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Cultural Genocide In Residential Schools

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Residential schools were government-sponsored religious schools established to assimilate Indigenous children into the Euro-Canadian culture. These schools started in the 1880’s into the closing decades of the 20th century and in 1920 it was put under the Indian Act. It was then mandatory for First Nations to attend the school, and illegal for them to attend other education institutes. Residential schools had two main objectives, one was to isolate children from their family and to assimilate them. They did this because they thought that Aboriginal culture was inferior and unequal to theirs and because they thought Aboriginals weren't as civilized as they were. These schools were a part of a large school system made by the government and run by churches. …show more content…
They have continued to affect Aboriginal communities and because of all this, the residential school system is commonly considered a form of cultural genocide. In the Residential schools, students would have to wear uniforms, their hair would be cut short, they would have to follow timetables and would be gender separated. An example of a person who went to a residential school is Chief Bobby Joseph from the Indian Residential School Survivors Society recall he had no idea how to interact with girls and never even got to know his own sister “beyond a mere wave in the dining room.”this meant that even children related to each other weren’t allowed to meet. As far as education goes the education in Residential schools the students didn’t receive the same amount of education public schools for the settlers got. The schools were fairly underfunded, therefore the students went to class for half the time and worked for the school the other half, which was feed to them as

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