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Other ways of being: challenging dominant financial literacy discourses in Aboriginal Context

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Abstract

Financial literacy education (FLE) continues to gain momentum on a global scale. FLE is often described as essential learning for all citizens, despite the bulk of initiatives outside the compulsory school classrooms focussed on educating economically disadvantaged individuals. Informed by Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing a critical discourse analysis of FLE facilitators resources used in train-the-trainer workshops in/for a Canadian Aboriginal community was conducted to identify dominant discourses. An uncomfortable space was uncovered as the ubiquitous focus on individual wealth accumulation contradicted Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, underscoring the challenges of embedding Indigenous epistemologies in highly institutionalised charitable organisations’ attempts to help Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) peoples in poverty. Although this research is based on a Canadian program, the explosion of FLE as a “solution” to collective problems such as poverty lends itself to other—including Australian—contexts.

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Acknowledgements

The first named author would like to thank the Fellowship Fund Inc. of Graduate Women Queensland for awarding her with the inaugural Molly Budtz-Olsen 3-year Fellowship during her PhD candidature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, Australia

    Levon Ellen Blue

  2. University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Canada

    Laura Elizabeth Pinto

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  1. Levon Ellen Blue
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  2. Laura Elizabeth Pinto
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Correspondence to Levon Ellen Blue.

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Blue, L.E., Pinto, L.E. Other ways of being: challenging dominant financial literacy discourses in Aboriginal Context. Aust. Educ. Res. 44, 55–70 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-017-0226-y

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