Abstract

This book examines the experiences of Indigenous students in settler schools by using the example of a Canadian school as a window into the relationship between colonial discourses, indigenized English language varieties, racialized identities, and the biased educational practices of settler schools. The book aims to develop awareness of the colonial past and its present-day influences on settler schools; to take a close look at the effects of present-day settler nationalism on constructions of race and language in settler schools; and to explore what could be done differently to lessen present-day and future educational inequity. The book will have great appeal to education students, educators, teacher educators, and educational researchers in settler contexts.

Andrea Sterzuk began her educational career as a teacher of French as a second language to elementary school-aged children in the Canadian north. A speaker of English, French, and Spanish, Andrea obtained her PhD in second language education from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is presently an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina in Regina, Canada where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of language and literacies education. Her research interests include English language variation, language policy, language ideologies, and education in white settler contexts.

Sterzuk’s many-layered but extremely accessible writing reflects a depth of scholarship and reflection on what it means to teach and learn in “white settler” environments. Skilfully combining an exhaustive analysis of the literature with lively anecdotes from real classroom data, Sterzuk presents a convincing case for immediate and radical change in the ways we educate Indigenous students and those who teach them. There is no-one working in language education – first or second – to whom I would not recommend this book.

Overall, ''The Struggle for Legitimacy: Indigenised Englishes in Settler Schools'' is personal and intimate without being garrulous or excessively introspective; it is transparent and readable without being condescending or over-simplistic; and it relates clearly to a target audience with clear proposals for changes to their practice.

Drawing on postcolonial and critical race theory, Sterzuk moves us beyond the typical linguistic and pedagogical responses to English language variation. In a cogently written, accessible style, she argues for an honest reckoning with colonial discourses and racialized identities to confront biased educational practices. A tour de force in anti-racist education.