Indigenous” activity, that means nothing, right? Because each community has its own practices. Yeah, just making that relevant to all the different kids and different parts of the province, I guess.” ~GU10

While cultural integration is, at its heart, about embracing the diversity that exists between communities, it nonetheless presents practical challenges for an organization that maintains broad coverage across multiple different Indigenous communities. On top of handling the issue of limited representation within their own ranks, which appeared to limit their cultural capacity for any single community, the issue is multiplied when considering the multiple communities that they serve.

In summary, the cultural distance that exists between Geering Up and the communities that they serve spoke to many of the challenges that organizations must encounter, especially for organizations that work with multiple communities and each of their distinct and unique cultural contexts. While acknowledgement of their own lack of cultural knowledge in some sense indicates the lack of their own Indigenous representation, factors like the political nature of working with elders and knowledge keepers and the balance between broad geographic coverage and managing the diversity this entails speaks to the nature of the relationships to each community that Geering Up has, and that Indigenous representation itself does not capture the

94 full degree of complexity of cultural integration. It is ultimately an anxiety-laden process, with internal and external forces pushing and pulling them away from a) pursuing cultural integration, and b) their capacity to do it well and in a respectful manner.

Cultural Distance between Western and Indigenous STEM

Endemic to Geering Up’s cultural integration attempts were also managing the cultural distance that exists between epistemological perspectives: Western STEM and Indigenous STEM

(which constitutes the variety of different non-Western STEM epistemologies that are practiced by each Indigenous community). Cultural integration from the perspective of this set of relationships amounted to a delicate interplay between presenting the connections between

Indigenous STEM and Western STEM, and respecting the differences between these epistemological perspectives. This discourse captures a tension that exists in Geering Up’s cultural integration efforts: being aggressive with developing culturally integrated lessons, or being conservative in observance of the acknowledgement that Indigenous and Western STEM is distinct, and that sloppy conflation of epistemological views does little to produce a respectful curriculum.

Many of the staffers of Geering Up backgrounded the organizations work within the history of epistemological violence that occurred as a product and end-goal of colonization. The

Indigenous outreach coordinator conceptualized the goal of curriculum customization within a desire to illustrate the relevance of cultural background within today’s society and STEM:

“Creating curriculum is about showing the students in these rural, remote communities, or maybe urban communities that are also Indigenous, that what they've learned at home through their parents or elders or whatever, is still relevant to today's society.” ~ GU10

95 The implication of this statement was colonization’s rendering of cultural practices obsolete or unnecessary within the Western STEM world. The practice of cultural integration was therefore a way to connect Western STEM with Indigenous ways-of-knowing and Indigenous

STEM. Likewise, another operating component of valuing cultural integration was ownership of

STEM:

“[…] science isn't something that the west invented. It's a process that people had been doing for a millennia [sic], and we just, as we do, just formalized it into writing. […] I think that the point of having culturally relevant content is to be able to show people that what you already know is the same thing as what we're trying to teach. It's just we have different ways of communicating it.” ~GU3

Of import in this staffer’s conceptualization of Western and Indigenous STEMs is the notion that STEM knowledge is essentially the same, but perceived at different angles. This staffer connected this fact to Geering Up through their goals of supporting an Indigenous identity within their work, and that the organization seeks to connect the lived and community taught experiences to the Western STEM world, even in cases where it’s not readily apparent that these teachings constitute a form of STEM, and the benefits to STEM engagement this may entail:

“[…] kids talk to us about hunting and there's like biology that goes into that. You have all these skills and this knowledge, and there's definitely overlap […] I think that could be really help for the students who will hopefully start to see those connections, but also for STEM in general if those students end up actually pursuing it and coming into STEM fields, and bringing that other perspective into it as well. I think that my goal when we go isn't to get everyone to go into science or engineering, but to get them to engage with school and education a little bit more.” ~GU3

Another staffer corroborated the notion of unity in STEM, drawing on a broadening view of what constitutes empirical evidence Indigenous ways-of-knowing:

“[…] we have Indigenous elders and community leaders and people who work for Actua that we have these discussions with, and they brought up a really great point, and that's that a lot of traditional knowledge, when you compare it to a definition of what science is, that you'll find more similarities than you think. And I don't want to misquote anybody, but my understanding of it is that a lot of this knowledge, that Indigenous peoples have accumulated and passed on is based on their observations of the natural world, and how they've seen things come to be, and in some ways that's not so different from science. It's just that

96 people, you have two different belief systems, but ultimately, you're both trying to tackle something that is in the unknown.” ~GU7

This perspective on unity within STEM was echoed by a member of K’omoks First

Nation, stating the contribution that different perspectives bring in a complementary fashion:

“I personally think that Western science and Indigenous ways of being and knowing are not mutually exclusive, that Indigenous sciences has a lot to offer Western science and vice versa. They complement each other, and support each other's hypotheses 99% of the time. Like when we talk about creation stories or historical accounts of experiences, or understandings of the universe that they very often are quite complementary.” ~Keisha Everson

These appreciations however did not necessarily make different epistemological perspectives any easier to manage, especially coming from a Western-centric notion of empirical validity. For instance, one employee when discussing legends as evidence stated their own struggles with handling Indigenous ways-of-knowing in her own educational work and perspective:

“for a lot of people, there's a lot of history that makes sense when put in context with the legend, but it’s like “oh, it’s just a legend”, and like “why do we think that?” “why don't we believe it?” Because it's not our way of knowing, it's disconnect[ed], it’s just hard to think about, like “oh, it makes sense now, because someone found written evidence”. ~GU4

In contrast to the previously described desire for synthesis and connection between

Western STEM and Indigenous STEM, there was likewise an ostensible awareness of the need to delineate between their own background in Western STEM and the Indigenous ways-of-knowing they were engaging with. This implied an acknowledgement that there are multiple ways-of- knowing, and not just one universal way. Implicit in the desire to see from multiple angles is the acknowledgement that those angles are, indeed, distinct:

“[…] I think a big part of when you're thinking about that is thinking about…your motives for being there, and also, your idea of what is true, or correct, and that's very flexible, I suppose, and very personalized. Like what you think is true for you doesn't have to be true for anyone else. And I think that's something that's great to know in general, like when you're just living your life, it's good to try to see things from other people's side of view, but when you're in science, you kind of assume all of these things are facts, even though in science,

97 for a long time, we thought the world was flat, and there are so many things that we don't know still. So, I think it's, yeah, really important to keep an open mind with that kind of stuff too.” ~GU9

There was therefore a tension that existed at the heart of navigating the cultural distance between Western and Indigenous STEM perspectives: the conceptualizing and actualizing of connection between Western and Indigenous STEM practices, while acknowledging the fact that the views are distinct and due credence needs to be given to this divide. Just as much as cultural integration builds upon parallels, it must also acknowledge epistemological plurality.

Extent of Involvement in Cultural Integration

As was emphasized by both participants as well as in line with my own personal experiences being involved in this process, meeting the demands of cultural integration of curriculum was a time and energy intensive process, reliant upon significant effort from actors on both sides of the equation, community and educational institution. As we have seen, navigating the cultural divide is a nuanced and complex process that operates at many levels and impacts the shape and form of cultural integration, and requires significant involvement to proceed.

For one thing, there is a significant time and energy commitment for both Geering Up and the community work with, starting with the logistics. As previously described, scheduling essential reservations like accommodations for staffers can at times stretch until the few days leading up until a camp is scheduled, which limited the ability for the organization to undertake any form of true customization, much less cultural integration of curriculum and the associated close work with the community that this entails.

Even once certain logistical considerations are surmounted, the need for certain members of the community to be involved in cultural integration was reinforced. Said one community member:

98 “Interviewing people, elders, knowledge keepers, and do some vetting. And bring in an elder or knowledge keeper who can start it up. Preferably the beginning of each group, I would have someone come in and ground the knowledge.” ~KFN1

Elders and knowledge keepers appeared to play a role in bridging the aforementioned cultural distance that is endemic to the cultural integration process. The value of their engagement was supported by citation of several stories of success lessons incorporating a community’s own cultural practices in order to teach a concept with import to a Western STEM curriculum, such as the use of traditional weaving methods to teach tensile strength, an important engineering concept that was taught during outreach activities at the nearby Britannia School, whose student body is mostly Indigenous.

For the Indigenous outreach coordinator, the need for elder and knowledge keeper contribution was directly connected to her own organization’s lack of cultural knowledge and in particular, racial and/or cultural representation. When asked about the limitations of providing a culturally customized educational experience, she cited this reliance on community contribution as a limiting factor:

“Hmm, well, I think there's a lot, right? I mean, in terms of just creating the content, that takes a lot of time and effort and collaboration. We hardly have anyone who has experience living in communities, or is from any of these communities, so it's a lot of back and forth of us working with the communities to make sure that what we're making is actually relevant, and not just us kind of coming in with our own views of what this community is all about. So A, that takes a lot of time, and it's a lot of…you're asking a lot of the community. It's a back and forth between them, and they have to be constantly be giving us feedback, and participate in our development of activities and stuff like that.” ~GU10

The role community members play in ensuring appropriate representation of culture in

STEM education was reiterated by another staffer, again acknowledging the organization’s lack of cultural know-how:

“And I think that's when having an elder is super helpful for people like me, or many other members of our team, because we do have some knowledge, but we don't have the specifics. So if there's an elder there who's talking about the specific cultural practice that they have, then it's so much easier for us to build on

99 that because we all have general science and engineering expertise. So then making that connection is easy when someone has already covered the cultural part.” ~GU3

However, involvement of community members, in particular elders and knowledge keepers proved difficult to implement in small communities, where the availability of elders and knowledge keepers active enough to assist in the process were limited in both number and availability. Said the K’omoks First Nation education coordinator:

“I know for K'omoks, there's very limited amount of people... [Elder] really is one of the only people with a lot of that cultural knowledge in our town, in our community.” ~Charlene Everson

Implicitly suggested in this difficulty is the previously described political nature of identifying the sources of cultural knowledge, and the decision itself can open doors just as much as it can shut them, especially when community members have allegiances to individuals or groups as canonical sources of cultural knowledge.

On the other side of this difficulty with engagement, Geering Up staffers spoke to navigating this difficulty by leveraging the community members they did have access to: the students.

“If you told me you were really interested in indigenizing the curriculum, and using Indigenous knowledge, usually we ask if there's an elder that could come and join our camp and teach some lesson, and maybe that's not really connected to our lessons but it's their way of coming in and maybe not all of our curriculum is indigenized, but our camp sure has that component. Sometimes we don't get the opportunity to ask someone, or we don't get the response rate that we need, so we learn while we're there. I really think a lot of the time we learn from the kids, we ask them what they know. And that's your best bet if you're not sure: you ask. And whether it's like ahead of time, like “I have this idea!”, not being afraid to share your ideas, and then ask “I have this idea but I'm not really sure if it's aligned”. I think if we're just quiet and pretending that we know everything or pretending that we don't know anything, neither of those are helpful. I think that the way we ask and the way we communicate with each community is pretty different depending on where we're communicating.” ~GU1

As more experienced staffers took on more administrative tasks (as compared with 1st year outreach team members whose responsibilities were mostly confined to teaching or packing

100 supplies), engagement with planning and logistics exposed them to the practical side of educational outreach, and just how much the pragmatic aspects of putting a camp or workshop together can affect the process of cultural integration of STEM education. Principle in this is the role of human capital, and its connection to cultural capital, a factor that was so significant that

Charlene suggested that cultural integration could be best pursued at this early stage with larger communities such as Musqueam First Nation in Vancouver area, a much larger and resource-rich community than K’omoks First Nation. The available pool of sources of cultural knowledge in larger communities is much deeper, therefore lessening the load that could be placed upon any individual elder or knowledge keeper.

Although outreach organizations are exposed to many different communities, contexts, and ideas, working with many different communities simultaneously and sequentially makes it difficult to put in the time and energy required to culturally integrate the curriculum. Therefore, traditional integration frameworks that rely purely on lengthy time and energy investment are a challenge to implement and to sustain when they don’t come in with structures to manage the time and energy commitment of staffers, elders, knowledge keepers, and broader community members.

The Primacy of Relationships

The value of respectful relationships between Western institutions and Indigenous communities has long been a point of emphasis and exploration for ethical work that straddles or crosses those cultural divides (e.g. Haig-Brown & Dannenmann, 2002), and Geering Up’s work hinged crucially on the quality of these relationships. In particular, the focus of relationships appeared to be emphasized along two strongly connected levels: the relationships that the organization build with communities, and the relationships that educators build with students.

101 At the outset building relationships with communities was the importance of mutual trust.

Crucially however was that the history of education and colonization in Canada was central to this trust. In building trust with communities, the Indigenous outreach coordinator described the tension between welcoming forces for external educational outreach and contrasting forces informed by the role of education in colonization (e.g. residential schools) as a ‘push and pull’:

“[…] it's a push and pull, and that's usually why when we go into a community for the first time, it's very much general material, just to build that trust. Because, yeah, some people might not view what we're doing as positive, and more just, repeating history.” ~ GU10

Starting a relationship with a community by focusing on STEM material that is general

(non-integrated) did appear to obfuscate the fact that STEM, Western or Indigenous, is not truly a-cultural, and nonetheless projects values and practices of its cultural origins in its conveyance.

This results in a situation where communities first encounter STEM outreach with Geering Up through an implicitly Western lens, and only after this process does the relationship progress to cultural integration, an uncomfortable sequencing of the process of transitioning customization to cultural integration.

The relationship between Indigenous communities and educational programs like

Geering Up appeared to serve as an avenue for unearthing tension within communities, although

Geering Up staffers generally did not come away with specifics on how these tensions played out in detail or through examples. Rather, it was suggestive of the sensitivity they maintained to the space they operated within.

Building trust was also a process that took time, and required a persistent presence. The outreach coordinator described this as a process of constant exposure:

“I think it's just exposure. And that kind of goes back to the whole consistency thing. Once people see that you're coming to the community multiple times, even if it is just once a year, but it's for the last 3 years, that builds more trust within the community, and they see that you're actually there for the long-run.” ~GU10

102 Geering Up’s constant engagement indicated an investment and that the presence was not a ‘one-and-done’ relationship. The outreach coordinator reinforced this in a separate interview, stressing not just the time it takes to build relationships, but also the challenge of staff turnover, which introduces new members of Geering Up constantly into the fold:

“[…] a lot of these programs require a lot of continuity, and so, just having a high turnover and just the nature of how our team functions sometimes delays some of the projects, because people have to be onboarded and that takes time, and building relationships, building strong and positive relationships with communities takes time.” ~GU10

The value of relationship as particularly felt during the logistics phases, as communication was emphasized as a crucial element of putting together any form of activity, integrated or otherwise. The challenge in building a relationship was correlated with the level of remoteness that certain communities had relative to the Vancouver area, which made communication, and in turn planning, much more difficult:

“[…] communication is more difficult. In general, communication is harder. The more consistency you have, the easier it is to plan things, because you can plan the next thing when you are up there. It just makes communication easier.” ~GU3

The Indigenous outreach coordinator corroborated this difficulty, speaking from her own challenges in building relationships with communities despite seldom spending time in the field alongside her instructors:

“There's also just the limitations of just us, and not being able to have the face-to- face interactions, especially with me, I think that's one of the huge positives with our programs is that instructors can physically be there and work with the students, but when it comes to maintaining that relationship with the community partner who is organizing all of this, it's very much limited to just phones or emails, which we know aren't the most effective of creating meaningful relationships, so that's a bit of a barrier, I only have met in person some of our community contacts, but […] our team is very much a relationship building type of team, and so, that takes time and a lot of effort, to do properly.” ~GU10

Another staffer had a contrasting example, describing communication with a particular community as healthy, and in turn maintaining a trustful relationship. The staffer viewed the remoteness as producing a desire for continued engagement with Geering Up. When asked to

103 discuss Geering Up’s close relationship with a pair of communities in British Columbia, the staffer focused on communication:

“I think a lot of it comes down to communication. We're able to communicate with them. From my perspective, we identified a need within the community, because they've had some pretty unfortunate circumstances in the community that have displaced them, and made accessing education much more difficult. I'm not sure how this relationship started, but I think part of the reason we keep going back is because they are so secluded and no one else is going out there. And because we are able to communicate with them, and as you build a relationship you can talk more, and it's actually feasible for us to get there, the problem in other communities is that we contact them, and it takes forever for them to get back, so if you can't get it back from them, then you can't really develop that relationship.” ~GU1

These contrasting takes on the impact of distance on communication in building relationships suggests that remoteness in many communities has significant impacts on the ability to build relationships, but varies significantly on how valuable the communities perceive Geering

Up’s services.

The Indigenous outreach student assistant shed light on his experiences working with communities trying to build relationships during that summer, and spoke to the adjustment of pace that was required for a relationship to be respectful:

“One of the biggest things that I learned when I was out in the communities is again, something that had been told to me, is that communities move at their own pace. It's one thing to be told that, and to understand yes, things will take time. But once what you learn over time is that, this will have implications in what you are trying to do, and you may to slow down your goals, you may have to change things as you go. And that's not a bad thing. It's not a negative thing, it's just the way you have to, you have to be in that mindset.” ~GU5

The varying paces of communication and work in building an outreach relationship could result from any number of different factors, including shifting community priorities, adjustments to personnel and contacts both within Geering Up and in the community, as well as potentially an overall difference in pace of life.

Taking into account differences like these formed the basis for program customization, and in turn cultural integration, which was likewise framed by Geering Up staffers within the

104 context of relationship building. An aspect of working closely with communities was integrating with a whole education system that exists at the local level, which introduced certain needs for educational service, such as curricular needs in program customization:

“[…] some things are as simple as the teachers in the community being like “hey, we haven't got around to computer science, we'd love it if you came and taught computer science for us”. Meeting curriculum needs that they weren't able to, that's the simplest form, which is just connecting with the teachers.” ~GU1

Constant engagement and a persistent presence were also strongly valued for the relationships that it allowed students to build with the educators. One senior staffer lay this out starkly when recounting the lengths some remote communities will go to in order to provide as much year-to-year consistency for their students:

“I know consistency is a really big deal for [this community][…] I think even the first or second time that we were there, [the principle of the local school] was already talking about how important consistency is, and having the same instructors come back again and again, and even like this year […] I had my graduation so I couldn't go at the date that they originally wanted, and I was like “okay, it's fine. I just won't go and I'll send another instructor”. And [the principle of the local school] actually moved the date of the camp, because they were like “we'd rather have people there that the kids know, and that's more important.”” ~GU3

Instances of these efforts are suggestive of the particular need for remote communities and external educational organizations to build persistent relationships that provide consistency of personnel year-to-year. Geering Up’s implicit involvement with the formal education system in these communities makes this need for consistency all the more apparent, as it was reported by staffers that, in particularly remote communities, many schools have a revolving-door of teachers, limiting the year-to-year relationships that students and communities build with teachers. While communities seek to identify teachers that are willing to remain with (and potentially become members of) the community, there is nonetheless high turnover rates. Just as much as Geering Up could be perceived as fulfilling curricular needs, they could be seen as potentially fulfilling a relationship need as well.

105 Ultimately, the totality of a relationship is what appeared to yield a cultural integration opportunity. Program customization, as a precursor to curricular cultural integration, begins from this tailored perspective and the fact that needs, wants, and desires for a program are elicited through relationship building:

“It's just not the same, when we're able to see the kids, in their classrooms and work with the teachers, to help them in places in the curriculum that they're maybe not able to get across to them, or even just a break for the teachers, get them excited about something else. The benefit of going several times is getting to know the kids and getting to know the teachers in the community and making the best curriculum for them. So we adapt a lot of workshops and create a lot of content for them, and we've been forced to do that too because all of our regular workshops, since we're going there so many times we don't have enough workshops for that, so we're forced to create personalized curriculum for them.” ~GU1

Cultural integration becomes a possibility through these efforts, such as the comfort to ask questions that is necessitated by undertaking as loaded and confusing a process as cultural integration is:

“[…] I don't think we have much experience indigenizing curriculum beforehand, and part of it is we're testing out our activities with them, and then seeing how the kids and the adults relate to our activities, because there are adults around and other things, and how they react, we learn, is this beneficial curriculum?” ~GU1

Relationships are essential given the lack of knowledge beforehand of what exactly a culturally integrated curriculum will ultimately look like:

“[…] we're still not at the point where we have the breadth of culturally customized curriculum. So what I think that means is what I've said already, working with the community to figure out what's important to them, what are some topics that they want covered, and creating our activities based on that. And that's the direction we're going. So I think it's still going to be a lot of learning, because we don't know what that looks like exactly yet.” ~GU10

Thus, while there were a few ways to consider relationships within Geering Up’s work

(here I have described its manifestation between the organization and the communities, and between the instructors and the students), the totality of the relationship and its quality is what enables the various other factors required in cultural integration, including navigating the cultural

106 distance and the necessary effort and involvement of all involved. At the same time however, the progression of relationship building towards cultural integration illuminated that the first encounter with STEM outreach is implicitly Western, under the idea that the ‘neutral’ face of

STEM can be perceived as a template to build a future relationship upon. In essence, this underserved the cultural factors inherent in STEM, prior to cultural integration.

Engaging Identity

Notions of identity have emerged in various forms throughout these findings thus far, most notably within description of the valuations and motivations of Geering Up’s activities and navigating the cultural distance that exists in this organization’s educational outreach space. The overarching theme of identity within Geering Up’s outreach activities centered around the power of self-reflection: were students of Geering Up able to see themselves in the position of scientist or engineer as a result of (or at least partially a result of) the educational outreach?

Indeed, this was a point of emphasis as an operating mindset of Geering Up, for both staffers as well as community members. As fit the tone of the umbrella organization Actua, notions of identity and reflection were considered within the terms of statistical underrepresentation in the workforce:

“[…] I think a big thing of what we do is just educating youth on what stem opportunities exist. Because we recognize that in STEM fields there are still people that aren't represented, or underrepresented, and a lot of technical jobs aren't very inclusive to all. And so the hope for all of our program is that kids can actually see themselves reflected in the different industries and professions. And the first step towards doing that is having them understand what those industries and professions actually entail, so I think that's a big part of our mandate, right?” ~GU10

Although this broad statement connected broader Actua-level understanding of the work with the experiences and perceptions of the on-the-ground educators, it did not explicitly illustrate

107 or describe what reflection really means in practice. Other staffers stepped up to describe ways to consider the reflection mandate. One conception was a supporting of one’s own lived experiences as present within STEM education:

“The customized programs help us draw in students own lived experiences into our content, and the hope with that is that then they can relate to it more, and they see a future where they are using what they've learned, or a future where they're in some kind of STEM field.” ~GU10

Another angle of reflection was akin to repairing the possibility of damage to the connection of one’s own lived experiences (as indicative of traditional, generational knowledge) to STEM, and that their work within Geering Up is akin to a process of illuminating that connection:

“I think when you're in school, already by the time you're in high school, or in middle school, it's so easy to have that disconnect between, like “oh, that's science” and “this is me”, we're not, there's no overlap, so science isn't for me. But then you go camping with them, and you're watching the animals, and you know so much about the plants…” ~GU3

For community members, reflection in STEM was particularly important for Indigenous students. Being able to “see themselves” in the various STEM disciplines available was what lies at the heart of not just cultural integration, but education in Indigenous communities more broadly:

“[…] that's the thing with Indigenous kids, and that's the whole goal with Indigenous education in general, is making Indigenous kids see themselves in sciences, see themselves in healthcare, see themselves in these things, and by highlighting their strengths.” ~Charlene Everson

Self-reflection and identity emerged as a prominent theme to guide the overall goals of

Geering Up, insofar as students could visualize themselves occupying the workforce positions within STEM as scientists and engineers. Self-reflection as a goal accounts for the phenomenon of being able to ‘see oneself’ in STEM, as a scientist or as an engineer, which Geering Up attempts to achieve by reducing the distance that exists between the student and the educator.

Undergraduates, by their youth, are closer to the ages of the students than most teachers in the

108 formal education system, and so have the potential to fulfill a slightly different role in the development of children. Actua makes a point of this up front on their “About” page, calling it their “for youth by youth” model:

“Our “for youth by youth” model is extremely effective at helping young people build self‐confidence, connect with role models like them, and engage with STEM programming in an inclusive and safe space.” ~Actua - About

This is, as the community member put it, especially important for Indigenous students. At the same time however, the difference in racial representation between Geering Up staff (almost entirely non-Indigenous) was cited frequently by staffers as a challenge towards building the self- reflective potential that they saw at the heart of Geering Up’s cross-cultural educational outreach:

“…we look different, we look different from everyone there, and that’s not good. I want the kids to be able to see themselves in us, and I think that’s easier if their ancestry is at least a little bit closer” ~GU3

Lack of racial representation in Geering Up was connected to the fear that, when students are unable to see role models that have crucial physical similarities to them, the goals of building self-reflection in STEM become all the more difficult to achieve. The operating mindset for many of staffers was that, if we looked like or identified more with the race of our students, then they’ll be more able to see themselves in roles similar to ours as students and scientists or engineers.

Reiterating much of the same issues with managing the cultural distance that exists between

Geering Up staff and Indigenous students, likewise racial representation was a source of anxiety for conducting the cross-cultural educational that the organization offered.

This mindset was not restricted purely to racial representation, and diversity within

Geering Up was leveraged to target certain minority groups within STEM. Most notable was gender, where Geering Up made a point of avoiding pairing two male instructors together to form a single instructor team. Therefore, teams were commonly composed of at least one female instructor, if not both female instructors. The rationale behind this was the same as that which

109 underlies the anxiety about race, specifically the connection of identity to self-reflection in

STEM.

At the Actua level, racial representation among the educational staff was emphasized, as suggested by their media. The Actua website emphasized the inclusion of two Indigenous student educators (one Metis, the other mixed non-status but self-identifies as Indian), hiring for an

Indigenous Internship Program, and emphasizing Indigenous leadership within the organization.

Whenever possible, Indigenous students are hired for outreach teams, but what is suggestive of the Geering Up’s team makeup is that these efforts are difficult to implement consistently even

(or possibly especially) at large, prestigious universities like UBC.

The Indigenous outreach student assistant (themself Anishinaabe) spoke to greater

Indigenous representation in Geering Up, especially as it pertains to the cultural integration process:

“A huge part of indigenizing Geering Up is indigenizing the teachers, the people who participate in outreach and who run the camps at Geering Up and Vancouver. What Geering Up would require to truly indigenize is to have representation from Indigenous people in the camps. We can't expect university students who come from all kinds of backgrounds that are not Indigenous to have a full and deep understanding of Indigenous values. That's not fair to those people, and it's not possible. And the level of indigenization that Geering Up would like could only come from having more Indigenous representation.” ~GU5

Although it is not necessarily clear in this statement, the participant was speaking to a broad perception of underrepresentation, simultaneously capturing both the racial aspects of appearance as well as the cultural aspects that includes Indigenous values. Geering Up and Actua necessarily engaged notions of identity in their mindsets, but building a team that includes

Indigenous representation is an ongoing point of concern. These concerns are both cultural as well as racial, and speak to the capability for students to engage STEM content from a perspective of self-reflection.

110 The Value of Exposure

Relatedly, one of the primary motivators of cultural integration approaches was the value of exposure: putting people of different backgrounds (racially, culturally, socio-economically) in direct contact with one another. This is distinct from the value of exposure to the STEM fields, and should be considered an ancillary benefit cited by staffers and community members. This was of particular value given the perception of many First Nations communities (including those serviced by Geering Up) as being remote and having limited contact with non-community members, especially undergraduate students like those from Geering Up. This in turn could be connected to the ongoing inequality and underrepresentation in STEM fields:

“I think a big part of it is the exposure. A lot these kids grow up in a very tight knit community that doesn't allow them to interact with many different types of people. Having new people come in, bringing the STEM curriculum, is good. I mean, this also goes back to the inequality within STEM and underrepresentation, so I think this field specifically, because it's STEM, needs to be something that is promoted more, and that, to the end of us seeing more representation in STEM, and I think the communities see that as well, science curriculum as it is right now, it may not be an area where their students are excelling, and so having this different approach to teaching STEM is something that they hope their students will appreciate and hopefully get something out of, and that will propel them to do better in their own curricular, in their own schooling I guess.” ~GU7

The value of exposure was directly linked to notions of identity in students, based on them being able to reflect on what direct access to undergraduate students at UBC could spur in terms of imagining themselves in a STEM field of study and ultimately, a career. The same staffer states:

“The first thing that comes to mind in how it is valuable I think is in exposure, and that's not just exposure of STEM to the kids, but also exposure of different people and different life and career options to these kids. I think as an instructor, with your background going in and sharing your story, and hearing about their story, I hope it is the case the kids see “oh, okay well, this is something that's possible.” ~GU7

111 Another experienced staffer reiterated this sentiment about identity and reflection, but also extended this exposure benefit beyond students to the broader communities of Geering Up’s reach:

“And I think that's kind of part of it, bringing in that connection to communities, and maybe you're the only person they've met from Vancouver. […] I think providing that, and if you make a connection with them, they're going to remember your names, because their communities are so small, they remember your name for years afterwards! You become kind of a celebrity in that little town. Everyone knows you're new, and you're not, they're like “oh, they have to be from, like, who's visiting this week? Oh, it's Geering Up”. So, we're the science people. That's fun to be, it's good to be known as that, because then community, ideally, community members will know that that is also possible. I mean, that that's a thing as well, because we're not there all the time, so there's only a limited thing we can do, but I think that's part of the program increasing its reach and going year-round. So that we're able to go more often, and re re-mind them that there's UBC, there's other universities. They can be a scientist and engineer too if they want.” ~GU4

Keisha spoke to the value of students receiving this exposure through the cross-cultural educational outreach, citing the benefit of different viewpoints coalescing:

“Well, I think the exposure is really important to kids of any age. I know…like, some of the goals of outreach programs is exposing children, youth, to different fields that they may not be interested in, or exposed to, kind of on their own.” ~Keisha Everson

She connected this to the need to push against harmful stereotypes about gender and race, including indigeneity. As is implied by connection to stereotypes in education, one Geering Up staffer likewise emphasized that the perceived value of exposure was bidirectional, and just as much of value to them as undergraduate students from UBC as it was to the students of the communities they serve:

“[…] honestly, it's a huge learning experience. And that I'm lucky. When I presume [sic] my role, I'm like lucky to be able to learn from these people. And that it's a privilege to be able to build these relationships with communities, and I always presume [sic] my role is when I'm doing, like, I'm in a privileged place which I know already, a white female so I'm privileged, and I perceive my role is still “I am privileged here working this job”, and “I am privileged to be able to come to your community with this information, and I'm privileged to learn from you”.” ~GU1

112 Exposure as an ancillary benefit of outreach extended the motivations for cross-cultural educational outreach to beyond strictly the bounds of STEM to what it means socially for participants. However, extending beyond the bounds of STEM into notions of identity, self- reflection, and exposure illuminates that, in customizing or culturally integrating education, who is integrating is perhaps just as important as what is being customized or integrated, and the artifacts that result from this process, such as lessons or curriculum.

Engaging Place and Locality

A last operating factor in STEM customization and cultural integration was how the local context of the community interacted with Geering Up, and how Geering Up navigated these unique circumstances and conditions on a community-by-community basis. This stemmed from a consideration of the local resources within those communities, e.g. which plants and animals are prominent within the place of the community (and therefore prominent within their cultural practices), and extended to the local knowledge that exists within those communities as a result of the shape and form of those resources.

Engagement with local knowledge considerations were especially prominent when staffers discussed the development of ‘land-based’ learning and programming. When elders, knowledge keepers, and community members are able to teach in their local place, educational outreach takes on a much more community defined shape, and engages that locality much more strongly, and by its nature is integrated. One staffer recounted a story that expressed this strongly with a community that Geering Up has built a strong relationship with over the years:

“[…] that's kind of the direction we go towards with our land-based programming, that's a good example of culturally-relevant, or culturally- customized activities. So like in the land-based programming, ideally what happens is there's an elder with us, and they're teaching some traditional knowledge piece. Say, we were up in Kwadacha the one year, and the elder there

113 was talking about extracting sap from the trees, and how you would do that, and what the benefits of the sap are. In that case, we didn't know that this was happening, so we couldn't create an activity based on that, but the idea would be that, say we knew that was going to happen, and then we talk about, like if one of them had an anti-fungal quality in it, so maybe talking about what that means, how that's applicable, that's the direction we want to be going.” ~GU10

However, local resource consideration in STEM cultural integration went beyond the shape and form of the natural, and also engaged the synthetic, which shifted the conversation to issues of resource shortcomings in local education systems. One senior staffer, when asked whether she has in her experience been asked by a particular community to customize a certain topic to their community, spoke to the availability of resources within the local community as a defining factor in cultural integration (bold added for emphasis):

“[…] we're working with a local high school that has the highest population of Indigenous youth and a lot of their cultural teachers and also their science teachers are asking us if we can show the direct correlation between some of the traditional knowledge or engineering principles. So that's an ask that we get from some different communities. I think it really depends on the community, what their hopes are, and what resources they have as well, because a lot of the content creation involves a lot of their supports and a lot of their knowledge to create. I think the biggest one is, just common principles, and how those relate to Indigenous world views.” ~GU10

When asked to consider what the future is for a lesson that leveraged traditional knowledge to teach the concepts of water filtration, this staffer made an effort to clarify that it was the local resources and local knowledge that produced this lesson, implying that different lessons beyond those being shared could be produced depending on local resources:

“[…] I think there is a hope [to share the lesson] maybe in a different way, because we do run land-based programs with other communities, and this is something that we share with them to see if they're interested in running and see if they have the resources to. But generally when we do that kind of programming it's up to the community to see what they do have available, and based on that we create our content.” ~GU10

The shape and form of cultural integration depends on the resources at the local community level, including both natural and educational resources. Resource divides and its impact on access and underrepresentation in STEM disciplines informed Actua’s overall mission

114 in service to Indigenous communities, but did not necessarily draw the connection between the resource divides and their own ability to offer certain complexities of services, such as program customization and cultural integration. In essence, the belief that meeting access and underrepresentation divides is directly connected to cultural integration of Indigenous ways-of- knowing into STEM outreach encapsulated a circularity: resource divides both motivate the offering of and limit the capability to provide an integrated educational experience.

The impact of resource divides was particularly evident and pronounced when exploring the possibility of cultural integration of ICT education, which is the focus of the following section.

The Current State of Cultural Integration of ICT Education

Education about computing (e.g. computer programming concepts) formed just one section of Geering Up’s offerings, although staffers agreed with the notion that it is a growing part of their service, through a combination of top-down educational focuses at the provincial and national level as well as an increase in requests for inclusion from communities. Computing education was not just restricted to primary and secondary age students however, and teachers

(through Pro-D workshops) were also common clients of this offering. This growth in interest and educational offering included Indigenous communities, and was therefore subject to the same overarching mindsets concerning cultural integration. At the same time, Geering Up’s outreach team did not have at the time of the field study any instructor whose background was in computing (e.g. computers science or computer engineering). This fact was perhaps indicative of

Geering Up’s overall orientation towards the ‘natural’ sciences, although it was not necessarily clear what conditions or policies lead to this organizational orientation.

115 In this section, I will present findings pertinent to ICT and computing education within the Geering Up program. This includes key themes drawn from staffers who have worked with or are tasked with developing and deploying computing lessons, and participants who conceptualized how computing education interfaces with the cultural aspects of the overarching goal of cultural integration.

ICT Resources and the Impact on Community-Defined ICT Education

In working closely with communities interested in increasing the computing education, the outreach coordinator described the outset of such discussions centering around ICT resource availability in the community:

“[when communities] approach us…it really is a straightforward conversation: is this something that's possible? Usually, even if we don't know, we say yes. [Geering Up employee]’s just finding people who can create those activities. Luckily for us, there's already so many that exist, because we have coding specific camps. We have an abundance of these types of activities, it's just a matter of taking them. The only limitation is what they have available. Because most schools will have laptops, but not all of them do, or not functioning. There's a big movement in some schools to get iPads instead of laptops, and they don't function the same way as our activities, so that's the only limitation, and that's a question we ask them, is “what do you already have” so we know what we can take. Also the age range of the kids. Because with the younger ones, you can always just take the Ozobots, but you want to move towards Adafruit…” ~GU10

Among the STEM offerings, computing education stood out as one of the most resource intensive, generally requiring more advanced (and expensive) equipment such as laptops and robotics to teach the basic concepts of programming, as well as programming educational environments like Scratch9.

That being said, computing education also leveraged “unplugged” activities in certain circumstances, so not all computing education within outreach required digital and computing

9 https://scratch.mit.edu/

116 resources. For its part, Geering Up maintained several laptops for teaching, sets of “Ozobots”: small robots about the size of a golf ball, and Adafruit chip boards that are used to teach basic computing concepts to students. In the short intervening time period between the end of the field study in August 2019 and this writing, Geering Up has expanded their library of robotics teaching tools further.

Although obviously very handy to have available as resources for computing education, staffers reported that outreach could only make limited use of these tools when communities were remote or geographically distant from UBC due to the difficult of transporting them safely. Said one staffer about laptops:

“[…] we have a lot of computers, but…it's, for us it's really hard to take the laptops on outreach because they're big and heavy and clunky, and also other teams need them here.” ~GU3

That being said, even outreach activities that were in the immediate Vancouver vicinity with the Vancouver School Board system were subject to resource limitations on computing, due to the difficulty of transporting safely certain hardware even across short distances:

“[…] even within VSB, which is not that far, that was a whole conversation, is which of the schools had computers, were they actually functioning. For us to take that many laptops off campus is logistically challenging, especially in the summer, when everyone's trying to use them. So there are communities that do, like most of the VSBs would like more coding type programming, but we're very limited with what we can take. And that's even close communities [inaudible]. So those are the main limitations.” ~GU10

Simultaneously, many of the schools and communities themselves that the outreach team worked with had constraints on available computing education resources as well:

GU10: “[…] I think the ozobots are good ones, but, they're expensive.”

PI: “What is it, a grand a set?”

GU10: “Yeah, a grand for 14…?”

PI: “yeah, that's pricey [inaudible] I'm willing bet a lot of communities just simply can't afford it…”

117 GU10: “I don't think it's that they can't afford it, because most schools have these budgets, it's just, it's hard to justify. You know, you could be putting your money towards something else, and also there needs to be someone who takes the lead on, first of all getting them, and then, although we're teaching the teachers how to use them, it's an ongoing thing. They need to know who can troubleshoot if they're not working, someone who's kind of specialized in what they are. It's more than just the money part of it.”

As this participant states, lack of computing resources for educational purposes is more than mere budgeting concerns, but engages aspects of justification of budget priorities (and hence school funding policies), know-how on the part of teachers, and device maintenance, the last two factors echoing known issues about the use of ICTs in educational settings in development

(Reese, 2019). In other interviews, staffers that had worked on planning activities with schools had encountered situations where, even when computing resources were readily available on-site, those resources were competed for by other groups, such as other classes. Furthermore, even in cases where schools and communities did have computing resources present on site for educational purposes and were available to Geering Up, preparing them for use in outreach was a non-trivial task:

PI: “So not even VSB schools will come with computational resources.”

GU10: “No, it really depends on the school. Some of them have full computer labs, some of them have computer labs with semi-functioning computers. Some of them will have laptops. Some of them will just not have anything. […] it's also hard because, another limitation is, a community might have computers, but they won't run the programming that we have. Or they need a bunch of updates, […] and if there isn't anyone to do that for us, it's just so time-consuming to do it ourselves. And just more logistically challenging. We did that once in Tsey Keh. They had laptops, but they needed java downloaded or something, so the instructors had to stay all night downloading java.”

Issues with computing education resources like laptops had led Geering Up to value the development of “unplugged” activities, i.e. activities that did not require traditional computing resources like laptops and the requisite electrical power. One example of an unplugged activity was the “Binary Bracelets” activity (see Figure 4-2 below for an excerpt), which used beads on a bracelet to teach concepts of binary code.

118

Figure 4-2: Binary Bracelet Example.

Unplugged activities like these, although originally built as a way of circumnavigate the challenge with using computing resources in computing education, had developed a broader appeal beyond its value in resource constrained environments:

“So it's sort of partly that, in…like you don't need all the big resources to do some computer science if you use your time wisely, and I think also for the really young kids, I'm guessing when people came up with this, I think people were like “oh, kids like doing things with their hands” and I think you cater to a wider crowd maybe, by starting with something that's unplugged, and there are less distractions.” ~GU3

Customization of ICT lessons appeared in its current state to be driven less by what cultural connections and aspirations that communities had with regards to digital technologies, but primarily by what ICT resources were available and in a usable state. When senior staffer who had worked with communities interested in increasing computing education was asked about

119 examples of community-driven customization of the computing education, she responded by pointing to resource availability as the primary factor:

PI: “Have you ever been asked to customize your coding education, or your digital technology education by an Indigenous community?”

GU3: “[…] this wasn't something we were specifically asked, but we would be like “these are the things we need, do you have them?” and they're like “no” and then you'd have to change it somehow, right? Like, we had to a lot of things that were unplugged, or things that didn't need a lot of Wi-Fi connections…”

Imagining the Future of ICT Education

The Difficulty of Conceptualizing Culturally Integrated ICT Education

Although Geering Up has been building various culturally integrated curriculum for the last few years, the outreach coordinator admitted that, as of the time of the field study, building culturally integrated curriculum in ICT with communities had not truly been undertaken, at least with regularity. As a result, ICT lessons had largely remained culturally ambivalent, and designed for general purpose application (with due consideration given to the availability of resources and required know-how for use, either Geering Up’s or the local communities’). One staffer described this possibility as one that hadn’t been explored formally yet by Geering Up:

“I don't think we've really explored the possibilities of incorporating yet. So when we do offer it to Indigenous communities, it is a standalone, that doesn't really try to connect to any aspects of traditional, Indigenous knowledge.” ~GU7

When asked about the relatively early stages of culturally integrating ICT education,

Geering Up employees cited just how difficult it is to conceptualize the connection between

Indigenous cultural practices and ICTs. Cultural integration as a whole was still relatively new to the staff, which likely exacerbated the already time, energy, and relationship intensive process of program customization and cultural integration generally true of any STEM curricula:

120 “I don't think we've made any attempts yet. That's not to say we couldn't, but I haven't seen any effort to do so yet. Because indigenizing curriculum is still pretty new to us, and it's definitely something that's… I mean Geering Up is not all that old in general, and then the outreach team specifically has grown so much in the past few years. We definitely haven't got to that point, and I think that's where it becomes a little more difficult to make the connections.” ~GU1

Parallel to internal difficulty of integrating ICT education was the fact that the newness of the program’s aspects, including cultural integration-as-a-service as well as the broader relationship with the community, meant that many communities themselves may not know cultural integration could be requested, or that Geering Up had an ability and willingness to customize lessons themselves to fit the educational or cultural goals of a community.

“I think in the communities that we worked with because so many of them were kind of newish to GU, or at least are [inaudible], they almost didn't know what things we could offer […] I think about some of the stuff we saw at actual conferences or at Indspire conferences, where they talk about coding that is very culturally ingrained, and my knowledge, back when I was at GU, we didn't offer that, yet. Hopefully we will soon. But no community asked us either, because I guess, you have to know about these things to ask for them, right?” ~GU3

For their part, this conceptual challenge was echoed by members of K’omoks First

Nation. In at least one community member’s mind, there was reservation as to the direction and intentions behind culturally integrating certain topics like digital technologies and mathematics, which stood in contrast to broader educational mandates to integrate culture into education:

“That's the thing with the mandatory Indigenous information for teachers in schools right now, it's this whole thing about, it's mandatory, but who's going to teach this information? How do we make math indigenized?” ~KFN1

This community member continued to illustrate the negative consequences of cultural integration of certain topics when teachers are not prepared to do so in a way that is culturally aware and respectful:

“And you end up with teachers feeling out of their depth, and maybe not having the resources, maybe not reaching out to get resources, and then you end up with a half-assed hour lesson on Indigenous science, or Indigenous calculus. […] my classmate […] said that her younger sister who is in elementary school or

121 something like that, had that mandatory Indigenous teaching. And her teacher ended up teaching them to stack garbage as totem-poles.”10 ~KFN1

Another community member expressed her own confusion on what it means to integrate

ICT, once again drawing on the oddity of attempting to culturally integrate certain topics like math:

“I'd have to really think about that. It's kind of like that calculus question, right? How do you indigenize calculus? It's calculus. I would have to know what you mean by IT, in order to kind of process what that would mean. How would you be using the technology you're looking at. Is it just a general question, shared classroom or video, I don't know what that means.” ~Charlene Everson

Ultimately, the challenges of cultural integration of ICT education combined with the overall mandate and interest to do exactly that lead to an awareness of the possibility of the curriculum being forced, that it would ultimately be an obviously unnatural set of lessons or ideas built to satisfy a certain cultural integration imperative while not necessarily being something genuine and ‘of the community’. One staffer strongly emphasized the issues with integration of

ICT and Indigenous culture being forced into a single curriculum:

“[…] we don't want to force connections where they don't exist. I'm sure they exist, but we don't want to force that. I'm sure there's ways to do it, but we try not to do things that feel forced. If you see a curriculum that feels forced, I don't want to do anything that's not authentic. And when we teach computer science, it is something they all know is really relevant in the world. Everyone's very aware of this world that's turning to computers, and a lot of them show interest in it, and I think part of it is just letting them know that they are included. Not everything has a direct connection to Indigenous knowledge, but there could be…” ~GU1

This staffer reminded me that, while the Indigenous kids were Indigenous, they were still kids:

“Maybe one day there will be a great way to teach it in a way that connects to them. But a lot of them, a lot of the kids, they're just kids! They're connection is to their video games they play all the time; their connection is to the TV they watch all the time. It's not always an “Indigenous” connection that they need, it's a connection to their life, and what's relevant in their life.” ~GU1

10 Note: this is a highly offensive way to depict totem poles, which the participant made clear to me during the interview.

122 In some ways, this staffer de-emphasized the cultural focus of ICT education, making the claim that what is really important is connecting to the children, and that does not necessarily require a cultural lens. The focus on the relationship that kids have to technology, Indigenous otherwise, was emphasized as a potential avenue of connection by another staffer, but at the same time checking their assumptions that how they’ve interacted with technology throughout their lives is the same or similar to the access (or lack thereof) that Indigenous students have today:

“Yeah, it's hard to imagine [the prospect of growing up without internet access]. You can kind of think about it across the world, and you're like, okay. But in Canada, people not having access to Wi-Fi is…yeah. I mean, I started thinking about it more when I was thinking about to these communities. But it's kind of a crazy concept because we've kind of accepted that everybody has it now. Which isn't necessarily true. But yeah, they have all these games and stuff to teach kids, and wherever you are, there's someone making an app that'll teach you in a way that you find somewhat relevant perhaps. Especially if they do phones and stuff, I'm assuming they play on apps, and it's, they're…it's challenging because we've grown up very differently.” ~GU9

This staffer is making an interesting claim based on the propensity for apps and games today to connect to students who are already members of the ICT ecosystem. While this didn’t explicitly de-emphasize cultural factors in connecting to students (Indigenous or otherwise), it did appear to shift what it means to connect to students away from cultural specifics.

The early stages of cultural integration and ICT exhibited by the outreach organization was reflected in an awareness of the difficulties with conceptualizing the shape and form of what cultural integration should be, and that we are still understanding and navigating how to do it in a respectful and meaningful way. These processes at times run the risk of being forced and unnatural, although equally difficult appeared to be conceptualizing what a natural connection between ICT education and Indigenous culture really looks like, and what is truly important in connection to ICTs.

123 ICTs and Cultural Values

Within the overall STEM curriculum, the move towards cultural integration identified

ICT lessons as somewhat distinct from the other fields under Geering Up’s umbrella, such as biology or ecology. When probing the difficulties with ICT cultural integration, and the previously identified lack of reportable progress in that domain, struggling to come to terms with what it would mean to culturally integrate ICT illuminated for some staffers a perception that ICT use may be difficult to make coherent with certain perceived values or tenets of Indigenous cultures and Indigenous knowledge.

When asked about the difficulties they have encountered with culturally integrating ICT as compared to other STEM fields, a staffer described the perception of a “disconnect in values” between Indigenous outlooks and what factors are endemic to the computing technology field:

“If I had to guess, I think there's a disconnect in the values. As we all know, technology is being, in my opinion, overvalued. How do we make things easier? How do we automate things? How do we make computers more efficient? How do we make things smaller? To my understanding, [this] is not a value that is held or shared by most of the First Nations communities that I've worked with. At least in the traditional sense. I think when you talk about computing, its end goal shares the value of advancing technology, because we believe that's something valuable to do. And so that makes it hard to draw the connection.” ~GU7

When asked to compare and contrast the various STEM disciplines in Geering Up’s repertoire with regards to cultural integration, the outreach coordinator singled out the technological aspects of STEM, admitting to it being where they struggled as an organization to culturally integrate their educational material:

“It's definitely the most natural with science, specifically, in STEM, because a lot of communities worked a lot with herbs and medicinal things, animals […] it's really easier to cover biology, chemistry, all the sciences in that sense. The trickiest on the far end is probably the tech part of STEM, because it's hard to kind of translate what these traditional teachings are and how they related to tech. So that's probably where we struggle the most.” ~GU10

124 A junior staffer (in their first year working for Geering Up who had not been deployed to a remote community as of the time of interview, and therefore very limited in experience) echoed this sentiment during discussions about cultural integration:

“Yeah, I can definitely see it being challenging, because it's a hard thing to teach in a very hands-on nature, in a community oriented way, which is kind of what we're trying to do with our more culturally aware programs.” ~GU9

Although this perception was driven less by experience and more by the training, exposure to other staff conversations, and their own reflections of the material, it suggested that staffers could be connecting the challenges of ICT education cultural integration to what values technologies may espouse. A validation of this perspective could be gleaned from its relative absence when staffers were first asked to engage cultural integration and customization of STEM education conceptually, where examples of Geering Up’s work and their own impressions of it circled around the ‘natural’ sciences, for instance biology or ecology. A part of this orientation of course was that the Geering Up staff at the time did not have representation from ICT fields, which mitigated their ability to think and approach culturally integrating ICT education with beneficial expertise in the field. At the same time however, Geering Up’s increase in ICT offerings in contrast to its own staffing composition meant that these instructors were serving as the frontline representatives of not just their own STEM fields, but ICT education as well, and therefore their perceptions of the values of technology and of Indigenous communities have import.

Imagining and Highlighting Paths of Culturally Integrating ICT Education

All of the challenges and shortage of true examples of cultural integration of ICT education notwithstanding, members of K’omoks First Nation nonetheless had many ideas as to the various potentials for ICTs to play a role in Indigenous education. The education coordinator

125 for the community shared the opinion that, while connecting features of computing with

Indigenous knowledge seemed to be “a stretch”, the point of ICT education would be to connect

ICTs to aspects of direct cultural significance:

“Do you mean, if you're doing coding for example, like, there's an underlying...you'd relate it to your brain. You would just find something that would be an analogy of what it is you're trying to teach. You could utilize some symbols or some concepts or some constructs that were Indigenous, but I wouldn't...it would be a stretch for me. I think it's more, in terms of piquing that interest, it would be more of finding ways that tech is being utilized. Like, first peoples has the language app, and finding different things that Indigenous people...apps that are Indigenous, like there's the one that...language apps, maps of territories so you know where the acknowledgements are, there's a few of those things, and there's not a lot out there, but it's building the possibilities of how communities could use technology to their benefit, might be a good...” ~Charlene Everson

The teacher from K’omoks First Nation, when discussing culturally integrating ICT education, shared numerous ideas, based on the idea that, while ICTs themselves may not be easily integratable in their view, they could nonetheless play a supporting role in bringing

Indigenous perspectives to the educational table, for instance through the development of story:

“[…] it can support things. We can learn lots through…kind of, bringing both perspectives to the table, and really encouraging those kids to share their stories about the glacier here, or their stories that they might have heard, about…creation story, flood story, which I know that they word “story”, the “story” to me always implies someone made it up this one time. Which maybe that's my own perspective of the story, the tale.” ~Keisha Everson

The teacher continued describing the value of story and ICTs as an educational medium, but made a point that lessons themselves could be fairly generic (i.e. non-integrated in the sense that Indigenous cultural materials are not necessarily integrated into computing concepts), but rather what is of import in Indigenous ICT education is that the outputs be unique to that nation or community:

“I wonder about, like, would it be relevant to say, you're going to use a story from your community and create a stop-motion animation of that story. So you're going to work with photography and digital media, and then work on creating a web site for it. Something. You kind of get what I mean? Like, it would be a very

126 generic lesson plan you could bring into any community, but the story that those kids tell will be very specific to their nation or community.” ~Keisha Everson

Stories are unique to First Nations communities, have a degree of obvious cultural import, and ICTs can serve as an avenue of exploration, even when the actual process of ICT cultural integration remains unclear to both Geering Up educators and community members:

“I'm not sure how it can be done, but I really think that…it should be, just not sure how you would make that happen. Actually there's one thing about the integration of story. I don't know how you would work story into [ICT], but every single nation has story, has oral history, has creation stories, has a flood story, has an origin story, that, I don't know if you could create a lesson series framework around a story, around a concept of story, and work that in in some way.” ~Keisha Everson

Toward the end of the field study, the outreach student assistant, when asked to provide recommendations for those thinking about culturally integrating ICT educational curriculum, conceptualized it in two ways:

“So when I think about indigenizing IT curricula, I see two different ways of doing it. One is teaching a lesson, teaching curriculum with, that has specific cultural value, that has a specific relation to IT curriculum, or just curriculum in general. And for example one of the examples of this would be using beadwork to talk about maybe arrays or math. So that is a way that you connect a traditional practice to the lesson, and I think that's a very rigid method indigenizing curriculum.“

[…]

“I also see a method where you frame the utility of the, whatever you're trying to teach, within the context of Indigenous values. So you say, you use the curriculum as a tool to strengthen the Indigenous values overall. So this is more attune to describing how, for example with engineering can help recreate a big house. Or how chemical engineering is a part of the process of rendering Glit'na11. Or how if you were to use information technology to store language, you'd be able to hold the values of Indigenous peoples in a more safe and effective manner. So it's using the teaching as a tool to preserve and protect Indigenous values.” ~GU5

11 Spelling of this word is a guess, but refers to the oil that is drawn from the candlefish/eulachon, a fish that is traditionally used by First Nations communities (as well as other communities in the Pacific Northwest) for various purposes, including as a food or as a fuel for burning.

127 Imagining cultural integration of ICT education appeared to illuminate two separate views of it: a) where the concepts of ICT education are taught in conjunction with culturally relevant or salient materials, and b) where ICT education is used as an avenue to teach culturally relevant or salient materials. The latter of these views was perceived as being more practical, as well as more natural, given the perceived strangeness of the former approach.

128 Chapter 5

Introduction to Discussion Chapters

In discussion chapters 6 and 7, I connect the findings from this case study to implications from and for postcolonial computing (Irani et al., 2010; Philip et al., 2012). In the first chapter of the discussions (Chapter 6), I draw on a postcolonial computing lens to frame and try to understand some of the identified factors of Indigenous cultural integration by the educational outreach organization, which more strongly places these activities within a broader Canadian economic, social, and cultural context. This includes attempting to background the challenges in cultural integration with a nuanced reading of culture, while moving the locus of focus from the output to the process of integration itself; then, in a pair of sub-sections, tackling the broader positioning of Geering Up within a Western Canadian capitalist framework, suggestive of postcolonial computing’s sensitivity to these factors common in development literature.

In Chapter 7, I make a set of arguments that I believe are of value to cross-colonial technological design, by seeking to empirically motivate enrichments of postcolonial computing.

I first make the case for incorporating notions of resiliency theory into cross-colonial technology development, due to its capacity to highlight indigenous agency. Then, I discuss the inherently political nature of cross-colonial work, and its implications for designers. Finally, I speak more broadly to what I believe should be the ultimate end-goals of cross-colonial work, inspired by the empirical findings as well as contributions from the field of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp).

129 Chapter 6

A Postcolonial Computing View of Designing Cultural Integration

Generative Culture and the Impact on Cultural Integration by a Western Program

As presented in the background literature, postcolonial computing scholars argument for taking a ‘generative’ view of culture identifies it as a phenomenon that is dynamically enacted through social existence (Irani, Vertesi, Dourish, Philip, & Grinter, 2010, p. 3). Culture is, in this sense, a ‘moving target’: as a living breathing entity, it is produced and given value in-situ, and includes not just historical cultural practices, but is also the result of dynamic responses to social encounters today. This fact has two primary implications for Western organizations seeking to integrate Indigenous cultural material into their curricula and lessons: a) identifying culture

(especially Indigenous cultures) as a dynamic construct that’s difficult to integrate by non-cultural insiders, and b) a resistance to portability and codifiability by virtue of this dynamic nature.

Viewed broadly, the core themes of cultural distance and identity spoke to the awareness of how difficult it is to navigate a foreign culture’s material. Identity in particular stood out in participants’ responses as particularly telling of the challenges that they faced, and covered not just cultural upbringing, but more particular qualities of epistemological background (as stemming from their training in Western higher education institutions) as well as their own racial identities. This spoke to three distinct socio-cultural contexts that informed the perspectives of

Geering Up employees with regards to their work in crossing the colonial border, and handling

Indigenous cultural material. First, respondents spoke to the fact that they themselves did not have the cultural know-how that came with being raised in a First Nations community. Second, respondents also were aware of the Western cultural outlook intrinsic to their own training within

Western institutions of learning, often characterized in contrast as well as a desire for connection

130 and parallels with Indigenous ways-of-knowing. Lastly, they cited the physical embodiment of their lack of Indigenous inclusion, namely their race and skin-color. This network of identity factors is in and of itself worthy of greater examination (but admittedly lies outside the scope of this study currently), and forms the basis of perceived identity-based limitations manifested as anxiety for not having the relevant lived-experiences for those tasked with conducting cultural integration. This identity backgrounded the cultural distance that employees needed to navigate, framing the navigation process as a response to their own limited cultural capacities. I believe that this highlights employees’ implicit awareness of culture as a lived, embodied experience that exists in its daily practice. It also connects to a racialized awareness of the lived experience, as employees spoke to this factor in identity as relevant to navigating cultural material. In practice, it not only produces an anxiety laden endeavor for Western educators, but also therefore relies on substantial contribution from the community, which, while welcome, is nonetheless can contain a set of challenges, as the findings on the extent of involvements suggests.

In fact, it is these limitations in representation too that prevent Geering Up’s activities from achieving the threshold of ‘indigenizing’, given the unfortunate lack of prominent

Indigenous voice and vision within the organization. While still informed by external Indigenous scholars and close interactions with community members, the lack of direction may in essence limit the ultimate capacity of the organization to explore something deeper than what they are currently capable of.

Furthermore, an emphasis on the portability of educational practices supports a broader scale of reach for the organization, which is in tension with a dedicated, individual engagement with any particular community. This can, in the worst case, can cause the particular local, ecological foundations of Indigenous knowledge (Battiste, 2005; Cajete, 2005; Kirmayer,

Dandeneau, Marshall, Phillips, & Williamson, 2011; Pierotti, 2011) to be underemphasized or lost. This tension reflects a conundrum of Western organizations managing Indigenous cultural

131 material: the necessary level of commitment and relationship in indigenization practices contrasts with any standardized education model. Organizations taking an uncritical view of what constitutes a cultural practice can run the risk of tokenizing the cultural practices themselves, by treating them as objects that can be understood separated from the contexts of their dynamic social existence. In this case, the nature of outreach itself resists handling culture in a deeper manner that is necessitated by taking a generative view seriously.

Therefore, the actual outputs of lessons and curricular integration ala ‘two-eyed seeing’

(C. Bartlett et al., 2012; Hatcher et al., 2009) within STEM can be awkward or challenging, and in the worst-case risking tokenization. This calls into question to some degree the value of a

Western institution conducting cultural integration of their lessons and curricula, as the generative nature of culture renders the results as an epistemological oddity.

However, shifting the locus of view from epistemological oddity of the result to a focus on how the process actually takes place, and what that process supports beyond the curricula and lessons, identifies cultural integration as something undertaken for the value it presents in and of itself. A process focus has the potential to expose power asymmetries by contextualizing indigenization challenges within broader structural frames such as that exposed by (Hauser et al.,

2009); it can expose whether the interactions of epistemologies are done so in a balanced manner, spelling the difference between reconciliation indigenization and mere metaphor (Gaudry &

Lorenz, 2018; Tuck & Yang, 2011); and it stands to capture the nature of that interaction between ways-of-knowing itself and the conflicts and cohesions that emerge when fundamentally different perspectives of the world engage within a shared space (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 1998). Just as we ought to view learning as a process (Cajete, 2005), the phenomenon of Western educational organizations integrating Indigenous cultural material ought to be viewed as a process that allows us to see beyond measured educational outcomes (Bang et al., 2013; Bang & Medin, 2010). By taking a process view, I seek to examine its value in producing better outcomes in contrast to

132 mere outputs12, focused on Indigenous rights and self-governance in-line with educational decolonization research (Richardson & Blanchet-Cohen, 2000).

Therefore, taking into account the generative nature of culture backgrounds the challenges of cultural integration that Western institutions must contend with, exacerbating their own lack of representation, exploiting and exposing as well the layers of identity underlying this process. Despite this, there is reason to believe that the value of cultural integration may lie in its very practice: the very process of integration itself stands to potentially have some form of empowering potential, provided it can serve as a space where epistemological balance can be built.

The Alignment of ICT and STEM Education with Industrialization and the Workforce

As postcolonial computing scholars point out, development initiatives are often aligned with powerful corporate and government interests, which casts these activities in a different light than purely empowerment. Recall that Irani et al. (2010) point out that ICT-based development inherits broader issues within the development and aid industry, including alignment with a capitalist framework with powerful corporate actors. Evidence from the case study fit this claim, as Geering Up and Actua are both aligned with powerful industry representatives, with some of these corporate sponsors having direct funding relationships to activities in certain First Nations communities. Relationships to industry forces align with the overt themes of workforce skills and hirability that are so prevalent in Actua’s documentation and self-presentation. Furthermore, one could also point out that the fact that Geering Up draws its intellectual sponsorship within UBC

12 I am here using the output-outcome distinction as defined by Heeks (2017).

133 predominantly from the Faculty of Applied Sciences (as well as being staffed largely by engineering students) situates them rather closely to industry interests.

As one respondent from Gaudry & Lorenz's (2018) study with Indigenous academics pointed out with regards to indigenization, the potential link between corporations and First

Nations communities through Geering Up’s educational outreach can be troubling:

“[indigenization] should not be about ensuring settler access to Indigenous nations’ resources. If this is the goal, then Indigenization is just a euphemism for colonization” (p. 222). Furthermore, this raises the issue that the organization’s capacity to confront powerful corporations as playing a role (at least in part) in ongoing socio-economic marginalization and oppression is inherently limited, even as the organization and its corporate sponsors push against this very marginalization and oppression at local levels (albeit at scale when considered across the network of activities undertaken by Geering Up and Actua).

In practice, this artificially conflates the interests of the community with the interests of powerful corporate actors, as well as the Canadian government itself. The educational organization is caught between these interests, pulled in both directions, trying to empower communities while leveraging the financial support and national visibility that allegiance with powerful actors enables. Employees felt this anxiety as they navigated their own reflexive questioning of the valuations of Westernized STEM and its close ties to a capitalistic economy that may or may not serve the cultural or political interests of the First Nations communities that they serve. At the same time, the influence of corporate interests on the educational activities was minimal, with corporations having no actual say in how Geering Up conducted its activities with the communities. However, the potential for influence, however diffuse, was not outside the purview of the employees, especially given their own training in the relationship between British

Columbia’s Indigenous peoples and the interests of the corporate world. Contextualizing the

134 transactive relationship within this history and set of relationships between Indigenous and the

Western-corporate world provides a foundation for this anxiety.

However troubling this possibility is, the negotiated and relational nature of Geering Up’s work suggests that communities may be accepting of certain arrangements with corporate interests through the organization, insofar as the relationship itself can be seen bearing a transactive nature, and that to some degree there is a sense of agency still being expressed by communities in pursuing educational activities, or development work with ties to corporate or government actors. The contrast of potential exploitation (and a history backing up its potential that is increasingly becoming visible in nations like Canada that are seeking to decolonize and face their own colonial history) and the pursuit of some form of community and personal empowerment by Indigenous communities in light of their embeddedness in the broader cultural, social, and economic milieu requires additional theoretical machinery to describe this arrangement that postcolonial theorizing has yet to truly provide.

Therefore, although a postcolonial computing perspective highlights the somewhat troubling integration of Geering Up within a broader Western capitalist structure, this paints a somewhat incomplete picture without including the rationale for Indigenous communities to avail of these services, especially given their awareness of the origins of Geering Up. Postcolonial computing, in this way, could benefit from an enhanced awareness of the rationale behind these arrangements.

Circulation of Power and Potential for Indigenous ICTs

This process of cultural integration between Western educators and Indigenous community members represents a space of negotiations where the output is indigenized curricula, and is an arena where power circulates between and around different actors. Recall that Irani et

135 al.'s (2010) conceptualizing of postcolonial computing incorporates notions of power in various ways, in the form of uneven economic power, to legal and political power in defining the legitimacy of design, and the power of the capitalistic system to confine participants and communities to the role of consumer in consumer-producer relationships. Exploration of power in its various and sundry forms is an integral element of postcolonial computing theorizing, and can be observed circulating within the process explored here, both purposefully as well as in a diffuse, undirected way.

For one thing, Indigenous communities have a transactive resource at their disposal in the form of cultural expertise. Negotiating cultural integration brings people from both sides of the divide to the table with a common interest: how to bring a balanced and healthy integration of cultural perspectives in STEM education, a shared goal that forms the center of cross-cultural negotiation. Within these spaces, cultural expertise circulates as a transactive resource, and is the underlying resource of the challenges of navigating cultural distance: educators, knowing their own lack of cultural expertise, engage and negotiate with communities; communities, interested in the Western STEM education that the educational organization offers (and its implicit cultural outlook), engage and negotiate with the educational outreach program. Knowledge keepers, elders, and interested community members represent their own community’s cultural outlooks, therefore serving as the agents carrying an essential resource to enable the entire process of indigenization. Cultural expertise as a form of knowledge accords a source of power to the holders, reflective of Foucault's (1972) concept of power-knowledge. The power of cultural expertise is rendered acutely by issues in staffing turnover. Regular turnover of those who do develop a rapport and functional cultural know-how adds to the complexity of maintaining the relationships required to foster a healthy ongoing indigenization engagement, placing increasing value on sources of cultural knowledge within the communities to continue indigenization practices and stabilize the initiative year-to-year. Although there is no hard and fast rule that

136 states that the educational outreach program needs to negotiate on matters of culture with communities, lack of cultural knowledge is a source of anxiety still, indicating the degree to which educators view cultural knowledge as a valuable resource.

On the other hand, power circulates in such a way that is outside the control of leverage of any of these particular actors, instead enveloping those on both sides. One instance of this can be seen in the starting of a co-working relationship from a ‘neutral’ framing of Geering Up’s work. With cultural engagement in STEM outreach a potential later goal, this approach hinges upon First Nations communities initial valuing of STEM educational outreach as likely focused upon the tools offered to survive and thrive within broader Canada, and in turn an international economic system geared towards a global capitalist order. That is to say, integration of

Indigenous cultural material into STEM, however valuable from a humanitarian, cultural, or epistemological perspective, is not necessarily one of the key factors spurring communities’ interest in STEM outreach.

Another area where I observed enveloping power against cultural integration was in meeting the educational resource requirements to support outreach. This is particularly acute for

ICTs, given its overall expense and the described difficulty of transporting the organization’s own supplies, therefore putting the onus on communities to not only supply the required resources

(such as computers), but also to ensure they were usable to an outside educator and available for access during the particular time of an outreach event. These conditions highlight and exacerbate socio-economic disparities, which can interact with reported related constraints such as budgetary decision-making and required know-how in preparation for having camps and workshops. Thus, access could be inconsistent for many communities serviced by outreach, leading to the adoption of minimally-plugged or outright unplugged lessons. Although there is no logical reason why cultural integration of ICT education cannot take place in these limited access environments, it is nonetheless a barrier that limits the full range of possibilities.

137 I argue that the enveloping nature of these forces contending against integrating

Indigenous cultural material can lend itself to promoting the view that there is little to lose in just

“sticking to the science part” and avoiding the potential minefield of cultural material is particularly attractive and more feasible. In other words, defaulting to purely Westernized STEM.

In this situation, the cultural outlook represented by Western STEM takes precedence over an

Indigenous cultural outlook as the default mode of operations, reinforcing a de facto hierarchy whereby Western views become the core of education. Even when cultural integration becomes negotiated, the balance is in a tenuous state: any breakdown in the efforts results in defaulting to the de facto Western model.

What is at risk when Western STEM becomes the default is the capacity to maintain an aware stance towards the cultural outlook represented in STEM education, implicitly considered culturally neutral. Exploration by critical theorists provides us crucial theoretical mechanisms to understand the inherent value that integrating cultural material plays, especially within a model that defaults to Westernized STEM, by explicating the concepts of ideology and hegemony.

Ideology here can be taken as a dominant worldview that privileges some groups over others

(Freeden, 2003; Hawkes, 2003). As Zheng & Stahl (2011, p. 74) point out, “ideologies can only persist if they evade critical questioning and analysis,” and so must be rendered invisible, as an accepted axiom above debate. The mechanism by which this occurs is hegemony, here most closely tied to the Gramscian notion which sought to question why people accepted oppression

(Kincheloe & McLaren, 2011). Hegemony brings into existence and stabilizes ideologies, by hiding it from critical evaluation until it is merely accepted as axiomatic, in other words, ‘the truth’ (Zheng & Stahl, 2011).

The cultural outlook represented in STEM, as coming from the broader Western cultural context, becomes ideological insofar as the values that it exhibits (e.g. the role of education in the production of a national workforce supporting global capitalistic endeavors) becomes assumed

138 and accepted. The community’s interest in receiving STEM education in order to best prepare their youth for survival in Canada reflected this ideology, potentially rendering its cultural center invisible. Education, without taking a critical perspective on its own cultural practices and content with regards to what cultural outlook it reflects, becomes an instrument of hegemony.

Thus, I argue that the existence and use of the space of negotiations for supporting cultural integration into STEM education serves as a counter to education as a source of hegemony, by bringing to the fore the culturally imbued nature of STEM, as being in an ongoing discourse with Indigenous cultural outlooks. By arranging different cultural views within the negotiation space, participants in this discourse must come to terms with the cultural perspectives that can and do get expressed in STEM education. To put this succinctly, making Indigenous culture a talking point in STEM education arranges it in contrast to cultural perspectives inherent in Westernized STEM, bringing both sides to the table and exposing the latter’s potentially invisible cultural core.

Use of the negotiation space is in this way empowering as a counter-mechanism to hegemony. Sultana & Ahmed (2019) point out through their study of ‘occult’ practices that the sites of HCI can serve to combat ideological hegemony. In this study, I extend this belief by illustrating that hegemony can also be combatted within the process of design as a critical endeavor as well. Therefore, perhaps one of the greatest benefits to educational practices of integrating cultural material is in promoting a critical and aware view of education and STEM, and in doing so challenging ideology by upsetting hegemony. In practice, this suggests that

Western educators working in cross-colonial spaces should attempt to foreground the culturally imbued nature of the STEM education they convey, where cultural integration and potentially indigenization can play a crucial role as a practice that enables this awareness.

139 Chapter 7

Extending Postcolonial Computing Theory

This exploration of educational practices brings to the fore the STEM foundations of the communities that development scholars often seek to work with in developing beneficial technologies. The Geering Up outreach program builds service in line with the intersection of identities that exist in First Nations communities both seeking to establish their own rights to cultural integrity and survival while preparing their students and youth to survive and thrive in a

Canadian society with potential disagreements in cultural values and epistemological outlook

(Barnhardt & Kawagley, 1998; Battiste, 2005). As development scholars build in tandem with communities, the evolving face of those communities are at least in part a product of the foundations of education with STEM, and particularly ICTs, and therefore should be considered a crucial component of any design formulations developed to guide these scholars.

Examining several development cases through the lens of postcolonialism enabled postcolonial computing scholars to offer three design formulations to guide development researchers in their work, geared towards those in the ICTD and HCI4D fields (Irani et al., 2010).

In the following section, I will propose a) extensions to these formulations that I argue deserve inclusion alongside the other design formulations, driven by empirical findings and discussions within this section (Resiliency Theory and Politicization); and b) an argument for stronger engagement decentering, which I believe should be an orienting goal of designing both technologies and education with Indigenous communities.

140 Incorporating Resiliency into Design and Development

In the last section of the previous chapter, I noted that engaging critical theorists provides a theoretical understanding of the role of cultural integration within Gramscian notions of ideology/hegemony. However, postcolonial theorizing and notions of ideology/hegemony still seem to underplay the active role that First Nations communities undertake today in defining their own destiny. In the case of the former, postcolonial theorizing provides a focus on what development and Western thinkers can adopt in their own views towards the ‘developing world’ as conceptualized within colonialist relations while not necessarily being forced to engage or include the voices of the actual people, limiting its view as a ‘Eurocentric critique of

Eurocentrism’ (Ali, 2014; Grosfoguel, 2001; W. Mignolo, 2011). In the case of the latter, awareness of ideology and hegemony on cultural integration describes a mechanism of agency, but does not provide a framework of describing agency itself. What results is an incomplete in accounting for Indigenous agency, even though cultural integration, through its negotiated spaces and promoting of cultural awareness in STEM, represents a mechanism through which agency can be exercised.

Within postcolonial computing scholarship, the interests of the community are most likely captured in ‘engagement’ protocols, by guiding the methods of cross-cultural encounter away from being extractive and towards co-creating value. The community’s agency in working with the scholar is left as an open question for the scholar to explore. The benefit of this approach is that, in the hands of a skilled and willing practitioner, it allows the community to be engaged and express their intentions through the design, implementation, and evaluation phases of a project. Engagement is effective when it leverages ‘cultural logics and practices’ defined within the community, with an emphasis on conversation and interaction over measurement and needs assessments (Irani et al., 2010).

141 However, contributing additional theoretical mechanisms that might further structure engagement approaches, especially given the value of inclusion of such ideals within the framework of thought itself. What current approaches to post-colonial computing do not necessarily offer is an a priori theoretical perspective about people that orients the scholar before, during, and after cross-cultural encounter. While postcolonial theorizing and notions of ideology and hegemony fit within the gamut of helpful views shaping postcolonial and decolonizing activities, these are undeniably Eurocentric perspectives on colonial and developed- developing world relationships. The shortcoming illustrated here is that, when scholars and designers develop projects, their theoretical orientations are based on an awareness of their place within certain angles of coloniality (e.g. reinforcing economic dependence), but not necessarily factoring in the agency of communities within a struggle against coloniality. In the best case, this renders Indigenous agency obfuscated in design work, but in the worst case paints them as

“depleted, ruined, and hopeless” (Tuck, 2009) and in need of protection from ruinous interactions with Western culture.

I arrive at this critique through my a priori adoption of a postcolonial perspective strongly focused on the angles of coloniality expressed in cross-cultural educational practices. Although this perspective is integral to working with communities and can highlight the invisible hand coloniality and colonialism continue to play in cross-cultural development work, I find it lacking in its ability to adequately capture the receptiveness and willingness of Indigenous peoples to adapt and adopt Western technologies, including ICTs, in order to survive and thrive. To put it simply, the question in my mind was why would a First Nations community even entertain

Western ICTs and STEM in education or development, knowing both the critical harm that educational practices in Canada have done historically and the negative impacts on cultural integrity ICTs themselves can bring?

142 The gap in my understanding was filled when an Indigenous community member advised me to emphasize resiliency in my view of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples. Scholars have defined resiliency theory in many ways (McGuire–Kishebakabaykwe, 2010), but Maori scholar

Mason Durie offers an Indigenous conception of resiliency:

“Superimposed on adversity and historic marginalization, Indigenous resilience is a reflection of an innate determination by Indigenous peoples to succeed. Resilience is the polar opposite of rigidity. It provides an alternate perspective to the more usual scenarios that emphasize Indigenous disadvantage and allows the Indigenous challenge to be reconfigured as a search for success rather than an explanation of failure.” ~Mason Durie (2006), as quoted in Valaskakis, Stout, & Guimond (2009)

While there are a multitude of forms of theoretical applications of resiliency, for example based on a social units like the individual or the family, as well as in response to lived experiences like military deployment (VanBreda, 2001), Durie locates Indigenous resiliency as a collective strength at the community level, in line with Thomas, Mitchell, & Arseneau (2016, pp.

1-2). This complementary perspective provides scholars with a theoretical foundation for the engagement of technologies like ICTs (not to mention STEM education from a Western institution, the overarching context of this study), and captures the experiences I had with community members. Marie Battiste (2005) explicitly points out that Western thought tends to miss this crucial aspect of Indigenous knowledges, which coheres with my experiences with the limitations of the Eurocentric origins of postcolonial theorizing (and in turn, postcolonial computing). It also reflects the relationships the Geering Up built and maintained with communities that I didn’t work with directly during the case study. Crucially, it provides scholars with an empowering community-centric framework that has been built by Indigenous peoples for

Indigenous peoples (McGuire–Kishebakabaykwe, 2010). This definition of resiliency theory incorporates the adaptation within the “search for success” of Indigenous peoples, and implies the readiness and willingness to engage STEM and ICTs to further this end, regardless of its cultural

143 origins. Resiliency within this context means the willingness and capability to move forward and surmount the challenges of colonization.

Furthermore, resiliency is not just an operating principle to guide cross-cultural development, but is a necessary aspect of Indigenous communities becoming not just participants in development projects (for example Jensen et al., 2012; Mcloughlin & Oliver, 2000; Verran,

Christie, Anbins-King, Van Weeren, & Yunupingu, 2007), but the full agents and leaders of it.

Resiliency as a formulation connects the current development engagements with the future of development, as development scholars come to internalize the view of Indigenous peoples as developers in their own right, and not mere recipients. As opposed to other forms of resiliency theory, the foundation of Indigenous resiliency theory is its place-based nature (McGuire–

Kishebakabaykwe, 2010), reflecting the fundamental epistemological basis for Indigenous empowerment (Pierotti, 2011). Land-based in this context speaks to the sustained relationship that

Indigenous peoples have to the land (McGuire–Kishebakabaykwe, 2010), and presents an interesting cultural consideration that is difficult to capture in ICT-based education and development work. Not only does Indigenous resiliency theory stipulate an orientation towards conceptualizing the why of technological adoption and overall adaptation (critical perspectives of cultural impacts stemming from ICT globalization notwithstanding), it foregrounds the relationship to the land as the basis of any work with Indigenous communities.

My interpretation of the implications for scholars and designers in ICTD and HCI projects to this last point is that it illustrates a fundamental challenge to the traditional training in

Western fundamentals of computing, which hinge upon a Cartesian duality that separates the mental from the physical, and computing from the body (Mahendran, 2011). The difficulty with indigenizing ICT (similarly, as uttered by a K’omoks First Nation member: “how do you indigenize math?”) as opposed to the ‘natural’ sciences like biology or ecology backgrounds the conceptual challenge of indigenizing ICTs in general, and incorporating resiliency in particular.

144 There are initiatives that bridge the gap between place-based epistemological views and computing such as Indigenous geographic information systems (Palmer, 2012; Veland, Lynch,

Bischoff-Mattson, Joachim, & Johnson, 2014), but what is of value in this point is the awareness that re-conceptualizing technological design with an eye to Indigenous resiliency should consider the sites of engagement, articulation, translation, and politicizing as foundational to the project.

I have in the previous two sections of this discussion argued for the value of two separate theoretical perspectives. Resiliency theory provides an a priori mechanism for development scholars to frame communities as the agents of their own fate through a motivational and reasoned account of engagement with the techno-cultural artifacts coming from colonial powers in spite of the history. At the same time, notions of ideology and hegemony provide conceptual support of a critical view of cultural integration by exposing the culturally embroiled nature of technology often hidden or ignored. Cultural integration, to this latter point, accomplishes this task by creating a space that explicitly brings and exposes cultural expertise to the negotiation space. These are complementary perspectives that collectively further guide postcolonial development work.

Therefore, I argue for resiliency theory as contributing meaningfully to postcolonial computing scholars, due to its capacity to frame communities as powerful and capable in defining their own destinies, while still complementing the self-critical value that postcolonial computing supports. In practice, resiliency theory can function as a sensitizing view for cross-colonial development scholars, attuning them to the agency and power of the communities they work with.

Politicizing as a Design Formulation

It is common practice among technologists, HCI4D and ICTD scholars included, to avoid infusion of the political into their work (DiSalvo et al., 2010; Dourish, 2010; Gurumurthy &

145 Singh, 2009). Today, the reasoning for this has many layers: discomfort on the part of the researcher, the professional risk of engaging the political, the potential for straying into activism territory away from the ostensibly ‘objective’ leanings of Western science (such as it is), not to mention the very real existential risk posed to local partners in unstable geo-political contexts are all likely possibilities in the orientation away from the political. Fittingly, development programs, as components of a broader aid industry, have also been critiqued for their inability to engage political issues (Gurumurthy & Singh, 2009; M. M. Miller, 2014), described as the “anti-political machine” (Ferguson, 1994). Instead, the view is limited to local solutions, restrictive in scope and often failing to target the root of the injustice and inequality that these programs ostensibly seek to defeat.

In an interesting twist for postcolonial computing theorizing, scholars have also critiqued postcolonial theory from decolonial perspectives. The critiques identify the field’s difficulty conceptualizing political-economic impacts and the racial-material realities of coloniality, instead over-fixating on the cultural (Ali, 2016). For development programs taking a postcolonial computing perspective, there is little in their intersection of frameworks (between ICTD/HCI4D and postcolonial theory) that provides the mechanisms for engaging the political factors of their work, nor is there a professional motivation to do so.

However, in situations where the line between the cultural and the political become blurred, it becomes problematic to claim distance from the political aspects of cultural work. At best it can be deemed willfully ignorant, while at worst it neuters the empowerment potential of a program by depoliticizing it as a process through which communities and participants can build a cohesive unifying identity. One can look to the work of civil rights activist Malcolm X’s goal of rebuilding racial and cultural pride in the Black community as the foundation of his movement’s power, including its political force (Joseph, 2020), as evidence of this. As a counterpoint to the critique of postcolonial theorizing’s fixation on the cultural, this shows that the cultural is

146 political, and cultural empowerment is political empowerment. When cultural identity serves as the basis for political empowerment and not just cultural fulfillment, depoliticizing becomes an implicitly oppressive act.

At the same time, even the process of cultural integration itself touches on political issues: as was suggested by community members, identifying who is a source of cultural knowledge (in this case, an elder or knowledge keeper) reflects certain political structures and alliances within a community. The snowball sampling method employed in this study places this research along those political lines, illustrating that observing respectful relations through a controlled researcher presence in the community can nonetheless have the ironic effect of following a community’s particular political divides. As a result, how the process itself occurs is inherently subject to political machinations at the community level. In turn, any resulting artifact

(whether it’s technological or curricular) is unavoidably a reflection of a certain political arrangement.

Through this lens, the task of cultural integration is inherently political. It is a process that imports power relations, implementing, enforcing, and potentially redistributing them in some way. These discussions illustrated how power circulates throughout these efforts.

Furthermore, when these practices are conducted across the colonial border with entities with their own rights to sovereignty, power relations and practices that affect them take on a political quality. Therefore cultural integration is a politically-laden process, and undertaking it can have profound impacts on community empowerment and disempowerment, and in turn broader political relationships between Indigenous communities and Western nations.

National trends in Canada track with this claim: a university’s selection of a white professor to teach a course on residential schooling was challenged openly, questioning whether she had “the lived experience of what it’s like to be a product of these systems within Canada”

(Hamilton, 2018). Although the debate resulted in the proposed professor teaching the course as

147 an ally, the point was made that the distance between culture and politics in indigenization spaces is narrow.

Thus, being apolitical is no longer an option for technological designers that work in cross-colonial spaces, especially since the results of designer’s efforts, i.e. technological artifacts, are inherently political regardless (Winner, 1980). Ekbia & Nardi (2016) make a case for the engagement of the political in HCI research, pointing out that without engaging the political aspects of their work, HCI loses its relevance. They describe a three-tier approach to importing political economy into HCI work: historicizing, contextualizing, and politicizing. Politicizing under their schema is defined as “incorporating politics in [HCI theorizing’s] conceptual apparatus.” Within the confines of colonial relationships in the global north, such as the one touched upon in this case study, embracing the political in community-focused design work carries certain notable implications.

First, it problematizes the assumption that cross-cultural design work can be apolitical at all. A common charge against postcolonial scholarship is its privileging of cultural matters over the material realities of coloniality, but this charge becomes increasingly tenuous when the arena of discourse necessarily conflates the cultural and the political. Therefore, when cross-colonial work like cultural integration is contextualized within the existing power asymmetries and history of colonialism and coloniality, a poorly conducted effort harms sovereignty: with communities seeking to rebuild, revitalize, or propagate a cultural identity at the core of a tribal nation identity, violations of cultural integrity through work ostensibly in partnership with Western institutions are by nature political harms.

Second, it describes the space of negotiation as an arena that community representatives

(‘participants’ in design discourse) can use to exert sovereignty, using cultural expression as the means of exertion, and can, in theory, be withheld (as well as overall participation). Within this space, collaborative design work is a series of negotiations surrounding cultural knowledge,

148 STEM expertise, and the identities of those involved. Even though the negotiated nature of this space may not be directly relevant to the actual output of the process (e.g. a technological artifact), various forms of expertise can be used to promote the political will, such as that of a community.

Third, it places scholars and designers within a colonial history, and their membership within a historically colonialist political framework, regardless of their own personal racial, cultural, and other identities. When scholars and designers from Western institutions step into this arena, they implicitly become diplomats, representatives of not just their respective institutions, but also as harbingers of a history and social conditions that backgrounds this space, including colonialism and coloniality. Lack of awareness of embeddedness within the framework on the part of the scholar or designers leads one to miss a crucial means of understanding the sentiments of participants and communities, especially if they encounter suspicion that has little to do with the ostensible goals of the project. It is therefore the responsibility of designers and scholars to be acutely aware of this history and social conditions that contextualize the encounter, and will define the negotiations within the design processes.

Fourth, it illuminates the fact that working with communities taps into the political structures and machinations of those communities themselves. The empirical evidence suggested that decision to work with particular elders or knowledge keepers was itself a politically loaded choice. The internal politics of communities during engagement can shut off certain held perspectives. This in turn can influence designs to orient towards particular groups, corroborating the argument that design choices “are inherently political” (Ekbia & Nardi, 2016, p. 5000), regardless of whether we are aware of the divisions our work is drawn along. This again is an aspect of cross-cultural design work that is understated in postcolonial computing literature, but can be insidious if ignored due to the potential to accidentally exploit divisions in design work.

149 Lastly, it highlights the fact that the collaborative and participatory design spaces are not a priori spaces of equality between designers and participant. Designers in ICTD and HCI are already acutely aware of the power asymmetries present in their work, the contribution of these findings provide additional specificity to this claim. As I will discuss in the next sub-chapter, pre- existing power asymmetries are self-perpetuating (e.g. the self-perpetuation of computing’s knowledge enterprise), which impacts the balance of power within the negotiation spaces of cross-cultural design work occupied by designers and participants. Issues of representation in technological development has a self-perpetuating nature, and is today reflected in the distinction between technological designers and participants. Therefore, regardless of the results of an ostensibly collaborative design effort, when non-community members maintain status as the technological designers, a lack of self-reflection as valued by students is maintained, the resulting

‘indigenized’ technological artifact notwithstanding. In this way, conditions within education reflect conditions in development. While technologies built ‘in the interests of the community’ with input from the community itself has a certain value, who is responsible for building the technology still holds weight, especially as the next generation of Indigenous builders use these technologies. With self-reflection a known value of Indigenous education initiatives (DeCoito &

Gitari, 2014), this is a particularly important consideration.

This last point calls into question the political role that external designers have in community empowerment, given their role in self-perpetuating nature of power asymmetries with regards to technical expertise necessary in the design and development of technologies. This may very well be an uncomfortable reality of contemporary HCI and ICTD work (and themes of perpetuating dependency are known within colonialist literature), but nonetheless ought to be problematized in a reflexive way by scholars and developers.

Thus, the empirical findings suggest that cross-colonial work is an inherently political process, and that acceptance of this fact necessitates certain further essential considerations for

150 designers (both in technology and education) cross colonial borders and integrating cultural material. Primarily, these considerations speak to an increased awareness of the designer’s place in a political context, for instance the inheritance of the political history as part of design and development work, or the awareness of cultural integration as a negotiation space for the exercise of sovereignty. Similar to resiliency theory, in practice postcolonial computing scholars can benefit significantly by internalizing these considerations, and incorporating this thinking as a sensitizing set of concepts and relational inheritances for their work.

Computing’s Knowledge Enterprise and Implications for Postcolonial Computing

Here I will provide an argument for the need to decenter the epistemological core of computing. To do this, I will draw on the conception of computing as a knowledge enterprise that institutes multiple universalizing assumptions through various disempowering avenues, as observed in the empirical evidence. Drawing on this analysis, I argue that a critical decentering of computing is necessary to rescue ICT’s empowering potential, drawing on the concept of epistemic delinking to make this case. Postcolonial computing scholarship is complemented by this contribution insofar as it connects the present work to what I argue should be the ultimate goal of development work.

As discussed in the background literature to this study, postcolonial computing theory seeks to upset the often invisible assumption in HCI and allied fields of methods and designs as being “imagined as universal,” and in particular that these methods that produce technologies, including education, are “always transnationally produced and dynamic” (Irani et al., 2010, p. 9).

I argued at the outset that incorporating findings from the process of transnational production of knowledge within educational practices illuminates factors that are directly relevant to the cross- cultural design and development of ICTs. In order to conceptualize the postcolonial computing

151 implications of educational practices, I draw on scholarship from one of these allied fields, ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), and in particular its conceptualization of computing as a knowledge enterprise, represented by the institutions of knowledge (museums, libraries, archives) that stand as the symbolic center from where knowledge migrates (Dourish & Mainwaring,

2012). Implicit of course in any educational practices is that knowledge necessarily must migrate, focusing the lens squarely on the power of the knowledge enterprise in any cross-cultural educational initiative. As Dourish & Mainwaring (2012) point out with regards to ubicomp, knowledge migration as a process is undergirded by certain assumptions: that there is an uneven distribution of knowledge in the world, and that it is the responsibility of the havers of knowledge to assist in its migration from centers of knowledge to places “where it is lacking”, e.g. the periphery. These assumptions constitute ubicomp’s “colonial impulse,” broadly construed as an invisible universalist agenda.

The activities of Geering Up are, by definition, encapsulating of the narrative of knowledge migration, as well as fulfilling the idea that it is the duty of institutions like UBC to assist in the migration of that knowledge from the center (e.g. Vancouver) to the periphery (e.g. a

First Nations community in British Columbia). Although ubicomp is conceptually distinct from

ICT globalization and the accompanying educational apparatus, the narratives of ICTs more broadly are dominated by the same knowledge apparatus (that is to say, the ‘centers of knowledge’ for ubicomp are more or less the same for ICTs more broadly), and so colonial narratives extend beyond ubicomp to ICT globalization more generally. In this way, as knowledge migration crosses the colonial divide in service to ICT education, it represents a collision between the colonial assumptions that undergird ICT globalization’s spread (through the educational system), and the traditional history of colonization that exists between Canada and its

Indigenous peoples. With ongoing damage to cultural integrity a known consequence of the latter form of colonization (e.g. MacDonald & Hudson, 2012), the degree to which colonial impulses

152 are present in ICT education frames a discussion of how these services are both empowering and potentially disempowering, especially as empirically observable within the confines of this case study.

These contrasting forces in ICT education are a result of how the computing knowledge enterprise expresses power in processes of globalization. Framing these expressions of power from the perspective of colonial assumptions synthesizes with colonial reality, a space which

Indigenous communities navigate daily.

Obviously, the opportunity to receive ICT education (within the STEM umbrella) has an empowering side, as without it, there would be little interest in receiving the services of an organization like Geering Up, regardless of whether it contains a colonial impulse. However, the current centering of the computing knowledge enterprise presents itself in the form of limited examples and limited awareness of Indigenous produced ICTs, especially by those students who will go on to be the next generation of builders. This parallels the racial representation of educators, where limited representation leads to limited awareness of Indigenous students’ own potential, which, although it is not the only factor that lends itself to the cultural integration process’ overall complexity, is undeniably a crucial element of it. Thus, students who could become developers must look to non-Indigenous cultural centers for inspiration, obscuring their ability to “see themselves” in the sciences and their technologies. Evidence suggests that the current centering of computing’s knowledge enterprise implicitly resists these possibilities.

Using aspects of Dourish & Mainwaring’s colonial narratives as an analytic framework of sorts can help scholars probe the assumptions that undergird ICT globalization, especially in contexts where technology is described as diffusing from developed to developing contexts.

Assumptions of uneven distribution of knowledge manifest literally as knowledge migrates, driven by interests on both sides. Assumptions of universality likewise manifest through broad regulations that may or may not synthesize with a local context, or the ICT ecosystem’s means of

153 implicitly quelling epistemological plurality through maintaining a racial and technological

‘status quo’, what Feenberg describes as the “technical code” (Feenberg, 2005). However, the practice of knowledge migration in ICT globalization (and knowledge migration more generally) obscures these underlying colonial assumptions and their inherently disempowering nature, as they are entangled with themes of empowerment: encounters with those in the case study who live daily with colonial realities reveal them to be much more engaged with what computing (and more broadly STEM) offers them and their communities. In the case of Geering Up’s educational services, it represents opportunities for a lucrative livelihood. Simultaneously, computing’s knowledge enterprise exercises a form of control over these processes. I observed that power is expressed through the current lack of representation in technologies and educators alike, threatening to maintain a ‘status quo’ over the shape and form of digital technologies.

What I believe this to be indicative of is that the current state of the computing’s knowledge enterprise entangles empowerment and disempowerment. Critical theorists have long known about the simultaneous oppressive and emancipatory potential of ICTs (Zheng & Stahl,

2011). They are, in essence, two sides of the same coin of ICT globalization.

This fact becomes even more significant when disempowerment is placed within the discourse of colonialism, given Indigenous communities’ constant ongoing battle against colonization. Indigenous communities in North America are locked in a daily struggle to maintain agency over their community’s cultural integrity (MacDonald & Hudson, 2012), so in situations where tools for empowerment (like ICTs) can nonetheless serve to further disadvantage and disparity, disentangling empowerment and disempowerment becomes essential. Perhaps central to conceptualizing colonialism as a knowledge enterprise in alignment with Dourish &

Mainwaring (Dourish & Mainwaring, 2012) is the theme of centrality of power in ICT: knowledge migrates from “centers of power,” what is being assumed universal still has its origins in these centers, and processes of migration are conceptualized by a center-periphery divide. In

154 this sense, colonial narratives depend crucially on this centrality achieving hegemonic status. By corollary, unseating centrality suggests a re-rendering of computing as a pluralistic epistemological endeavor, challenging the centrality of power that is foundational in the knowledge enterprise.

The notion of a decentering of the power/knowledge (in the Foucauldian sense) in computing appears to have implicit weight within the scholarship of integrating Indigenous cultural material into ICT education, but does not necessarily appear to be presented as an explicit theoretical basis for such actions. After all, the very notion of Indigenous ICT education itself is based on the awareness of the transfer of social and cultural factors that occurs during the transfer of ICT knowledge (Duveskog et al., 2003; Tedre et al., 2006), as well as more broadly the inseparability of culture and technologies (Philip et al., 2012). However, the findings of the push and pull of progress within ICT globalization within this case study illuminate that we must explore further than the connection between culture and technology, and contend with what the end-goals of culturally integrating ICT education ought to be. The knowledge enterprise of computing maintains itself in such a way to mitigate the empowering potential of cross-cultural

ICT education, culturally integrated or otherwise.

The development of the concept of ‘epistemic delinking’ by decoloniality scholars like

Walter Mignolo (W. D. Mignolo, 2007) provides a theoretical basis for decentering, proposing a transition from epistemic universality to epistemic plurality. Within computing, to unseat the centrality of power at the heart of the knowledge enterprise necessitates a radical rethinking of just what computing means: its shapes, its forms, and how different epistemological perspectives can create it. This rethinking must in turn occur in the hands of those communities and nations that are not within the “center” of computing’s purported epistemic point of origin, but rather what could be considered its periphery, and are also engaging computing’s potential in light of their own cultural, social, and personal foundations. This move to decenter parallels the

155 identification of the highest form of indigenization, that of decolonial indigenization (Gaudry &

Lorenz, 2018), requiring a seismic structural shift (such as a dual academy structure that equally recognizes epistemological differences at the structural level) that produces novel power relations in the academy and technological development disciplines. Just as the scholars in Gaudry &

Lorenz’s study point out, such a move is a necessity to satisfy the Indigenous community’s educational and social needs.

Seeking to argue for a decentering perspective is not altogether new for postcolonial computing scholarship, as this orientation has in fact been discussed previously within the field: van der Velden (2013) argued for the ‘decentering of design’ when examining the absence of an

‘Indigenous knowledge’ page on Wikipedia, citing the socio-technical design of the popular crowd-sourced and crowd-moderated online encyclopedia. In doing so, they suggested the advantage of other modes of structuring Wikipedia that illustrate the possibilities of decentering

Wikipedia’s design, and that by “decentering the position of the expert designer and her knowledge, negotiations over who can be a designer come to the foreground” (p. 313). While the findings and resulting suggestion here is in support of this orientation to postcolonial computing, this study expands on this argumentation by illustrating that the issue of decentering is broad, and encapsulates design within a larger network of institutional power structures that perpetuate a centrality of knowledge that resists decentering. This broader view is evinced by connecting cross-cultural design to educational practices.

However, just as the shift at the educational level can be considered radical, a decentering of technology’s epistemological center is full of challenges, none the least of which are pragmatic. In particular, smaller communities with their own distinct cultural outlook face an uphill battle to disentangle empowerment from disempowerment. For instance, K’omoks First

Nation consists of only around 200 registered members (Government of Canada, 2016) which severely hinders most forms of native ICT development: there are few ICT trained professionals,

156 potentially insufficient financial resources to support such initiatives, as well as limited market interest in anything built for a single, particular community like K’omoks First Nation.

Therefore, I argue that the entanglement of empowerment and disempowerment illustrated by the empirical findings here can only be disentangled through a stronger field focus on decentering. This is an imperative that necessitates significant changes to how we conceptualize computing, but is particularly necessary in the interest of decolonization, especially given the collision between computing’s colonial impulse and colonial realities. Decentering suggests upsetting hierarchies deeply held in computing education and development practices, and not only challenges those structures of education and development but also the identities of those within it. In practice, it necessitates a ‘decolonizing’ of both structure and identity, as well as necessary inclusion and thrust of indigenous voice and vision within in new structures.

157 Chapter 8

Concluding Remarks and Future Directions

Through this evaluative case study, I hope that I have illustrated that the work of Geering

Up both signifies how far we have to go with regards to Indigenous education, as well as reasons for optimism. Geering Up's admittedly falls short of the threshold of indigenization due to its own lack of representation of Indigenous voice and vision internal to the organization. This lack of representation exploited notions of identity in the organization, leading to various degrees of anxiety and reflexive concern as to their own capacities to even manage cultural information, not to mention the limitations this presented to the organization’s capacity to integrate cultural material or indigenize education altogether. Furthermore, Geering Up's own alignment within a broader capitalist structure lead to some potentially troubling relations and consequences, conflating its ostensibly empowering ideals with objectives not necessarily in service to the betterment of First Nations communities.

However, as I argued throughout the piece, the process of cultural integration itself can serve as an angle of empowerment by bringing actors across the colonial and epistemological divide to negotiate over shared educational objectives. This process, with its strong ties to power distribution and in turn political relations, is not just a space of epistemological balance, but also of sovereignty through the exercise of cultural expression.

In terms of the long term objectives of cultural integration activities, I saw a coherence emerge between technological development and the need to 'decenter' the epistemological centering of computing's knowledge enterprise, and the loftiest form of indigenization,

'decolonial' indigenization (Gaudry & Lorenz, 2018) that stipulates a reimagining of the structures of education itself. Just as we are still exploring what a truly decolonial indigenization initiative looks like (a tremendous challenge given the Western academy's resistance to non-Western

158 epistemological views), the actual decentering of computing knowledge remains a mystery as to what this will look like in practice.

What can be said however is that the thrust of Indigenous voice and vision will need to be at the fore for this shift to transpire. Geering Up is well-positioned to play a positive role in this, given the promising internalized awareness of their own cultural, epistemological, and racial positioning in this discourse, as well as their place within a university (UBC) that has in recent years fostered a growing Indigenous faculty and Indigenous supportive environments. These factors cannot be understated when considering how a Western institution can potentially support a transformation, but whether Geering Up and UBC do indeed play a positive role in 'true' indigenization remains to be seen. They are, however, well-positioned as a Western institution of higher learning to play a part.

Within this space, there is still space for Geering Up to evolve to better connect to the

First Nations communities they work with. Trying to include significantly more Indigenous intellectual leadership, especially leveraging the faculty of UBC and its blossoming cohort of

Indigenous faculty, ought to become a focus in terms of rising up to meet the standards of true indigenization. Their position and experiences in cultural integration may very well mean a graceful transition to this next stage of evolution is possible and within reach, provided the appropriate voice and vision provides the necessary thrust to reach this next stage.

In terms of educational content, the development and furthering of land-based learning is a welcome development, as well as overall the closer cultural interactions that are becoming a focus of their STEM program development. As Indigenous scholars have pointed out, Indigenous ways-of-knowing are crucially linked to the land (Battiste, 2005; Kimmerer, 2002; Pierotti,

2010), which localizes different educational content to particular regions in practice. Then, once land-based learning programs and camps are developed, building out what an integrated or

159 indigenized curriculum looks like for that particular community, through continuing to foster close working relationships with communities.

In theory, greater land-based education and close working relationships with communities should provide the structural platform to support greater blending of STEM with

TEK and Native Science. However, even once this infrastructure is in place (and its significant logistical, time, and energy commitments capable of being met regularly), the questions of identity will still need to be met. Geering Up’s positioning within a Western academy of higher learning means its staff is composed of those acculturated to the Western STEM way. As Marie

Battiste (2005) points out, these distinct epistemological views have struggled to exist in concert with each other, with Western notions of science serving to oppress or quash other ways-of- knowing, bearing out an inherent violence in instances of epistemological encounter. While staffers value in principle what the Indigenous ways-of-knowing can contribute to a STEM agenda, their know-how in it certainly pales in comparison to the years of formal education in

Western systems. That is to say, Western students’ preparation is epistemologically unbalanced.

Therefore, the idea of ‘two-eyed seeing’ that extends beyond just appreciation of Indigenous ways-of-knowing to real, applicable, know-how ought to be applied to how educators and students who fulfill these educational positions are prepared for this space, which necessitates much more extensive training in Indigenous ways-of-knowing and science.

Therefore, although UBC stands as a bastion of appreciation for awareness of Indigenous peoples, work in integration and Indigenization must also take into account the placement of

Indigenous ways-of-knowing in how their scientists and engineers are trained, and make earnest efforts to view science and engineering in an epistemologically pluralistic manner, which conflicts with many of the entrenched structures of the academy itself. This speaks directly to many of the broader goals of indigenization (Gaudry & Lorenz, 2018), and suggests that a precursor to the next evolution of Geering Up’s activities as being able to more gracefully blend

160 Western STEM with TEK and Native Science, especially as an organization staffed at least in large part by Western students, is a broader scale change of how students can integrate both

Western and Indigenous practices of science into their own identities as scientists, engineers, and educators.

Evaluation of Research Quality

In the following section, I will evaluate the quality of the research using the following criteria based on an adapted form of Lincoln & Guba (1985), as prescribed within Halaweh's

(2012) integrated case study – grounded theory methodological framework. I therefore evaluate the research based on the tenets of credibility, transferability, conformability, and dependability. I also discuss a further means of research evaluation, beneficence, on the grounds that working with organizations and communities ought to in some way benefit those groups, especially given the history of exploitative research that did not seek to contribute positively to marginalized communities like Indigenous peoples (Kelley, Belcourt-Dittloff, Belcourt, & Belcourt, 2013).

Credibility

Credibility speaks to the quality that the sample used in qualitative research has with regards to the research objectives. This includes the multiple forms of data used within this study, including human participation, documents, and observations, and how well each of these sources both independently and in concert capture the “concepts and meanings” of the research (Halaweh et al., 2008).

The credibility of my study is enhanced by using multiple data sources to investigate the research objectives in a form of multi-data type triangulation. Furthermore, I spent time engaged

161 in the context of the study in Western Canada, both in Vancouver on the UBC campus and on

Vancouver Island in or near K’omoks First Nation territory (more time spent in the former rather than the latter, given that this is a case study of the organization primarily). This supported a deeper and more nuanced view of the context and how it can inform the perceptions of the phenomena in participants, as well as informing my analysis of this data. In doing so, I also built relationships with participants both in the organization and in the surrounding communities, which first granted me additional access to hermeneutics in analyzing the data, lending to the contextual credibility of the analysis, but perhaps more importantly allowed community members to affect the shape of the research. Additionally, I have also sent interview transcripts to participants (where reachable), allowing them to comment further if desired. Lastly, publications stemming from this research have all (and will continue to be) shared with relevant participants, who can then make suggestions or comments to adjust the focus or analyses in a way that they see better fits their interpretation of the context13.

Transferability

Transferability in qualitative research constitutes “whether the findings can be generalized to other situations,” which distinguishes it from the sense of generalizability employed in quantitative/positivistic research (Halaweh et al., 2008). With regards to the transferability of this study’s findings, it is important to note two possible framings of this research, maintaining a form of tension with one another.

13 A small example of this occurred in a forthcoming paper at the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) 2021 conference, where an organizational co-author, who was also a participant, suggested I much more strongly emphasize certain factors relevant to the research in the accepted draft.

162 Obviously, this study takes place within a particular time and place: in 2019 in

Vancouver, British Columbia (and closely located areas like Vancouver Island), so at the very least its context is the nation of Canada. As previously described, the relationship that the provincial government has with its Indigenous communities is a unique one when compared to the rest of Canada, given that the treaty situation remains largely individually negotiated as a result of the fact that no broad, provincial level treaty covering the whole of Indigenous communities in the province was signed as it was through the Numbered Treaties ubiquitous throughout the rest of Canada (the northwester section of British Columbia covered under Treaty

8 notwithstanding). This produces unique power dynamics today between Indigenous communities and the Euro-Western Canadian communities in British Columbia. In turn, the aspects of the findings in this study that speak to the power dynamics that communities have with the Canadian government and corporations are most strongly tied to the province of British

Columbia. I have provided as much as possible as rich and detailed a depiction of the context so as to provide a reader with adequate evidence to make an informed decision about the transfer of certain findings to similar contexts, but I am acknowledging here that this aspect of the political history that forms the foundation of the Indigenous-Western relationship at the heart of this study cannot be fully ignored, and must be considered.

Indeed, the potential for the findings to be uniquely specific to British Columbia could be interpreted within the data in many ways. For instance, corporate relationships that are developed on a community-by-community level could be impacted by this history of treaties, and the resulting higher degree of individual community-lead sovereignty that it led to today. It also can be felt in the observed degree to which Indigenous communities are referenced throughout British

Columbia, particularly in the UBC campus in the form of bilingual road signs in Musqueam and

English. It is likewise common practice to precede formal gatherings and activities with a land acknowledgement that not only acknowledges the status of the gathering as hosted on a local

163 community’s territory, but that it is also unceded through any formal pre-existing treaty, and therefore remains wholly owned by the community. This environment likewise informs the perceptions and sensibilities of staffers who form the bulk of this research’s data.

That being said, the reliance on a postcolonial framework arguably lends a degree of transferability through the theoretical view, as described by Lee & Baskerville (2003). Where contexts that postcolonial theory applies, concepts derived from a preponderance of the data ought to be considered as potentially applicable through the use and extension of a postcolonial framework, in this case, postcolonial computing. Throughout this dissertation report, I have spoken to themes of power, in particular how they manifest even in the work of humanitarian actors striving to ‘do right’ by and with the communities that they service. It is the nature of viewing these power asymmetries through the postcolonial lens that there is a degree of transferability, given that a consistent theme of colonial relationships is the ongoing power asymmetries that history has produced, and is becoming increasingly diffuse today, although undeniably present. This theory-based transferability likely translates to technological development and education work at the colonial border.

Furthermore, the organizational structure of Actua in particular also arguably produces a form of organizational transferability: Geering Up is just one of a several university- and college- based STEM education affiliates throughout Actua’s network, and the goal to provide a tailored program for Indigenous communities is not unique to Geering Up. Therefore, many of the organizational factors that influence Geering Up’s activities stand to be shared by other network affiliates, including staffing practices, documentation, and relationship with STEM departments and faculty at the host institution.

The provincial specificities of British Columbia can be interpreted in contrast with the theoretical and organizational transferability of this study, whereby the former stipulates that the findings are most closely connected to the British Columbia context given the unique state of the

164 colonial relationship, while the latter suggests that the findings and accompanying analysis has something to say about development and education at the colonial border, in a much broader way than just the geographic confines of British Columbia, or even Canada. In resolving this contrast to attempt to scope this study adequately, although there is precedence to suggest transferability beyond the British Columbia region, I would suggest conservatively that the findings and analyses are still most transferable within that region. Although the decision to apply these findings beyond British Columbia may be justified for the theoretical and organizational reasons I have provided above, this should be done with sufficient caution with an accounting of how the shift from the unique state of British Columbia to a different context could potentially affect the transferability of the findings.

Ultimately, scoping the transferability of this study within the British Columbia province is by no means a trivial claim. British Columbia is home to 198 First Nations communities, as well as more than 30 distinct First Nations languages with almost 60 dialects (Province of British

Columbia, 2020). While there may be lessons to learn from this study that apply elsewhere, restricting the scope to British Columbia is undeniably still meaningful for these communities and the organizations that continue to grow and develop their services within the province. To support this argument, please see Table 9-1 below to illustrate the range of other organizations that would be relevant to the transfer of these findings.

ORGANIZATION NAME HOME INSTITUTION GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

Science Venture University of Victoria Vancouver Island, Northern

British Columbia

Coast Mountain College Coast Mountain College Northwest British Columbia

Educational Outreach

165 EUReKA! Science Program Thompson Rivers University Kamloops, British Columbia

and the surrounding

communities

Science AL!VE Simon Fraser University Throughout British Columbia

Geering Up Engineering University of British Eastern British Columbia,

Outreach Columbia - Okanagan Okanagan Region

UNBC Active Minds University of Northern Prince George British

British Columbia Columbia (Northern British

Columbia) and the

surrounding communities

Table 9-1: Transferable Nonformal Educational Outreach Organizations

Dependability

Dependability here speaks to how “systematic and well-documented” the research process can be traced (Halaweh et al., 2008). To enhance the dependability of the findings and make my methods maximally traceable, please see Appendix A where I share all of my interview instruments. These instruments were adopted and adapted ‘on the fly’ as different forms of the instruments became relevant to certain groups or participants (e.g. when a participant had a particularly interesting story, I built particular instruments in advance to explore that topic with them individually). Furthermore, I have also done my best to provide a rich and detailed account of the story behind the research in the methods section of this dissertation, describing the process by which the research came to manifest, including sampling decisions, sites of the study as they emerged, and the inter-personal process of conducting the research with multiple communities.

166 Conformability

Conformability speaks to the authenticity of the analysis, insofar as it stems from a genuine analysis of the empirical data and not purely from preconceived notions of the phenomena (Halaweh et al., 2008). To support the conformability of this study, I have undertaken these steps:

a) I have sought to provide once again a rich and detailed account of the analysis procedures, including the transcription and analysis tools used, as well as data storage protocols, so as to convey the ‘reality’ of the data, and its centering within the study. b) I am also sharing with the committee the analysis records of this study (conducted within QDAMiner Lite) to provide direct access to the evidence of the analysis being drawn from the authentic gathering and considerations of empirical data. In particular I offer the following analysis stages: a. The analysis project file for the initial coding and categorization stage of the semi- structured interview data. b. The analysis project file for the axial and selective coding stage of the semi- structured interview data. c. The analysis project file for the initial coding and categorization stage of the document analysis data. d. The analysis project file for the axial and selective coding stages of the document analysis data. c) I am likewise sharing the complete code listing for each of the project stage files listed above.

You can find a link to the password protected archive in a shared folder here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/11juxq277frlldl/AAD84TpMMkSF75u1Kmve_gVda?dl=0.

Additionally, you can find copies of the complete code listing for each project stage shared in the appendix (Appendix B).

At the same time, it is worth noting that I do not claim that I began this study in a blank and empty state, devoid of any preconceived notions of the settings or people relevant to this

167 study at the outset. In fact, a postcolonial framework, which was elected at the outset of this study, naturally oriented me towards a more critical perspective of organizations coming from

Western institutions, given its inclination towards critiquing the assumptions that often underlie cross-colonial, cross-border development work. Furthermore, my own personal background and level of privilege (for instance being raised in a household that emphasized the value of

‘traditional’ educational achievements) likewise informs my own opinion of education, as does living with the colonial backdrop of being a Filipino-American, which informs my own opinion of the long-term implications of the Western colonial expanse. Ultimately, there are many angles through which I cannot genuinely claim to have no pre-existing notions of context before the outset of the study.

However, in being forthcoming with these potential factors, I hope to have portrayed through the detailed account of my analysis protocols and offering of my own documented stages of analysis (in the form of code-listings and project files) the authenticity and genuineness of the analysis. I have also worked closely with the participants and my advisor to ensure that I was not unfairly swayed by my own preconceived notions of the context over what is more strongly suggested by the people participating in the study, including in the analysis stages.

Beneficence

Beneficence as a concept in research is most strongly connected to the Belmont Report of

1978, which forms the basis for institutional research ethics in the United States today. Within this report, beneficence prescribes two main objective: 1) that research should first ‘do no harm’ to participants, and 2) that it should maximize benefit while minimizing risk to those participants

(National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral

Research, 1978). Beneficence in this form is a crucial component of the baseline of ethical

168 research, and is at the very least implicit as an evaluative tool of research quality. Although the origins of this conception of beneficence is in the biomedical sciences, it has nonetheless been adopted for use in the social sciences, albeit with controversy over how well the Belmont Report as a whole can account for research in this distant set of disciplines (Denzin, 2008).

However, recent scholarship has suggested that a stronger connection to benefit in research is necessary, given the over-researched state of Indigenous communities without the significant benefits that over-researching would suggest (Bainbridge et al., 2015), if we were to simply accept that ‘the research results are their own benefit to the community.’ It is no longer sufficient to believe that the findings themselves are beneficial to participants by virtue of their scientific merit alone, especially since the notion of benefit is strictly connected to the goals of the scientist and not the participants, no matter how honorable or well-intentioned that scholar may be. Therefore, I have made a conscious effort throughout this study to evaluate the quality of this research not just on the quality of the qualitative methods and analysis employed, but also insofar as the process itself resulted in identifiable benefits to the communities who helped shape the study itself.

To support the beneficence of this study, I first refer to the volunteer and intellectual work I contributed as a part of the educational organization. While I have sought to provide a critical lens and examine the underlying assumptions and power asymmetries that impact the organization’s work, I do nonetheless believe that they are doing a good thing by providing a requested educational service to First Nations communities in British Columbia. I believe that any refinement and improvements that they can make to their own service offerings can go a long way towards benefiting the organization, the communities that they serve, and the overall relationship that is the foundation of the educational outreach operation. During my time in the field, I worked closely with the organization’s members, including guiding the Indigenous student outreach assistant (James Shaw) in conducting ethical qualitative research methods with

169 communities in order to work closely with community representatives in a way to support a more effective working relationship between the organization and the communities. I served at various points as a volunteer educator, supporting instructional staff in the field and helping with classes where necessary. I assisted in the office regularly by helping staffers prepare equipment and supplies for remote outreach activities. I assisted in the development of camper surveys tailored to different age groups (the results of which I elected not to use due to privacy concerns). Lastly, I lent the aforementioned critical eye towards their work and the Indigenous-Western relationship that can often go unserved when the day-to-day operations of educational outreach are priority and there is little breathing room for intellectual quandary. Volunteer efforts on my part were an essential part of ensuring that the supporting organization benefited directly from assisting me with my research, and I would further argue that many of these activities likewise benefited the

First Nations communities that reach out to Geering Up for STEM educational outreach.

Next, I refer to the direct work I had with K’omoks First Nation, in particular assisting in program customization with the Geering Up organization. In conjunction with Geering Up’s

Indigenous outreach student assistant, I explored the possibility of integrating the community’s cultural practices into STEM education with community members. This ultimately resulted in at least one lesson that James Shaw developed and transmitted to the community for future use14, but it also set the stage for further close work to grow this initiative. The research here, with much of these thoughts being shared throughout the case study with organizational members, contributes significantly to them being able to offer this service to communities like K’omoks

First Nation, particularly the amount of energy and engagement required to ‘do it right.’ As previously stated, refinements in understanding of this process stands to benefit all parties, and walking through the integration process with the organization and community members, co-

14 This lesson was the use of the eulachon, a culturally salient fish to the K’omoks nation, to teach the concepts of buoyancy.

170 learning together in this journey, I believe epitomizes the beneficial aspects of this research study.

Furthermore, I can only hope that it sets the table for one day Geering Up being capable of offering a truly ‘indigenized’ experience, starting from an earnest effort as cultural integrators at this stage, given their own limitations in representation and epistemological diversity.

The process of growing the relationship to include cultural integration had noted auxiliary benefits, in particular generating more open-ended discussions with community leadership that could lead to better servicing of the community. Preliminary discussions on the way to cultural integration highlighted recommendations for assisting the community. For example, community members working in the band office stated a desire for additional marketing materials that could be adapted by their office to publicize the camps to community members, to which Geering Up responded by developing publicity templates for communities to use for their own purposes.

Therefore, the process itself can be a beneficial one, illuminating the challenges in Indigenous-

Western relationships through a task-oriented environment that unites people towards a common goal and generates productive discussions.

Beneficence from this study however does not conclude with purely the research study here, as the need to present the findings in a way that community members and organizations can both benefit from constructively is a necessary next step. I will discuss these further in the following chapter.

Limitations of the Research

Reflexive Limitations

First of all, it is important to disclose that my own lack of cultural know-how with regards to Indigenous communities, and in particular First Nations communities limits my

171 capacity to interpret with complete confidence the views of Indigenous community members, and potentially portray them in the light that is accurate to their own outlooks. While I have described myself through a reflexive positioning statement, this alone does not absolve me of the potential for misinterpretation of people and groups. Therefore, I acknowledge this limitation, and I hope that those reading this research will take it into account when trying to understand, explore, and potentially apply my findings.

Methodological Limitations

With regards to the particular selection of case study framework, applying a theoretical perspective like postcolonial computing theory to elements of the data introduces a deductive element into the case study that is not necessarily accounted for in a Merriam framework. The interpretive, constructivist orientation of Merriam’s case study more strongly supports an inductive approach to data analysis, which renders the selection of the Straussian approach to grounded theory (as manifesting an inductive-deductive view) a bit of a mismatch in terms of styles of reasoning. To make this structure coherent, I conceptualize the deductive approach of applying the postcolonial computing theory to the findings as a form of meaning construction, through a theoretical application of the lens to interpreted, coded data. However, it is nonetheless worth noting that there is at least minor potential for disagreement between the deductive view

(albeit limited in scope) and the overall study framework as constructivist with interpretive analytical methods.

A further point of to disclose is that the grounded theory view of Strauss used in this study is interpretive with regards to its view of the connection between theory and data (Halaweh et al., 2008), while Merriam’s case study framework is explicitly constructivist (Yazan, 2015).

The case can be made that, while the overall case study’s view is therefore that knowledge is

172 constructed between an active researcher and the participants (as was the case in this study, as participants frequently tested their own understanding and voiced the challenges in their work that stands to inform their future practices, as well as the direct, extended interactions between me and key participants), data analysis following the conclusion of the field study portion was interpretivist in its tack, with due credence given to the constructive nature of the interviews.

Despite this, this is another instance where epistemological contrasts are embedded in the overall study design.

Another limitation to disclose is that the retrospective view of the study design suggests that the constructivist account of grounded theory developed by Charmaz (Charmaz, 2002;

Hunter et al., 2011) would have led to better cohesion with Merriam’s constructivist account of case study. I likely missed this possibility of grounded theory due to it being the most recent strand of grounded theory (Hunter et al., 2011), and so was not perceived as an option until the primary analysis had been completed. Although I would say that the interpretive-constructivist distinction is not necessarily a large one, it is still worth noting that a Charmaz-based approach would have been a more consistent selection of analytical method.

Finally, Braun & Clarke's (2006) presentation of thematic analysis (under which one could reasonably place my use of grounded theory within) included a set of reflective questions for the researcher that, when answered honestly, identify some shortcomings in the methodological framework I used here. For one thing, the essentialist nature of the questions that

I used (e.g. asking respondents to report on their own motivations) does not strongly cohere with a constructivist view that focuses more on social context and structures surrounding respondents, as stipulated by Merriam’s case study framework. Furthermore, my research was somewhat non- committal to whether the primary view of the data was in terms of semantic or latent themes (as I ultimately vacillated between both), as well as being non-committal to an inductive or theoretically focused style of analysis (which again, I ultimately used both styles). Although in

173 the latter case I was aware of this balance, I had not adequately considered the former, nor adequately considered the constructivist vs. essentialist nature of analysis. A clearer decision on these elements made earlier in the research process could have contributed to a more cohesive connection between the methodology and the interview questions and data collection procedures used.

Limitations on Theoretical Findings

Theoretical Fit of Organization

Crucially, it’s important to note that the participating organization is currently working in a state that is below the standard of what would be considered indigenization: the aforementioned overall lack of indigenous voice and high-level indigenous leadership in the organization prevents this from being considered a fully-fledged form of indigenization, despite the consistent recent emphasis on growing Indigenous faculty and students at the University of British Columbia.

Although I sought to study indigenization, the retrospective view suggests that Geering Up was not the perfect choice of case to examine this challenging process. Ultimately, the case selection was driven by the receptiveness and willingness of Geering Up to work with an external, foreign scholar, and so I accept that, while the context was not perfect in terms of its ultimate connection to the theoretical elements and initial literature reviews and preparation, it was ultimately what I had access to, and sought to explore as best I could within my capacities as an early-stage scholar.

That being said, I still believe that the findings here are valuable to organizations seeking to progress their Indigenous educational initiatives, as it speaks directly to the challenges of representation, particularly in Western institutions that have historically struggled with inclusion, as well as struggled with non-Western epistemologies and accepting the legitimacy of Indigenous

174 ways-of-knowing. Thus, although this study achieves less than a deep, case-study based exploration of indigenization, it nonetheless offers something of value to Indigenous cultural integration, which can be seen as a related (and potentially precursor) process to full indigenization going forward.

Limitations Stemming from Sampling

The sampling taken in this study also presents limitations. The snowball sampling procedure I implemented with K’omoks First Nation began with the community’s education coordinator. In relying on the education coordinator to put me in touch with potential research participants, I was able to maximally ensure that participants were included with permission from community leadership, boosting the overall ethical practices in this study. However, this leads to a relatively one-sided perspective of educational practices coming from the community, especially since it confined the contributions from the Indigenous community to members of a single family. While a prominent family, it does not approach capturing a fuller, more nuanced picture of this crucial perspective.

First, this sample likely overrepresents a positive perception of Geering Up’s educational outreach to the community. Building the community sample through the education coordinator who works directly with Geering Up (having herself invited Geering Up to return to her community) lends itself towards social circles within the community that work with external educational organizations, either as students, instructors, or organizers. This was obviously represented in the community members who participated, with one being a student at a large university in the Vancouver area, and another being a teacher in the local public school system. It stands to reason that their personal perceptions of Geering Up’s activities, including cultural integration, skew positively. A contrasting opinion that does not view Geering Up or educational

175 outreach as positively likely exists within the community (as it does in many communities, especially those with personal histories and experiences of injustice within Western educational institutions), but it is not represented in the K’omoks First Nation sampling of participants in this study. This orients the relevance of the findings in the study towards those engaged in educational development across the colonial border without necessarily engaging directly a more conservative and cautious approach to engaging in educational outreach coming from the colonial center.

Second, this sampling method also speaks to a relatively narrow perspective of cultural knowledge within the community, speaking to only a single elder. As one community member described, who is to be considered an elder, and therefore keeper of cultural knowledge, is a recognition of their years of cultural leadership within the community but also a matter of opinion to some degree, and the decision to identify certain individuals as elders and not others can be a politically loaded choice. The snowball sampling method therefore only spoke to one closely knit family and elder within the community, potentially underrepresenting differing perspectives within the community of Geering Up and other educational outreach activities, including cultural integration.

Tensions in Transferability

As previously described, the transferability of this study’s findings is debatable. I sought to justify erring on the side caution once again, restricting the scope of my study’s relevance to the province of British Columbia, but the case could certainly be made that certain aspects of these findings could be applicable to contexts beyond Canada’s Westernmost province, based on either organizational or theoretical parallels. Nonetheless, I acknowledge my more conservative perspective of this dissertation’s transferability as presenting limitations to the relevance and applicability of these findings.

176 However, as I have also argued previously, I do not take this limitation to severely hamper the value of this study, especially considering the importance such a study represents to

British Columbia. Transferability can be approached with significantly more confidence in that region than any other region in the world, and can be relevant to any number of organizations and communities in British Columbia that are treading or considering treading a similar path as

Geering Up and its work with Indigenous communities. While broader transferability that breaks national borders and covers large swathes of institutions and communities is commonly what we would consider “impactful” research, I would counter this by saying that a narrower perspective of impact that closely ties itself to a more local context (insofar as a province could be considered

‘local’) may be just as useful, if not more so, due to the greater degree of confidence other scholars can place in the applicability of its findings. Further, it also speaks to the caution scholars must have when considering multiple communities in many different contexts, given the propensity to homogenize what is in reality a very diverse group (‘pan-indigeneity’). Risking sloppy assumptions of homogeneity in service to promoting the transferability (or generalizability in positivist research traditions) of the study only muddies the significance of findings that could be more powerful and more useful in a narrower scope.

Personal Relationship to Geering Up Organization

Finally, I must disclose that, during the course of the study, I became friends with members of the Geering Up organization. This I believe allowed me to work closely with them, and gather an honest perspective stemming from trust and comfort. However, the end-result is a limitation on my capacity to present at truly critical face towards the organization after the conclusion of the field study. While I still believe that building relationships with people during the course of a study is valuable for the comfort and honesty it promotes, the tradeoff is exactly

177 this circumstance. Therefore, scholars that can maintain a better emotional separation from participating organizations may be in a better position to deliver useful criticality. However, my current capacity is restricted.

Future Directions

Deeper Exploration of Cultural Integration, Indigenization with Indigenous Communities

As illustrated by the shortcomings this study experienced in sampling of the Indigenous community, further work with similar questions that explores with greater depth the perspectives of the Indigenous communities is warranted to complete the picture portrayed here. Although it was my intent to produce a more balanced account of this phenomenon initially, the challenge of getting community interest and building the relationship to support collaboration meant that I focused on the opportunity I had, which admittedly was a rather restricted opportunity in retrospect. Therefore, future studies should try to make up for these limitations by focusing on the

Indigenous community perspective during cultural integration and indigenization of education as it takes place across the colonial border.

Longitudinal Effects Outside the Scope of Study

Although the case study did take place over a 2-month time period, the impacts of educational outreach and particularly cultural integration and indigenization could also be helpfully understood from a longitudinal perspective that speaks more to the long-term implications of this process. The focus on the process of cultural integration here captures the process perspective by viewing it over a period of time, stretching back into the history that yields

178 certain relevant power relationships and into the future in the form of viewing cultural integration as leading to more beneficial work in the future. However, this is just one way of engaging temporality in cultural integration.

Another way would be to conduct multiple visits to the same site, and gather how the process of cultural integration takes place over a longer period of time, and see whether communities and organizational members are perceiving the same benefits and challenges to program customization and cultural integration. Conducting this longer form of study would allow an examination of changes in perceptions over time (Johanson & Williamson, 2013, p.

153), which could be particularly valuable given how many of the themes identified such as length of engagement and value of relationship building are best understood over extended periods of time. This style of research is however outside the scope of this study, with the hope that scholars who do have the requisite funding and time availability to implement a more longitudinal view of cultural integration and indigenization will explore some of the themes I have identified in this study.

Offering an Autoethnographic Perspective

The exploration of decolonization through cultural integration is for many a deeply reflexive experience, especially given the reflexive nature of qualitative research. For many qualitative scholars, there is a personal aspect to the research agenda, and this case is no different.

An autoethnographic approach speaks to the personal nature of the research, while still having the potential to speak to broader social and cultural phenomena, in particular the connection between the self and others within the same context (Ngunjiri, Hernandez, & Chang, 2010). Therefore, I feel as though it will be valuable in the future to speak to my own reflexive experiences as a man of Filipino descent, and the shared struggle of navigating the consequences of colonization, while

179 simultaneously acknowledging my own complicit role in colonization as a settler and technologist. This is a shared experience of many of those who come from colonized societies trying to survive and thrive within the Western STEM context. These can be encapsulated in a third research objective:

Objective 3: Reflexive view of Decolonizing the Technologist

a. Given my personal journey towards decolonizing and my own dual identity as a colonized person and settler, how does working with individuals on both sides of this debate affect my own evolving decolonizing/colonizer identity? b. How does it affect my identity as a technologist?

Incorporating a reflexive, autoethnographic approach, as informed by this study’s findings and overall experiences, can be reflected in an adjusted form of the study design (see

Figure 10-1 below):

Figure 10-1: Adapted Case Study-Grounded Theory design from Halaweh (2012) that incorporates reflexive, autoethnographic elements (represented in gray).

180 Where I have notably adapted the framework is with the addition of an autoethnographic component in order to synthesize the overall findings with themes of the relationship between the researcher’s self and others, within the same decolonizing context (Ngunjiri et al., 2010).

Autoethnography as a field has two primary strands: analytic autoethnography as espoused by scholars like Leon Anderson (Anderson, 2006) and evocative autoethnography, such as that espoused by Carolyn Ellis, Arthur Bochner and their cohort (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011). At the heart of the debate between these two strands appears to be differences in both style and purpose: evocative autoethnographers write “from the heart” with the goal of changing the world, while analytic autoethnographers maintain a focus on being within a broader analytic agenda (and the more analytic sociological tone this implies) and contributing to some theoretical understanding (Anderson, 2006; Denzin, 2006). While I am not in a position nor desire to resolve this debate, this study places me somewhat in between these two approaches: embedding autoethnography within an analytic study as I have proposed here naturally orients the autoethnography towards being analytic insofar as it needs to cohere with the overall structure. At the same time, the criticism by Denzin (Denzin, 2006) of analytic autoethnography as conceptualized by Anderson (based on its roots in the Chicago School’s sociological cohort) that a ‘return’ to the Chicago School sociological foundations risks ignoring more recent formations of thought, including notably postcolonial, critical race, and feminist perspectives, is noteworthy.

These antifoundational perspectives (within which I would include decolonizing views) are particularly important to the topic at hand, given that, without the formal power within the study to challenge the practices of institutions that operate in a space where colonialism’s impacts are potentially pervasively located at all levels from governmental, institutional, and individual levels, this study’s evaluative approach is neutered. Therefore, as a next step, I seek to strike a pragmatic approach to autoethnography within the context of this study: writing from the heart, in a way that is open to challenging structures and assumptions of colonialism, while simultaneously

181 seeking coherence within a broader research framework with the potential for theoretical contribution.

Final Reflections on Research and Learning

At the outset of this study, I had minimal personal knowledge of the context of this study, despite my experiences as a youth in Ontario many years prior. The initial framing of this study bore out this inexperience, as the both my views and the structure of this study shifted substantially throughout and following the field study portion. As I came to learn more and more about the context and the people, through the process of trying to do research, the research took form and evolved in situ. To some degree, I expected this, and tried to provide flexibility in the research’s framework to allow for this growth and evolution. On the other hand, the greater understanding I have now about the context exposes to me just how many things I would have done differently if I could do the study over again. I keep reminding myself that research is never perfect, and that the true value of research is not in its perfection, but in its capacity to build knowledge for the world.

Also at the outset of this study, I had a particular perspective that I felt connected me to the Indigenous participants: namely, that of a colonial history. Being Filipino-American means to live the results of colonialism on a daily basis, and I felt a particular pull to those communities in

North America with whom I share a broad cultural embeddedness as well as the tension this has with an awareness of the colonial past that lead to this arrangement. While this connection did serve to some degree to produce a shared talking point, it was only when I was on the ground, breathing the air, and looking people directly in the eye did I realize just how much I could never truly understand. While I share a colonized past, I am not Indigenous, and I’m certainly not a member of K’omoks First Nation, or any other First Nations community. While I did my best to

182 conduct the research in a respectful manner, the nagging reality of my own presence and my own identity continued to highlight my own limitations throughout the entirety of the research.

Reflecting on this feeling and the emotion of the research, perhaps the most lasting takeaway I have from this research is how it challenged my notions of my own identity. It is coming to a realization about my own identity that ultimately leads me to conclude that I could never really see myself as an appropriate thought leader in this field. The future of the work in cultural integration and indigenization is essential to education Indigenous-Western relationships, and I can only hope that Indigenous voice and vision shines through agendas, as scholars, educators, and leaders. In the meantime, I hope that I have produced work here that is of value to those in this space, imperfections notwithstanding.

183 Appendix A

Interview Instruments

Geering Up Staff Interview Instruments

Section I: Warm-Up and Background

A. First off, could you tell me a little about yourself? 1. What is your age? 2. What is your nationality? 3. If so, what are you studying? 4. Do you identify as an Indigenous person?

B. Now let’s talk a bit about your time with the organization… 1. What is your position with Geering Up? i. Where did you, or where will you, teach? 2. How did you get involved in Geering Up? i. How did you get involved with the Indigenous outreach team? 3. Describe for me the ‘onboarding’ process, from your perspective? 4. How long have you been with Geering Up now? 5. How has working for Geering Up been? Section II: Motivations and Valuations Geering Up’s educational outreach makes a point of servicing First Nations’ throughout the province with educational outreach activities. A. Let’s talk a little bit about Geering Up’s outreach goals… 1. Do you think this form of cross-culture educational outreach is valuable? ▪ If yes, in what ways? ▪ If no, why not? Section III: Cultural Tailoring and Challenges As you may know, one of Geering Up’s practices is to combine Indigenous cultural outlook and IT/STEM education, by working with community representatives to produce a combined curriculum A. Tell me a little bit about the cultural aspects of delivering the STEM curriculum… 1. Can you describe for me what this cultural-tailoring means to you?

184 B. I’d like to chat about your thoughts on teaching curriculum that is offered to First Nations communities’ through your work at Geering Up… 1. How were you trained to teach in Indigenous communities? i. How were you trained to navigate cultural material and STEM education? 2. What are some of the challenges you can see in trying to teach a combined curriculum? i. How familiar were you with the communities you’ve worked with already, if you’ve already done Indigenous outreach? • Do you think familiarity impacts your ability to teach? o In what ways? ii. How familiar are you with the communities you will be working with?

There’s been recent attention given to the lack of cultural diversity in the IT workforce, as well as the idea that IT as a result tends to follow a ‘western’ cultural outlook. This has impacts on how ITs are developed and used. As a result, diversity is a C. I’d like to talk a little about indigenizing IT education. One example is the use of beads (as a culturally relevant item) to teach the concept of binary coding. The goal is to provide STEM educational content (from a base curriculum defined at a Canadian University) that is customized to a particular cultural context and outlook. 1. What challenges do you perceive in doing this? i. Developing Curriculum? ii. Pedagogical Practices? 2. Do you think these challenges say something about IT within STEM? i. Cultural-customization of IT education, as compared to the other forms of STEM, e.g. Biology?

Section IV: Colonial History Now, I’d like to talk a little bit about the history that exists between First Nations people and Canada. In particular, I’d like to talk about some of the events both in the past and present that define this relationship. If you’re comfortable, I’d like to start by asking a few questions about residential schools. I understand that this can be a difficult topic, so you can feel free to not answer any of these questions, or to skip this topic altogether. Would you like to continue? IF YES TO VERBAL CONSENT

A. Do you have any relationship to the residential school system? It could be someone you know, or perhaps just an awareness…

185 B. Do you think the events of the residential school system affects you today? 1. If yes, in what ways? 2. If no, why not? C. Do you think the events affect how you work within or view Geering Up? 1. If yes, in what ways? 2. If no, why not? D. Do you think the events affect Geering Up’s operations today? 1. If so, in what ways? 2. If not, why not? E. With regards to the cultural tailoring goals of Geering Up… 1. Would you say this history in education affects the goals cultural-tailoring? i. If so, in what ways? ii. If not, why not? Section V: Wrap-Up

A. Is there anything you would change about Geering Up’s practices? B. Is there anything you would change about the relationships Geering Up has with First Nations peoples? C. Do you think you’ll continue to work with Geering Up next year? o Why or why not? D. Do you have anything you’d like to ask me now?

Geering Up Outreach Director Instrument

Section I: Warm-Up and Background

C. A bit about your background… 1. What is your age? 2. What is the highest level of education you’ve completed? 3. Do you identify as Indigenous? 4.

D. A little bit about your time with the organization… 1. What is your position within Geering Up? 2. How did you get involved in Geering Up? 3. Describe for me the ‘onboarding’ process, from your perspective? 4. How long have you been with Geering Up now? 5. How has working for Geering Up been? Section II: Motivations and Valuations

186 Geering Up’s educational outreach makes a point of servicing First Nations’ throughout the province with educational outreach activities. A. A little bit about Geering Up’s outreach goals… 1. Why does Geering Up attempt to offer a culturally-customized educational experience to Indigenous communities? i. Do you think Geering Up’s form of cross-cultural educational outreach is valuable? 1. If yes, in what ways? 2. If no, why not? 2. What does Geering Up bring to First Nations communities? i. Bringing in expertise that is lacking? ii. Bringing in resources that are lacking? iii. Supplemental interest generation working with local educators who have resources/expertise? 3. How would you describe the differences, for communities, in being able to have educational outreach in their local communities, as opposed to on UBC’s campus? B. Now let’s talk a bit about the IT education within STEM, such as programming and robotics, especially in light of BC’s desire to include more computer science at the secondary level… 1. Did communities approach you for IT education, or did you present it first to them as an option? 2. Could you tell me a bit about Geering Up’s decision to include IT education in Geering Up’s offering? Section III: Cultural Tailoring and Challenges

D. Tell me a little bit about the cultural aspects of delivering the IT/STEM curriculum… 1. First of all, how would you say Geering Up defines “cultural-customization”? 2. Can you describe for me what the cultural-customization or ”indigenizing the curriculum” means to you? i. Do you think that it’s important to certain types of curriculum? • Which ones? • Why or why not? ii. What is the role of offering the Indigenous outreach in their local communities? 3. What challenges do you encounter in attempting to offer culturally-tailored curricula? E.g. i. Resistance from the community? ii. Difficulties coming up with ideas? 4. Are there certain STEM fields that this is harder than others? i. Which ones are hardest? ii. Which ones are easier, by comparison? 5. How does “land-based” learning function within the culturally-customized or indigenized curriculum, as offered to First Nations communities?

187 There’s been recent attention given to the lack of cultural diversity in the IT workforce, as well as the idea that IT as a result tends to follow a ‘western’ cultural outlook. This has impacts on how ITs are developed and used. A. I’d like to talk a bit about incorporating IT education like programming and telecommunications into the Geering Up outreach curriculum… 1. Has there been an increased desire for inclusion of IT education like programming into the Geering Up curriculum, from certain communities? i. What do you think underlies this increased interest? ii. How has Geering Up adapted to meet this interest? 2. Are there CS or programmers who are in Geering Up? How about the Indigenous outreach team?

B. I’d like to talk a little about cultural customization in regards to IT education. i. Could you talk a little bit about some of attempts made by Geering Up to connect these lessons to Indigenous ways, if any? ii. What challenges do you perceive in doing so? iii. Do you think these challenges say something about IT within STEM? • Cultural-customization of IT education, as compared to the other forms of STEM, e.g. Biology?

Section IV: Sponsorship and Educational Outreach

A. First of all, what are the corporate sponsors of Geering Up? B. What entities typically sponsor Geering Up’s outreach activities? i. Does Indigenous outreach have different sponsors? C. How are sponsorship relationships built? i. Who contacts whom? ii. Can sponsors elect where their sponsorships are used? iii. Has there ever been conflict between the communities Geering Up works with and the sponsors? Section V: Colonial History Now, I’d like to talk a little bit about the history that exists between First Nations people and Canada. In particular, I’d like to talk about some of the events both in the past and present that define this relationship. If you’re comfortable, I’d like to start by asking a few questions about residential schools. I understand that this can be a difficult topic, so you can feel free to not answer any of these questions, or to skip this topic altogether. Would you like to continue?

188 IF YES TO VERBAL CONSENT

F. Do you have any relationship to the residential school system? It could be someone you know, or perhaps just an awareness… G. Do you think the events of the residential school system affects you today? 1. If yes, in what ways? 2. If no, why not? H. Do you think the events affect how you work within or view Geering Up? 1. If yes, in what ways? 2. If no, why not? I. Do you think the events affect Geering Up’s operations today? 1. If so, in what ways? 2. If not, why not? J. With regards to the cultural tailoring goals of Geering Up… 1. Would you say this history in education affects the goals cultural-tailoring? i. If so, in what ways? ii. If not, why not? Section V: Wrap-Up

A. Is there anything you would change about the relationships you have with First Nations’? B. Do you have anything you’d like to ask me now?

Geering Up Follow-Up Instrument

Section I: Reflecting on Actua’s Description

A. Reflect briefly on the description of Geering Up’s approach with Indigenous youths on the Actua website. Then, can you describe for me what this means for Geering Up in terms of the organization’s educational outreach activities?

189 B. What have Indigenous communities asked you to customize about your program? C. Have you ever been asked to customize certain topics by an Indigenous community? ➔ If Yes: what was customized, and in what way? ➔ If No: why do think this has not happened? Section II: Reflect on Digital Technology Ed. in Geering Up

D. Have you ever been asked to customize your digital technology education by an Indigenous community? ➔ If Yes: what was customized, and in what way? ➔ If No: why do think this has not happened? E. How would you compare customizing digital technology lessons with other topics in Geering Up’s repertoire? Section III: Reflect on Indigenous Communities and Digital Technology Ed. in Geering Up

F. While much of Geering Up is focused on promoting interest in STEM related careers, such as digital technology careers, do you see Geering Up playing a role in helping produce future developers of digital technologies that embrace Indigenous students’ outlooks? ➔ If YES: what role do you see? o Do you see the ‘customized program’ approach playing a role in this? o What challenges can you see that face Geering Up in playing a role in producing future developers of digital technologies that embrace Indigenous students’ outlooks? ➔ If NO: why not? Section IV: Wrap Up

Do you have any questions for me?

K’omoks First Nation Interview Instruments

Section I: Warm-Up and Background

A. First off, tell me a little bit about yourself… 1. What is your age? 2. What is the highest level of education you’ve completed? 3. What is your profession?

190 4. Which First Nations community do you identify with? B. Let’s talk a bit about what you know about Geering Up, an educational outreach program I’m collaborating with out of the University of British Columbia (UBC)… 1. What do you know about the Geering Up program? Section II: Motivations and Valuations Geering Up’s educational outreach makes a point of servicing First Nations’ throughout the province with educational outreach activities. B. In what ways do you think this form of cross-cultural educational outreach is valuable? 1. In what ways could it not be valuable? With almost all young people today growing up with mobile phones and social media, many of these young people are pursuing educational opportunities and careers in technology, like computer programming. Additionally, there’s been recent attention given to the lack of cultural diversity in the IT workforce, as well as the idea that IT designs follow a ‘western’ cultural outlook. On the other hand, there are efforts and initiatives that Indigenous peoples and individuals are undertaking to develop and use ITs in novel, innovative ways. These factors have impacts on how ITs are developed and used. C. I’d like to talk a little bit about your opinions on this discussion… 1. Do you perceive ITs like mobile phones as coming from a ‘western’ cultural outlook? 2. Do you have any opinions about representation of First Nations and Indigenous peoples in IT workforce? D. In what ways do you think First Nations and Indigenous persons pursuing an IT education is valuable? 1. In what ways could it not be valuable?

As previously mentioned, Indigenous peoples and communities are partaking in innovation in IT technologies. Additionally, IT education like programming is increasing in import at the primary and secondary education levels. I’d like to hear your thoughts on how this fits into the notion of resiliency…

• What does resiliency mean to you? • Would you say that participation in IT careers contribute to the resiliency of First Nations communities? o If yes, in what ways? o If not, why not? • How do you perceive your community using information technology, like mobile phones or the internet… o To support community?

191 o To support culture? Section III: Cultural Tailoring One of Geering Up’s goals is to provide a culturally-customized STEM educational outreach experience to students and communities, i.e. providing a culturally-tailored STEM outreach program. Opinions about cultural-customization

• What does “cultural-customization” or “tailoring” mean to you? • Right now, how is curriculum built and decided upon between your community and Geering Up (if at all)? o Should it be done with STEM educational outreach? • How can it be done: o Respectfully? o Meaningfully? • What challenges do you see in providing a culturally-customized educational experience? Providing IT education (e.g. computer programming) in a culturally-customized way

Although there is increasing interest in expanding information technology education, seeking to provide this in a culturally-customized manner is something that Geering Up staff struggles with conceptualizing. • Do you think that providing a culturally-tailored IT component is something that Geering Up should be exploring? • How do you think an organization could provide an IT/computer programming education that is in line with your community’s cultural priorities? 2. IT education to support cultural revival/reclamation? • What challenges do you see in integrating IT education like computer programming and your cultural perspectives in education? o Why do you think it’s been difficult for Geering Up to develop culturally- tailored IT curriculum? Section IV: Colonial History Now, I’d like to talk a little bit about the history that exists between First Nations people (such as yourself) and Canada. In particular, I’d like to talk about some of the events both in the past and present that define this relationship. If you’re comfortable, I’d like to start by asking a few questions about residential schools. I understand that this can be a difficult topic, so you can feel free to not answer any of these questions, or to skip this topic altogether.

192 Would you like to continue? IF YES TO VERBAL CONSENT

K. Do you have any relationship to the residential school system? 1. It could be someone you know, or perhaps just an awareness… L. How do you think the events of the residential school system affects you today? 1. Do you think it affects your trust of education today? i. If so, in what ways? ii. If not, why not? 2. How about in educational outreach programs, like Geering Up? i. If so, in what ways? ii. If not, why not? M. With regards to the cultural tailoring goals of Geering Up… 1. Would you say this history in education affects your impression of cultural- tailoring goals? i. If so, in what ways? ii. If not, why not? Section V: Wrap-Up

E. Is there anything you wish Geering Up would change? F. Do you have anything you’d like to ask me now?

External Community Member Instruments

193 Section I: Warm-Up and Background

E. First off, I’d like to talk a little bit about your background… 1. What is your age? 2. What is the highest level of education you’ve completed? 3. What is your profession? F. Let’s talk a bit about what you know about Geering Up, an educational outreach program I’m collaborating with out of the University of British Columbia (UBC)… 1. What do you know about the Geering Up program? 2. Do you have any relationship to Geering Up? i. It could be someone you know who has worked with or been a student in it, or perhaps just an awareness… ii. If yes, what is your impression of them? Section II: Motivations and Valuations Geering Up’s educational outreach makes a point of servicing First Nations’ throughout the province with educational outreach activities. C. Let’s talk a little bit about Geering Up’s outreach goals… 1. What is your opinion, do you think this form of cross-culture educational outreach is valuable? ▪ If yes, in what ways? ▪ If no, why not? With almost all young people today growing up with mobile phones and social media, many of these young people are pursuing educational opportunities and careers in technology, like computer programming.

• Could you talk a bit about the IT education, such as programming and robotics… o Do you know anyone from your community (such as a family member or a friend) that chose to pursue further education or a career in IT? ▪ Where are they currently (e.g. still in college, or workforce, and where)? o Do you have any opinions about people from your community pursuing IT education and careers? ▪ In what ways do you think IT education is valuable? Or not valuable?

There’s been recent attention given to the lack of cultural diversity in the IT workforce, as well as the idea that IT as a result tends to follow a ‘western’ cultural outlook. This has impacts on how ITs are developed and used. G. I’d like to talk a little bit about your opinions on this discussion… 1. Do you perceive ITs like mobile phones or social media as being ‘western’? i. If so, could you explain a bit? ii. If not, why not? 2. How do you perceive ITs being used in the community?

194 i. Do you perceive them being used at all to support cultural perspectives or practices? • If so, in what ways? Section III: Cultural Tailoring One of Geering Up’s practices is to combine Indigenous cultural outlook and IT/STEM education, by working with community representatives to produce a combined curriculum. One example is the use of beads (as a culturally relevant item) to teach the concept of binary coding. The goal is to provide STEM educational content (from a base curriculum defined at a Canadian University) that is customized to a particular cultural context and outlook.

• Given this description what is your opinion on cultural tailoring? o What do you value, or not value about it? o Do you think it’s important in education? ▪ If yes, why? ▪ If no, why not? • Now I’d like to chat a bit about connecting this to IT education… o Combining with other STEM fields with cultural perspectives, like biology or ecology, has been done previously. What do you think of cultural-tailoring IT education, like programming? o Do you think this is something that should be pursued by the First Nations community you’re most closely related to? ▪ If yes, why? ▪ If no, why not?

IF HIGHLY ENGAGED WITH TOPIC

• Have you given any thought to what culturally-tailored IT education might look like? Section IV: Colonial History Now, I’d like to talk a little bit about the history that exists between First Nations people and Canada. In particular, I’d like to talk about some of the events both in the past and present that define this relationship. If you’re comfortable, I’d like to start by asking a few questions about residential schools. I understand that this can be a difficult topic, so you can feel free to not answer any of these questions, or to skip this topic altogether. Would you like to continue? IF YES TO VERBAL CONSENT

N. Do you have any relationship to the residential school system? 1. It could be someone you know, or perhaps just an awareness… O. What does this history mean to you?

195 P. How do you think the events of the residential school system affects you today? 1. Do you think it affects your trust of education today? i. If so, in what ways? ii. If not, why not? 2. How about in educational outreach programs, like Geering Up? i. If so, in what ways? ii. If not, why not? Q. With regards to the cultural tailoring goals of Geering Up… 1. Would you say this history in education affects your impression of cultural- tailoring goals? i. If so, in what ways? ii. If not, why not? Section V: Wrap-Up

G. Is there anything you wish Geering Up would change? H. Is there anything you wish Geering Up administrators to know? I. Do you have anything you’d like to ask me now?

196 Appendix B

Code Listings for each Project Stage

Code-Listing for Document Analysis Initial Coding Phase

197 Code-Listing for Documents Analysis Axial-Selective Coding Phase

198 Code-Listing for Interview Initial Coding Phase

s

199 Code-Listing for Interview Axial Coding Phase

200 Code-Listing for Interview Selective Coding Phase

201

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Richard N. Canevez (nee Caneba)