residential school

American  

[rez-i-den-shuhl skool, rez-i-den-shuhl skool] / ˌrɛz ɪˈdɛn ʃəl ˌskul, ˈrɛz ɪˌdɛn ʃəl ˈskul /

noun

1. a boarding school, especially one for delinquent or disabled children or youth.

   They recommended placing our daughter in a residential school for troubled teens.

2. (formerly) one of a network of boarding schools in Canada for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis students, typically founded and operated by a church or religious order and eventually receiving partial or full funding by the federal government.

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residential school British  

noun

1. (in Canada) a boarding school maintained by the Canadian government for Indian and Inuit children from sparsely populated settlements

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Etymology

Origin of residential school

First recorded in 1875–80

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

residential school

For much of her childhood, Alison lived at a residential school for children with complex physical disabilities.

From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2024

“Sugarcane” tells a story — many stories — happening everywhere in Canada, about what is being done, and still going unsaid, regarding the trauma inflicted on Indigenous people by the white-settled country’s residential school system.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2024

"In the indigenous community, we're very familiar with residential school history. It isn't news to us," Goulet, the Cree-Métis filmmaker, told Salon in a recent phone interview.

From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2023

In the podcast, Ms. Walker investigated her father’s experience, and those of hundreds of other Indigenous children, in Canada’s residential school system.

From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2023

But the child in the residential school knows little of all this, has little occasion to know.

From Five Lectures on Blindness by Kate M. Foley