Carling Beninger

I am a settler historian of French, British, German, and Irish ancestry. My research focuses on settler colonialism, Indigenous state education schooling and activism, and Indigenous-church relations. My research experience and interests are rooted in my commitment to fostering reconciliation through historical research and educating others on Indigenous history. My research trajectory is based on two areas of Indigenous history, both of which look at the period after World War Two in Canada:

1. the history of closing down the residential school system and Indigenous education activism towards the federal government Indigenous education policy of shifting Indigenous children to provincial schools (school integration), and 
2. the Anglican, United, and Presbyterian Churches’ Indigenous-church relations and reconciliation efforts. 

My current research focus builds on work that I completed as the Olive Dickason North American Indigenous History Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta from 2019-2020. Under the supervision of Dr. Sarah Carter, my project, “Closing Down the Residential School System: Parent and Community Leadership in First Nations Education in Treaty 6 and 7 Territory in Alberta, 1950s-1970s,” investigates the period in which the federal government sought to close down the residential school system after World War Two.
Additionally, I am revising a manuscript for McGill-Queen's University Press based on my dissertation, which was supervised by Dr. J.R. Miller, called From Assimilation to Reconciliation: The Indigenous-Church Relations of the Anglican, Presbyterian, and United Churches of Canada, 1946-2015.