Anti-Indigenous Deficit Racism and Cultural Essentialism in K–12 Education: We Want You to Recognize there’s a Problem

Abstract

School divisions in the Canadian Prairies have increasingly implemented Indigenous calls to action in education and, more recently, have committed to anti-racist education. Yet school-based anti-Indigenous racism and how it advantages white students remains a pressing underexplored reality. In response to such injustices and contributing to school divisions’ and teachers’ commitments to anti-racism in the Prairies, this paper argues that white dominance in K–12 education is in part maintained through anti-Indigenous deficit thinking or deficit racism. Drawing from a critical race theory (CRT) qualitative study with 13 Indigenous teachers, this conceptual paper suggests that anti-Indigenous deficit racism operates through three interconnected processes that prevent Indigenous students in the K–12 system from accessing knowledge and opportunities constructed as “Western” or non-Indigenous. These include 1) systemic low expectations regarding Indigenous students’ academic abilities; 2) the withholding of academic educational opportunities from Indigenous students; and 3) the blaming of Indigenous parents for inequitable academic outcomes. Utilizing CRT, I argue that race consciousness and critiques of cultural essentialism can assist with countering such processes.