TITLE Indigenous Women in a Canadian Teacher Education Program: Culture-Creators in Action.

Traditional educational practices of Indigenous Canadians were aimed at cultural transmission. All adults were responsible for educating the young, but because children stayed with the women until puberty, women played the most significant role in transmitting the culture. Adults with certain gifts and talents looked for similar attributes in children and then had the responsibility to nurture those gifts and talents to fruition through mentoring. Data from the 1991 Canadian census show that Indigenous women tend to work in service-providing areas, echoing their traditional nurturing roles, with approximately four times as many women as men working in education-related jobs. A 3-year study of eight Ojibwe women enrolled in a teacher education program revealed a strong sense of cultural continuity. Their most frequently mentioned goals as educators involved a sense of community responsibility expressed as concern for the children, future generations, and well-being of the people. The immediate challenge fo