Dr. Marie Battiste
Biography

Dr. Marie Battiste, a Mi'kmaw educator from Potlo’tek First Nations of Cape Breton (Unama’kik), Nova Scotia, is a full professor in the College of Education, and Director of the Aboriginal Education Research Centre (AERC) at the University of Saskatchewan.  A graduate of Harvard University (M.Ed.) and Stanford University (Ed.D), she has writings in literacy, cognitive imperialism, linguistic and cultural integrity, indigenous knowledge and humanities, and decolonization of Aboriginal education. Her doctoral dissertation completed at Stanford University was entitled An Historical Investigation of the Social and Cultural Consequences of Micmac Literacy.

Marie has worked actively with First Nations schools as a teacher, administrator, classroom consultant, and curriculum developer, advancing Aboriginal epistemology, languages, pedagogy, and research.  Her research interests are in initiating institutional change in the decolonization of education, language and social justice policy and power, and postcolonial educational approaches that recognize and affirm the political and cultural diversity of Canada and the ethical protection and advancement of Indigenous knowledge.

She has co-authored Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge with J. Youngblood Henderson (Saskatoon: Purich Press, 2000) which received a Saskatchewan Book Award in 2000; edited Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2000); co-edited a special edition of the Australian Journal of Indigenous Education (May 2005) on the theme “Thinking Place: Animating the Indigenous Humanities”, and senior editor with Jean Barman for First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds (Vancouver: UBC Press). Her most recent publication is guest editor for the Canadian Race Relations Foundation Directions, on the theme Systemic Discrimination against Aboriginal Peoples (2009). She also has published many chapters, conducted literature reviews, research projects and studies and has published widely in books and technical reports.

Her research projects are in violence prevention among youth and animating the Mi’kmaw humanities, both funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

A former co-director of the Aboriginal Learning Knowledge Centre with the Canadian Council of Learning, she has received two honorary doctorate degrees from St. Mary’s University (‘87) and the University of Maine at Farmington (’97), an Alumni Achievement Award at the University of Maine Farmington (’95), and received the National Aboriginal Achievement Award in education (‘08) from the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation.