PHD – EXPLORED THE FINANCIAL LITERACY EDUCATION PRACTICES IN CANADIAN FIRST NATIONS COMMUNITY: A CASE STUDY

METHODOLOGY & METHOD

Two research trips to the Community during my PhD

Trip 1: Invited to speak at the Community summit (October 2013)

Trip 2: Meeting with Chief and Council and Invited to speak at Community event (June 2014)

19 interviews

55 surveys

Participation in Community events

Field notes, document analysis, observation, etc

Indigenous Research Methodologies (Martin, 2008 & Wilson, 2008)

THE CONTEXT

FINANCIALLY EXCLUDED COMMUNITY SEEKING FLE

Godinho (2015) argues the importanceof “building elders” financial capabilityto strengthen their traditional roles whilstencouraging young people to practicefinancial skills with families andcommunities.

are you helping

us?

(Kovach, 2009

p.31)

Community leaders sought FLE and invited an

establish FL Centre to deliver training

INTRODUCTION

Improving financial literacy is a global concern

“A combination of financial awareness, knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours necessary to make soundfinancial decisions and ultimately achieve individual financial wellbeing” (Atkinson & Messy, 2012, p. 2).

FINANCIAL LITERACY EDUCATION (FLE) IS…

education that focuses on increasing an individual’s

financial literacy through the acquisition of personal

financial skills and capabilities (Blue, Grootenboer &

Brimble, 2014). Being able to do mathematical

calculations when faced with

everyday financial decisions.

Having the ability to problem solve

your way through real life “financial

dilemmas” Sawatzki (2013, p. 557) .

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1) how are FLE practices experienced in this financially excluded First Nations Community?

(1.a.) why is FLE important or not important in this First Nations Community.

(1.b.) what are the FLE needs of this First Nations Community?

THE PRACTICE OF FLE IN A FINANCIALLY EXCLUDED COMMUNITY

TRAIN-THE-TRAINER FLE WORKSHOP

“No, the majority that were there thought it was a pretty good course and gavethem some awareness into financial literacy and what to look at and what toexpect around budgeting and all that but the majority agreed that they wouldn’tbe willing to go out and teach people.” (Shiishiib (Mallard), Male CM)

FINANCIAL LITERACY

Uncomfortable with money (guilt and shame)

Not want to appear better off

Helping others

Effective use of money to enable you to achieve financial well-being.

Individual wealth accumulation focus vs. collective wellbeing

THE TRAINING PACKAGE

FINANCIAL PRACTICES PROMOTED

Responsible use of money

Being a wise consumer

Making effective financial decision by saving, budgeting and planning for the future.

SAYINGS – FINANCIAL LANGUAGE USED TO DISCUSS FL

FINANCIAL LITERACY DISCOURSE

Empower

Prosper

Effective Financial Decision Maker

Choice

Skills & Knowledge

Enable

Budget/Plan/Save/Goals

RETIREMENT

Are the

conditions

of this site

understood?

DOINGS – FLE ACTIVITIES (POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE REPRESENTATION?)

Example from Module 3

RELATINGS - INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING, BEING AND DOING

“Well, we were bought up to

share, no matter what it was.

And that’s still the custom these

days.” (Martin, 2003, p.39).

FLE = deficit discourse?

RELATINGS – IN THE FLE WORKSHOP

Positive presentation of ‘self ’ (FL Centre)

Website, Grants, Training, Resources (500 Communities and over 1500 front line staff since 2008)

Bank = Money

FLE training suggests interest in acquiring money

Packaged as easy to acquire skills and knowledge

Here to help low income individuals

Power behind the discourse

OECD -> Government -> SEDI calls about the Government to create Financial Literacy Taskforce -> SEDI est. Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy (CCFL) -> Government creates Financial Literacy Taskforce (SEDI strategic advisor) -> TD Bank Communities who are trained by the SEDI resources CCFL & TD Fin Lit Grant -> CCFL training in Community (low income earners)

CONCERNS ABOUT FLE APPROACH

…being misguided into thinking their financial problems could be ‘fixed’ if only they could acquire the basic personal financial skills such as developing a budget (Pinto, 2009; Willis, 2008).

FLE unlikely to change behaviour and are unlikely to assist an individual move from their current financial circumstances (Lyons, Chang & Scherpf, 2006).

Already effective budgeters (Dowler, 1997).

Individual wealth-accumulation focus and collective well-being

PREVAILING CONDITIONS OF THE SITE

lower life expectancy

poverty

employment

education

culture

main stream banking

health and well-being

leaving the Community (lack of a safety net outside the Community)

PRACTICE ARCHITECTURES OF FLE IN THE COMMUNITY

Disadvantage

Poverty

Unemployment

Health and Well-being

Education

Identity

Dependency

Financial practices

- Budgeting

- Saving

- Planning for the

future

- Effective

financial

decision maker

Sharing of

resources

Not wanting to

appear better off

than others

FL practices

promoted

Tension

Lack of hope

Practices in the

Community

Guilt and

Shame

Reciprocity

RELEVANCE

LOCAL NEEDS AND INTERESTS

1. To learn how to complete grant applications available in the Community

2. How to read financial statements so we can engage in dialogue and decision for our Community

3. How to navigate financially without collateral

4. How to prepare our youth for life outside of the Community (while attending post-secondary school)

5. How to create ‘real’ employment opportunities for our youth

6. How to create sustain employment in the Community drawing on the resources and talents within the Community

What we want…

DOES ONE SIZE FIT ALL?

… many researchers have argued that there is no ‘one-size fits all’ approach to education and each site and has specific circumstances and conditions (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy, Grootenboer & Bristol, 2014).

DEVELOPMENT

SITE-BASED EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT

“when educators think

together about how best to

do this, in a particular school,

for particular students and a

particular community, they

are engaging in site based

education development”

(Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 212).

INCORPORATING FINANCIAL AWARENESS INTO EXISTING PRACTICE

* the train-the-trainer model is an unsustainable practice

* it is taught as an additional practice for individuals to adopt.

* the generic modules do not incorporated into the Community members’ existing practices

* the pedagogical practices seemed to disconnect with the Community.

THINKING ABOUT THE NEED FOR PRAXIS IN FLE

THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAXIS

… understanding educational praxisas “the moral, ethical and caring dimension of teaching” (Grootenboer, 2013, p. 1) appears to be lacking from current FLE practices (Blue, Grootenboer & Brimble, 2015).

Both extreme wealth and poverty are

guarantees of our capitalist economic

system (Arthur, 2012)

FINDINGS FROM THE LITERATURE REVIEW SUGGEST THAT…

quick fix approaches are problematic

the real issue of poverty which involves low wages, working long hours and lack of employment opportunities are not going to be solved by FLE.

Connecting FLE to real life “financial dilemmas” for awareness only

FINDINGS FROM THIS RESEARCH SUGGEST THAT…

Increased financial awareness will not ensure that the student can financially support themselves outside of their Community.

FLE that is relevant, age and culturally appropriate, inclusive and requires the students to critically explore multiple solutions is well placed in inquiry based high-school mathematics classrooms.

Being financial literate does not leads to financial well-being and that ‘poverty’ will not be overcome by making ‘effective’ financial decisions

MOVING FORWARD WITH FLE

1. Relevance

2. Valuing Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing

3. Collaborative development – site based education development

4. Praxis approach

5. Sustainable practices

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES OF FINANCIAL DECISION-MAKING (BLUE, 2016)

CONCEPT OF CRITICAL FINANCIAL LITERACY

Blue (2016) expanded concept of financial literacy based on Huston (2010) original two dimension concept

Praxis approach to

financial literacy

education may include:

Acknowledging that all life decisions are

not financially rewarding but often

valuable and necessary

Understanding that improvements in

mathematical skills and capabilities may not equate

with an increase in income

Considering the impact socio-

economic status has on an individual's

ability to save and maintain long term

savings

Recognising that gender, culture,

values and ethics shape identity and this will impact an individual when

faced with a financial decision

A praxis approach to financial literacy education (Blue & Grootenboer, 2018 under review).

SHORTCOMING WITH THE CONVENTIONAL APPROACH TO FLE

1. Deficit approach, need is assumed and one size fits all.

2. “Category entitlement” by the financial services industry that undermines the valuable contribution of curriculum and pedagogical expertise by qualified educators in the classroom (Potter, 1996, p. 132).

3. The ethics and questionable financial practices by financial institutions.

4. FLE campaigns to improve oneself that removes that focus from the social structures that continue to perpetuate inequities (Arthur, 2014)

5. Existence of privilege is not considered nor how Indigenous people participate in the economy when many are not land owners (Moreton-Robinson, 2015)

WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN TO BE FINANCIALLY LITERATE?

Financial literacy is more about an individual’s capacity to: acquire financial skills and capabilities; critically reflecting on what influences financial decision-making; and, apply financial skills and capabilities to financial dilemmas.

It also involves:

having compassion for others (Lucey et al. 2015) (e.g. self worth is not equated with financial worth);

understanding how financial practice is enable and constrained by the practice architectures involved in financial decision-making;

questioning the simplicity of conventional approaches to financial literacy that assume financial skills and capabilities are lacking and once acquired an improvement in financial well-being will occur; and,

using critical thinking skills to ask questions about financial products and services offered.

PREDATORY PRACTICES

PRACTICE OF CASHING A CHEQUE (THAT COULD LEAD TO PREDATORY LENDING)

Cheque received:

Option 1: use in Community store (10% purchase required)

Immediate access to fund less amount required to spend

Option 2: travel into town, deposit at bank and wait days for the cheque to clear

Receive full amount but may be a delay in receiving it

Option 3: receive cash immediate by cashing cheques at the predatory lender

Service fees and higher interest rates apply

PREDATORY LENDING PRACTICES

Example 1: Mortgage brokers

Victims: All vulnerable consumers seeking a mortgage

Practice exposed: Royal Commission into banking exposed that mortgage brokers were paid their commission based on the size and duration of the loan.

Practice enabled: selling products to suit the needs of the mortgage brokers

Practice: constrained: affordable and short duration mortgages (in the best interest of the client)

http://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/banking-royal-

commission-untangles-mortgage-broker-conflicts-20180319-h0xnq8

PREDATORY LENDING PRACTICES

Example 2: Tribal sovereignty (sham relationships wit Tribes established to enable predatory lending of AMG Service Inc.)

Practice exposed: 4.5 million vulnerable consumers seeking small loans (average size $300.00) were charged interest rates as high as 700%

Practice enabled: predatory lending that was illegal in some States

Practice constrained: repayment of debt. Relationship with Tribes as only1% of profits was received and sham relationships were established

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-paydaylending-

crime/race-car-driver-scott-tucker-found-guilty-in-u-s-payday-

lending-case-idUSKBN1CI31X

https://consumerist.com/2014/06/04/this-is-one-of-the-scammiest-payday-

loans-weve-ever-seen/

A change in practice required to prevent predatory lending

• So, to fix the problem, the financial regulators in Australia it is the Australia Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) needs to change the way mortgage brokers are paid (i.e. no longer based on the size of the loan or the duration of the loan but instead on the cost of meeting the needs of the client).

• Once this predatory financial practice is revealed, it is possible to change it.• Changing the in practice, however, requires changing not just the practice itself but also the practice architectures that currently

support this predatory financial practice. • These practice architectures are composed of cultural-discursive arrangements (specialised discourses about, for example, banking,

loans, mortgages, and mortgage brokers), material-economic arrangements (like the materiality of banks, offices, and the internet, as well as the economic system that supports banks and lending), and social-political arrangements (like the roles of banker, bank client, mortgage broker and mortgage broker’s client).

• The practice of selling mortgages to consumers as a mortgage broker is socially structured• It is and influenced by those who shape the practice, and who form identities about what it means to be a mortgage broker. • Thus, in the practice landscape inhabited by mortgage brokers and their clients, particular kinds of practice architectures support the

practices of mortgage-broking. – These include: the cultural-discursive arrangements like (i.e. the shared understandings mortgage brokers draw on to interpret and understand what

it means to be a ‘mortgage broker’. They also include, second, material-economic arrangements (i.e. like the economic realities that shape the practice, including being financially incentivised to push clients towards higher loans for with a longer duration. And they include, third, socio-political arrangements (i.e. like the power relationships and professional culture of mortgage brokers putting their own needs and self-interests of yourself as a mortgage broker ahead of the needs and interests of the consumer seeking a mortgage they can afford and sustain).

Together, these arrangements form practice architectures which make possible (enable and constrain) the practices of mortgage-broking. Different practice architectures are required to make possible other, non-predatory, practices of mortgage-broking.

THANK YOU/MIIGWETCH