Indigenous peoples -- Education -- Canada, Education and state -- Canada, Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Education, Indigenous peoples -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- Canada, Indigenous students -- Canada, Assessment and Testing 

This thesis was a multipronged Indigenous archaeological investigation of the historic region downstream from the village of Sandy Bay, a community in northern Saskatchewan, of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, to document and understand the ancestors who lived nearby. This study included a contextualizing archaeological overview of the previous archaeological findings in the region, to lay out the culture history, and demonstrate the cultural link between the people who live there today and the pre-contact inhabitants of this region. This dissertation includes various threads of experiences written in three voices: nêhiyawêwin, story form, and academic. To do this research work, the first thread emerged when I attended to the relational responsibilities of Indigenous research and the methodological commitments of narrative inquiry. The second thread focused on the timelines of participants as they shaped nêhiyaw identity with nêhiyawêwin and assessment making in relation to time, place, and sociality. The third thread revealed tensions in the experiences of assessment that led to loss of nêhiyawêwin, nêhiyaw culture, and identity. The fourth thread revealed ways to attend to nêhiyawêwin revitalization in and out of the classroom that includes assessment making. 

A Dissertation Submitted to the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Department of Educational Foundations University of Saskatchewan