Tarrying with being a problem

Teacher education, white possessiveness, and settler futurity

Bibliographic Data

ID21747259
AuthorsA E Da Costa (0000-0003-0128-8707, University of Alberta, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume23
Issue2
Pages442-464
Publication date2026-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Curriculum and Pedagogy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1550-5170 • E-ISSN: 2156-8154
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/15505170.2025.2510615
OpenAlexW4411056356
LanguageEN
References cited38

Indigenization and reconciliation in Canadian higher education is widespread but involves diverse discourses and outcomes when it comes to addressing systemic racism and colonialism. This paper analyzes 16 in-depth interviews with white pre-service teachers in one teacher education program in Western Canada as they engage calls to incorporate Indigenous histories and perspectives into their future teaching. The paper first situates Indigenous-focused higher education efforts in Canada in the post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) conjuncture shaped by tensions between symbolic gestures and Indigenous demands for substantive material transformations. The study then analyzes how White settler teacher candidates (TCs) responses to truth, reconciliation, and indigenization at times reproduce and at others challenge the possessive logics of whiteness and investments in settler futurity. Centering tensions between anxiety and uncertainty and the desire for and certainty about a way forward, the study traces how indigenization efforts can disrupt whiteness and colonial institutional logics while also surfacing emotional investments that resecure non-Indigenous authority over the nature of political transformation in reconciliation era

Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · White paper · Chemistry · Critical Race Theory in Education · Education Systems and Policy · Indigenous and Place-Based Education · Law · Psychology

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