The long‐term effects of forcible assimilation policy: The case of Indian boarding schools

Abstract For decades in North America and Australia, Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools. These schools had the stated goal of cultural assimilation and are perceived as educational failures. I offer the first causal evidence on the long‐run effects of these schools. I identify these effects using the interaction of changes in Canadian national policy and regional variation in the power of the Catholic Church. I find that the average boarding school had substantial effects on both cultural and economic assimilation. However, I find suggestive evidence this is not true for highly abusive schools.