間眅埶AV

Amy Parent

Associate Professor
Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Governance and Education
Inaugural Associate Director, (formerly, Centre for Education, Law and Society)
Faculty of Education

Biography

I raise my hands in deep appreciation to the X妢m庛kwym, Sl穩lwta优, and Skwxw繳7mesh Nations for providing me with a place to live, study, and teach. I acknowledge that I am an uninvited guest on their traditional, ancestral, unceded, and overlapping territories. My Nisgaa name is Noxs Tsaawit (Mother of the Raven Warrior Chief). My mothers side of the family is from the House of Niisjoohl and I am a member of the Ganada (frog) clan in the village of Laxgaltsap in the Nisgaa Nation. On my fathers side of the family, I am settler ancestries (French and German). I have a Ph.D. in Education from the University of British Columbia (UBC). I am an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Education & Governance (Tier 2) in the Faculty of Education at 間眅埶AV (間眅埶AV), Tier 2. During my pre-tenure years, I held faculty appointments in the Faculty of Education at 間眅埶AV and the Department of Educational Studies at UBC. Since returning to 間眅埶AV, I am focusing my decolonizing efforts in the Curriculum and Instruction: Equity Studies in Education Program and supporting the Indigenization of the facultys governance, programmatic, and course offerings with colleagues, and a member of the Indigenous Education Reconciliation Council. I am also the Associate Director for the 間眅埶AV Cassidy Centre for Educational Justice (formerly the Centre for Education Law & Society).

Research Interests

Dr. Parents scholarship is informed by the Nisgaa Sayt-kilhlw oosim (Common Bowl) philosophy which guides her engagement of Indigenous methodologies to collaboratively support community-based self-determination needs with Indigenous communities in British Columbia in three areas:

  1. Teaching and mentoring practices aimed at capacity-building in Indigenous communities, K-12 contexts, teacher education, and higher education in British Columbia;
  2. Nisgaa language revitalization, educational governance and policy; and
  3. Strengthening on-going matriarchal led processes to attain B.C. First Nations control of Indigenous research jurisdiction and governance.

Dr. Parents language and cultural revitalization responsibilities intertwine with several research projects including: a project lead for a comprehensive review of School District 92 (Nisgaa) with Dr. Jeannie Morgan, Matriarch Shirley Morven, and Dr. Gwendolyn Point; and a principal investigator of several on-going SSHRC supported research projects to enhance Nisgaa language revitalization, land based practices, and cultural repatriation efforts. She has expanded her research into the international realm by initiating efforts to successfully repatriate the Niis Joohl memorial pole with her house and the Nisgaa Lisims Government, which has led to invited presentations, significant media knowledge mobilization, and publications with Commonwealth scholars and universities. Dr. Parents international activism, as a member of the United Nations (UN) Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Canada Working Group on Indigenous Land Based Education, has helped draw attention to the importance of land-based education. She is currently a member of the Museum of Anthropology Great Hall Indigenous Advisory Committee. In the decolonizing realm, she engages visual methodologies as catalysts for decolonizing of systemic change between the university community and Indigenous communities. She produced 14 films as part of a film series with respected Coast Salish Knowledge Holders and leaders titled Critical Understandings of Land and Water: Unsettling Place at 間眅埶AV. The film series aims to examine the praxis of land-based education by providing an understanding of the implications of Indigenous rights and sovereignty on Coast Salish lands and waterways while disrupting the glorified settler narrative of Simon Fraser. In 2018, Dr. Parent received the Douglas College Distinguished Alumni Award, and in 2015, the 100 Top Alumni award in the Faculty of Education at UBC (2015), which cited her research as groundbreaking and exhaustive in terms of its impact with Indigenous youth and its influence in the areas of Indigenous K-12 teacher and higher education. In 2018, she received the Excellence in Scholarly Teaching Award in the 間眅埶AV Faculty of Education.

Teaching

Courses

Future courses may be subject to change.