Levon Blue

Pushing the entrepreneurial prodigy: Canadian Aboriginal entrepreneurship education initiatives

Globally, neoliberal education policy touts youth entrepreneurship education as a solution for staggering youth unemployment, a means to bolster economically depressed regions, and solution to the ill-defined changing marketplace. Many jurisdictions have emphasized a need for K-12 entrepreneurial education for the general population, and targeted to youth labeled ‘at risk’. The Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative’s Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship Program (AYEP) has been enacted across Canada. This paper applies critical discourse analysis to a corpus of texts, exposing how colonial practices, deficit discourse, and discursive neoliberalism are embedded and perpetuated though entrepreneurial education targeted at Aboriginal students via AYEP.

Aboriginal entrepreneurship financing in Canada: Walking the fine line between self-determination and colonization

Purpose This paper aims to explore Canadian in/exclusion of Aboriginal groups to/from access to mainstream business resources and opportunities. The focus is one prominent non-governmental program, the Canadian Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship (CAPE) Fund, designed to provide equity to Aboriginal businesses. Do programs such as CAPE Fund promote Aboriginal entrepreneurship that liberates “others” on their own terms? or are they “civilizing missions” that attempt to impose Euro-centric practices and values? Design/methodology/approach The authors critically analyze the “promises” of entrepreneurship through CAPE Fund using TribalCrit, a framework rooted in critical race theory (CRT) and postcolonialism. The authors used a CRT research method highlighting two organizational narratives, describing CAPE Fund financing in two separate ventures. The research allowed to test the theory’s use in practical situations. Findings This paper develops a postcolonial conception of entrepreneurship to address the realities and needs of Aboriginal communities. Analysis of Canada’s CAPE Fund within two organizational narratives identified aspects of promise (active Aboriginal business ownership) and shortcomings (practices that attempted to erase inequity in ways that led to neocolonial subjugation). Research limitations/implications This paper attempts to build theory while engaging in CRT research that relies on organizational narratives. Narrative approaches offer depth of understanding but are not generalizable because of the limited scope of organizations studied. Practical implications The research methods used and framework developed offer researchers new approaches to better understand Indigenous and Aboriginal entrepreneurship outcomes. The findings point to specific Aboriginal funding issues that can be addressed by other funding agencies who wish to create more inclusive structures. Social implications Financial programs that might improve the possibility of self-determination of Aboriginal peoples within the postcolonial ideal must “hold both economic and non-economic objectives in tension” (Overall et al., 2010 p. 157) in ways that typically disadvantage Aboriginal entrepreneurs. Originality/value This is the first, fully articulated framework for postcolonial entrepreneurship, grounded in CRT and applied to analyze Canada’s CAPE Fund.

Towards a positive pedagogy: designing pedagogical practices that facilitate positivity within the classroom

Abstract Students flourish by having positive learning experiences at school. Here we describe an action research study undertaken in an Australian primary school that was intended to promote the development of students’ positive learning identities and resources. We partnered with classroom teachers to devise pedagogical practices that explicitly targeted the development of students’ positive cognitions, positive emotions and positive experiences. Two main lines of inquiry guided the action research: (i) what might ‘positivity’ look like in relation to learning, for students within primary school classrooms? and (ii) what kinds of pedagogical practices promote positivity within the classroom? Data were collected over an 18-month period and drew from two cycles of action research which generated teacher reflections and interviews, observations of classroom teaching and learning episodes, rich descriptive field notes, anecdotal feedback from parents, as well as student reflections and student focus group interviews. Practice theory was used to analyse the data. Our findings indicate that there are explicit learning behaviours and dispositions that represent positivity in a learning context; and we identify pedagogical practices effective for fostering these behaviours and dispositions. These practices, referred to here as positive pedagogies, include teacher talk, social and emotional resources for students, the supplementation of lessons with resource building materials and the development of individualised learning goals that target the development of positive cognitions, emotions and experiences. We provide a detailed commentary of the action research cycles (and related professional learning) that classroom teachers undertook in the process of contributing to the ‘positive pedagogies’ presented.

Critical success factors in managing sustainable Indigenous businesses in Australia

Purpose The aim of this paper is to investigate success factors pertinent to the management of Indigenous businesses through the identification of points of intervention at the systemic and structural levels. Through utilising this approach, the economic and social values that First Nations communities attach to intangible Indigenous Cultural Heritage (ICH) and Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property (ICIP) may be both recognized and realized as assets. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a multidisciplinary approach to address a global issue of economic and social significance to First Nation Peoples, their businesses and the Australian Aboriginal communities. We adopt a First Nation epistemological standpoint that incorporates theoretical perspectives drawn from a diverse range of fields and theories (see Preston, 2013) as well as advocating the use of Indigenist methodology for research with First Nation Peoples as it is underpinned by critical race theory. Findings We argue conceptually, that accounting, accountability and auditing consideration are required to fully identify what is impacting the successful management of Indigenous enterprises. Specifically, in relation to accounting, Elders should be included to assist in valuing intangible Indigenous Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property assets. Furthermore, we emphasize the need to improve the financial and commercial literacy levels of Indigenous entrepreneurs. Practical implications We prescribe the use of tools for the accounting treatment of Indigenous Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property as intangible assets within an Australian regulatory environment and define an auditing process and accountability model incorporating cultural, social, and environmental measures. A central tenet of this model relates to improving levels of personal and commercial financial literacy in the First Nation participants. Collectively, these factors promote informed participation and decision-making, and may promulgate more sustainable outcomes. Originality/value Integrated thinking requires all factors to be considered in a holistic manner, such that a First Nation enterprise and the wider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can understand, and make decisions based on, the overall impact it has on all their stakeholders and generally on society, the environment and the economy.

Learning Practices: Financial Literacy in an Aboriginal Community

In this chapter, we focus on the financial literacy education (FLE) practices in an Aboriginal community in Canada. We discuss the role of FLE in this Community and describe how a form of site-based education development occurred. The importance of praxis , the moral and ethical aspect of teaching by FLE practitioners is also explored. Next, we identify the ecological arrangements of FLE practices and Community members’ financial practices. The enabling and constraining practice architectures encountered in the site are identified and explained. It is important to point out that the first named author of this paper is a member of this Aboriginal community and so in conjunction with fellow Community members, the approaches to learning and their felt needs were explored. Last, we will outline the implications for FLE practitioners/educators we identified working in this site.