Identifier: TFG:6139
Authors: Domínguez Anguera, Carla
Abstract:
In September 2021, a painful page in Canada’s history was reopened as 1,300 unmarked graves were found across former residential schools in Canada. From the 17th century until the late 1990s, residential schools existed and expanded in Canada, with the aim to Europeanize the Indigenous children. These schools were funded by the federal government in collaboration with the different churches as a process of colonization by assimilation, destroying and erasing Indigenous cultures, identities, and history. The residential school survivors’ efforts have not been in vain, as there has been an increasing acknowledgement of the harm, effects, and losses, as well as the general recognition of the need of conciliation between the indigenous and non-indigenous population. This project addresses the history of Canadian residential schools, as well as the interaction between language and culture. The aim is to understand language and culture suppression, and its consequences on account of the residential school system that operated for almost two centuries in Canada’s cultural context. An experimental study was conducted to investigate 1) whether students aged 18- to 22-years know what residential schools were, and 2) whether language loss triggers culture loss and if both are intertwined. For the first part, the experiment recruited 67 undergraduate university students who committed to a questionnaire shaped between history, language, and culture questions. For the second part, four field professionals were asked for interviews to reach an inner perspective that would complement the research. The results suggest that most students aged 18- to 22-years do not know what residential schools were or what happened in Canada, and that language loss does entail culture loss. This research puts into focus the significance of teaching and learning a country’s history to avoid committing the same mistakes in a future.
Repositori URV