Research

Our mandate is to bolster policy dialogues on labour market and workforce strategies to provide the targeted research to support the labour and workforce development on the Province of Prince Edward Island.

Welcome to the UPEI Workforce Strategies Research Group (WSRG) located at the School of Business at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

We will use underlying notions that complexity theory provides as a window into seeing, without assimilating, the ecological metaphors evident in Aboriginal cultures of North America. Weaving together our theoretical understanding of complexity theory and Aboriginal cosmology and our narratives based on our personal histories as both school teachers and university professors, we begin to develop a notion of schools which is both holistic and inclusive.

This paper is concerned with why there is such low representation of Aboriginal people in Universities. While there are many possible answers ranging from lower socio-economic opportunities to a deficiency in culturally appropriate curriculum, all of which are extremely relevant to understanding the position of Aboriginal people in Canada, this paper addresses how abuse in human relationships impacts our perceptions of ourselves and how the subsequent perceptions affect representation in Universities.

"In this paper, we examine practices implemented by forest processing firms to increase retention of Aboriginal employees in the workplace from the perspective of Aboriginal women workers. Although cultural sensitivity trainings were a common ameliorative used by companies, Aboriginal women working for these firms were equivocal in their opinions of them. While some Aboriginal women found the recognition of Aboriginal culture empowering, others found the exercise tokenizing, particularly when white 'experts' made presentations explaining Aboriginal culture.

In this essay, I position Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) as central to decolonizing theory and praxis in relation to education and economic or social development in Aboriginal communities. While there are many local and national examples of good work in this regard, as witnessed in RCAP, I also draw attention to the work of postcolonial thinkers and especially the Maori of New Zealand - their resistance, conscientization, and theory-making - to inspire and to give new, high validity language for the development agenda in Aboriginal communities in Canada.

The Centre for Health and Biotechnology Management Research (CHBMR) is embedded within the School of Business at UPEI. It supports the stream in the MBA program focused on Biotechnology Management, which enforces the importance of the sector to the School. The Centre aims to integrate knowledge and progress in biotechnology and related sectors into research, education and learning. It also provides networking and partnering opportunities which add to UPEI's and the region's capacity and capabilities in the biotech sector.

THE INSTITUTE OF ISLAND STUDIES (IIS) is a research, education, and public policy institute based at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Canada. With an emphasis always on Prince Edward Island, the work of the Institute focuses on the culture, environment, and economy of small islands.

"The 11 competencies identified for the job of an Aboriginal EDO are not used only in that occupation. Some are transferable to other occupations or are used in other parts of one's life.

It is a vast understatement to say that the current state of social and economic development within Aboriginal and First Nation communities is far from satisfactory. A recent study1 of the Aboriginal economic gap in Saskatchewan, for example, demonstrated that, compared to the non-Aboriginal community, Aboriginal people experience higher poverty rates, lower education levels, and chronic unemployment.