Residential school
The term residential school generally refers to any school at which students live in addition to attending classes. 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).
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