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Revision as of 00:22, 12 December 2004 by Robin klein (talk | contribs) (category)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The term residential school generally refers to any school at which students live in addition to attending classes.
Kinds of Residential schools
There are various kinds of residential schools. They are distinct in nature depending upon the scope or functional aspects of its organization. The most common type of residential school are boarding schools. Other forms of residential schools include resident schools for disabled pupils (e.g. for students who are blind), special needs residential schools (e.g. for mentally challenged students), and the Israeli kibbutzim, where children stay and get educated in a commune, but also have everyday contact with their parents at specified hours.
Mandatory residential schools for aboriginals
In Canada, the term usually refers to a number of schools for Aboriginal children, operated during the twentieth century by churches of various denominations and funded under the Indian Act by the Department of Indian Affairs, a branch of the Canadian federal government. The schools' purpose was the education and cultural assimilation of aboriginal children into the dominant culture.
Students were required to stay in residences on school premises, and sometimes were forcibly removed from their homes and parents to achieve this end. They were generally prohibited from speaking Aboriginal languages, even amongst one other and outside the classroom, in order to ensure that English or French would be successfully learned.
In recent years, it was revealed that many students at residential schools were subjected to psychological and sexual abuse by teachers and school officials. Several prominent court cases have led to large cash payments from the Canadian government and churches to former students of residential schools.
Similar schools were operated in the United States (under the name Indian Boarding Schools) and in Australia (the Stolen Generation).
Traditional natives and tribal communities around societies have been subjected by ruling governments to similar forced residential - boarding schools.