Indigenous peoples and education in participating Canadian provinces and territories

Colonisation processes have had a profoundly negative impact on successive generations of Indigenous peoples in Canada. UNICEF recently looked at four measures of child well-being: income inequality, educational inequality, health inequality and life satisfaction. Out of 35 countries, Canada ranks in 26th place, meaning that young Canadians grow up in contexts characterised by relatively wide inequalities, especially of income, health and life satisfaction, although less so for education. Indigenous populations account for a growing share of the population and of school students in Canada, and they tend to be younger than the non-Indigenous population. Canadian data show that poverty rates among the children of Indigenous families are higher than among non-Indigenous families. However, there are important differences in Indigenous populations, including size, languages, and approaches to identification/self-identification. This chapter presents basic demographic and economic data for each of the Canadian provinces and territories participating in this study, as well as facts relating to education and Indigenous populations. The participating provinces and territories are: Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Northwest Territories and Yukon.