Grant supports transformative education research at UBCO

UBC Okanagan has received a $1 million grant to come up with ways for educators to incorporate reconciliation in their teaching.

The project, led by Margaret Macintyre Latta, director of UBC Okanagan’s School of Education, will include partnerships with the Okanagan Nation Alliance, Central Okanagan Public Schools, IndigenEYEZ, Kelowna Art Gallery, Kelowna Museums Society and the universities of Alberta and Ottawa.

The partnership will bring local elders and knowledge keepers together with educators and the extended community. By the end of the five-year project, teachers and students will have gained deeper understandings of Syilx culture.

“We’ll be building an understanding of how to help educators create safe spaces for challenging discussions across diversity and inequality,” said Kelly Terbasket, program director and co-founder of IndigenEYEZ. “We’ll be in the schools with them as they support students to make meaning out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission content, see other points of view, and learn from our shared history.”

University and community partners will design and deliver learning opportunities that will help teachers in confronting and challenging the colonizing practices that have influenced education.

The grant comes from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Central Okanagan School District signed an Equity in Action Agreement with area Indigenous communities. The district intends to create equity in academic results, self-determination and cultural pride and awareness for Indigenous students,.