Vol. 7 No. 3 (2012): Juggling educational ends: Non-Indigenous Yukon principals and the policy challenges that they face

This article reports on a 2008 study of non-indigenous principals working in indigenous Yukon contexts. It examines the policy contexts in which Yukon principals are embedded, giving attention to how they address the tensions that exist as a result of operating at the intersections of multiple policy levels. The application of critical ethnography generates the opportunity to reveal and examine the tensions, distinctions, and contradictions underpinning their practice. The principals identify fragmented curricular policy; the competition between instructional time, mandated external curricula, and locally developed curricula; and field trip and hiring policies as being problematic. The principals also describe how they cope with the challenges and tensions that arise as a result of being responsible and accountable to balance competing educational ends, to the satisfaction of multiple external levels of control. The study calls for a re-evaluation of the deployment of externally mandated curricula in the Yukon.