An Innovative Opportunity? Social Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Pedagogical Possibilities for Indigenous Learners

Abstract

The need to indigenize curriculum in Canada is pressing. Education, however, is fraught and complex. Questions have been asked about the accessibility and applicability of traditional class-based educational paradigms and subject matter. Based on the limited courses currently on offer in Canada, the emergent social-innovation pedagogy seems to bear several points of sympathy or commonality with Indigenous pedagogies, including emphasis on experiential learning, reflection, and collaborative work. Indigenous pedagogies and ways of knowing cannot and should not be slotted into a Eurocentric educational paradigm. This article will begin to explore this possible pedagogical sympathy—an overlap between the two knowledge systems—with the support of a group of Indigenous business students interested in social innovation as a tool to help them build the resilience of their communities. RESUME Il existe au Canada un besoin pressant d’autochtoniser le curriculum. Il n’est pourtant pas toujours simple et facile de modifier le systeme educatif, meme si certains ont deja mis en doute l’accessibilite et la pertinence du cours didactique traditionnel. A cet egard, on peut remarquer plusieurs affinites—y compris un accent mis sur l’apprentissage, la reflexion et le travail de collaboration par l’experience—entre les pedagogies autochtones et la pedagogie emergente d’innovation sociale, malgre le nombre limite de cours de ce type offerts au Canada actuellement. Les pedagogies et manieres de savoir autochtones ne peuvent pas, et ne devraient pas, etre inserees dans un paradigme eurocentrique. Cet article entame l’exploration des affinites entre les deux systemes de savoir en consultant des etudiants en commerce autochtones interesses par l’innovation sociale comme outil pouvant les aider a rendre leurs communautes plus resilientes.