Onîkihikomâwiwin (Parenthood): Researching and Understanding Approaches to Raising Children in Alexander First Nation

To be evidence-based, practices, programs, decisions, and policies aimed at supporting parents and families must be based on the best existing evidence on parenting within the context of individual factors, including culture. Parenting research has a history of being positivist and based on Eurocentric and Western samples, conceptualizations, theories, ways of knowing, and ways of being. Although research suggests that some aspects of parenting are universal, the form and function of parenting behaviours and dimensions have been found to vary across cultures. In Canada, Indigenous peoples, families, communities, and cultures have persisted through and been impacted by historical and ongoing colonization, forced assimilation, cultural genocide, and systemic racism. Indigenous children and families are overrepresented in child welfare systems and there are few culturally safe parenting programs whose effectiveness has been researched, thereby perpetuating these cycles of harm. Although high-quality research on Indigenous parenting that avoids deficit-theorizing and blanket statements is growing, more research is needed to build our understanding of the unique parenting approaches, strengths, and needs in diverse Indigenous communities. Such research can help inform and reform existing practices, programs, decisions, and policies affecting Indigenous families. However, to ensure the research and its results are valid, meaningful, and ethical, the research must itself be culturally safe by being done with, by, and for Indigenous communities based on their epistemologies, ontologies, axiologies, and methodologies. This dissertation consists of two papers describing the processes and results of an Indigenous community-based participatory research (CBPR) study on child-rearing in Alexander First Nation (AFN) from the perspective of eleven community members. The overarching purpose of this dissertation is to share the community’s approach to research and child-rearing, with the hope that (a) the knowledge generated in this study can be used by AFN to support the children, youth, and families in their community, (b) the research processes can provide a case example to parenting researchers of how research understanding Indigenous child-rearing can be conducted, and (c) the knowledge can add to a literature base on Indigenous child-rearing that can play a role in changing harmful and systemically racist practices, programs, decisions, and policies. The first of the two papers focuses on the processes of the research study. It provides an overview of the history of research done on Indigenous peoples, including in parenting research, followed by a brief review of CBPR and Indigenous approaches to research. Then the processes (including successes, challenges, and reflections) of the current Indigenous CBPR study are described including building relationship with the Alexander Research Committee (ARC) and AFN community, designing the study, recruitment, data generation, Indigenous thematic analysis processes, and knowledge mobilization. The second paper focuses on the results of the study. The study aimed to answer the following three research questions: 1. What are the cultural and traditional beliefs, values, and practices related to child-rearing and child development held and used by the people in AFN? 2. How do these beliefs, values, and practices reflect strengths and developmentally-supportive child-rearing in AFN? 3. How has colonization and intergenerational trauma impacted the intergenerational transmission of traditional child-rearing practices in AFN? Tipi teachings received from people within AFN were used as the study’s guiding Indigenous theorizing. The Indigenous CBPR approach included relational sampling, interviews with each of the 11 participating individuals (all of whom identified as women) based in the conversational method, and Indigenous thematic analysis. Four themes emerged, thematically represented by a tipi: (a) Defining Tipi Pole Roles (Mothering); (b) Cooperation Between the Poles, the Environment, and the Land (Community Approach to Raising Children); (c) The Hide (Supporting Child Development); and (d) Maintaining a Sturdy Tipi (Healing Intergenerational Trauma). These findings capture the strengths and developmental support present in the approaches to child-rearing in AFN, which will be mobilized to benefit the community in partnership with the ARC.

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