ABSTRACT
This chapter engages the reader in a discussion about current and potential challenges to understanding educational leadership in a First Nations setting by addressing foundational issues of purpose and paradigm in aboriginal education and providing an alternative frame of reference to the dominant application of Euro-centric or Western-centric conceptions of educational leadership and of First Nations education. An "educational paradigm", according to Bertrand and Valois, consists of two parts: a group of general orientations, of norms and rules that define educational reflection and action; and praxis implications for "how to proceed" in terms of exemplary practice. The new-democratic-society or symbiosynergetic paradigm focuses on a symbiotic mode of knowing that leads to a view centred on unity between subject and object. Stewardship represents primarily an act of trust, whereby people and institutions entrust a leader with certain obligations and duties to fulfill and perform on their behalf.
