Aboriginal Canada Revisited

ABORIGINAL CHILD WELFARE: SYMBOLIC BATTLEGROUND IN THE NEWS MEDIA

Robert Harding ABORIGINAL CHILD WELFARE: SYMBOLIC BATTLEGROUND IN THE NEWS MEDIA FOREWORD ver the last three decades, dozens ofFirst Nations have negotiated the devolution of delegated responsibility for child welfare, and many more are in the process of negotiating such agreements. A study conducted in 2004, found that daily newspapers in British Columbia report on Aboriginal management of child welfare services in ways that undermine their aspirations to design and deliver culturallyappropriate services to their people. Control over child welfare maybe seen as a symbolic battleground where the inherent right and ability of Aboriginal people to govern themselves and exercise control over their own lives is at stake. This article isbased on selected findings1 ofamajor study on news coverage ofAboriginal child welfare issues that was supported by a SocialSciences and Humanities Research Council Small Universities Grant administered by the University ofthe FraserValley (UFv). This researchwasmade possible by the 290 O '• 8 UP I A R h diligence and hard work of two part-time research assistants, Jeremy Harder and PaulJohnston, who took time out from their studies in the Bachelor of Social Work program at UCFv to assist with data collection. INTRODUCTION Aboriginal people in Canada have identified control over child welfare as critical not only to the health ofAboriginal children, families and communities , but also to the survival of diverse cultures and languages. Over the last two decades, many First Nations have negotiated the devolution of delegated responsibility for child welfare, and many more are in the process of negotiating such agreements. This project builds on research into stereotyping conducted by the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and on amore recent study that examines the way in which "common sense" about Aboriginal people is constructed in the press. In its comprehensive assessment of the representation of Canadian Aboriginal peoples in the media, the RCAP concluded that three damaging stereotypes ofAboriginal people are perpetuated in all forms of public discourse: victims, warriors, and environmentalists. In "The Media, Aboriginal People and Common Sense," it was found that newspapers report on Aboriginal child welfare agencies and workers in ways that undermine Aboriginal aspirations to design and deliver culturally appropriate services to their own people (Harding 2005). Marnie McCall defines child welfare as a "field of social service practice in which the state, operating through specific statutory law, takes over 'functions normally carried out by parents for their children'" (1990, 347). Throughout British Columbia, as in other parts of Canada, First Nations are being delegated authority for Aboriginal child welfare by the provincial governments. Thus, an Aboriginal child welfare news story is one that references Aboriginal people (including "Indian," "Native," "First Nation," "Metis," and "Inuit")and is one that involves state child welfare authorities or delegatedAboriginal child welfare authorities. Stories about Aboriginal child welfare issues occurring 291 ROBERT HARDING outside British Columbia, but reported in the provinces newspapers, arealso included. Techniques of content analysis are applied to news stories about Aboriginal child welfare issues in the Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province and Times-Colonist. The 131 articles considered in this study represent all news items,including op-ed pieces, which referenceAboriginal child welfare issues during three complete years—1993,1998 and 2003. The research isorganized around four main questions: 1. What are the dominant patternsin news coverage ofAboriginal child welfare issues? 2. Are the stereotypes that were identified by the 1996 RCAP reflected in news stories about Aboriginal child welfare issues? 3. Are other stereotypes present? 4. How has news coverageofAboriginal child welfare issueschanged? The first three questions are applied to 2003 news texts, while the last question focuses on continuities and discontinuities in news coverage in the years !993> !998 and 2003. Two types of content are considered in this study. First, elements of manifest content that are physically present and countable are analyzed (for example, mentions of a particular topic or number of front page stories). As well, latent content is examined through an interpretive reading ofthe symbolism underlying the physical data (forinstance, assessingwhether aparticular news story contains stereotypes or is sympathetic to Aboriginal interests). For each newspaper article, a coding form was completed and the results entered into a spreadsheet,. The specific research questions are reflected in the structure and design of the coding tool and associated coding protocol (see appendix B). The protocol provides guidelines for coding, definitions of terms used in the coding form, and a selection of choices available for each category. For example...