Resources

Highlights

We recommend the report “Indigenous Perspectives on Higher Education” published by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (2021) as a baseline reading about the challenges and opportunities for the co-creation of a different system of higher education that is respectful of Indigenous Knowledge systems and Indigenous Peoples. More recently, the Commission published “Toward a Better World for All: Decoding, Deconstructing and Decolonizing Higher Education in Canada and Beyond” (2024).

We would also like to highlight the 10 Principles outlined in the BC Provincial Government’s “Aboriginal Post-Secondary Education and Training Policy Framework and Action Plan” (2020):

  1. Recognition and support for the right of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples to self-determination and the role of post-secondary education in facilitating and supporting self-determination.
  2. An acknowledgement of and respect for the diverse histories, languages, cultures, values, ways of knowing, and knowledge systems of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples, the importance of place and land-based rights to First Nations, and recognition that the post- secondary system has a role in sharing this understanding with all British Columbians.
  3. An affirmation that First Nations, Métis and Inuit languages and cultures are critical components of quality educational programming and are essential to support the success of Aboriginal learners.
  4. Recognition that First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples are in the best position to inform the development of and decision-making around post-secondary education programs, policies and services for First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples, working collaboratively within existing governance structures.
  5. A commitment to develop respectful and ethical educational
    and research protocols and guidelines for addressing First Nations, Métis and Inuit knowledge systems, language, and culture.
  6. A commitment to informed leadership and governance, shared responsibility, respectful relationships, and accountability for measurable outcomes in relation to Aboriginal learner success and systemic change within public post-secondary institutions.
  7. Recognition of the unique, vital and complementary roles of Aboriginal-controlled post-secondary institutes and public post-secondary institutions in serving the needs of Aboriginal learners.
  8. Support for successful transitions for Aboriginal learners throughout the lifelong learning continuum, and between public post-secondary institutions and Aboriginal-controlled post-secondary institutes.
  9. Support for innovative and flexible approaches to meet the needs of the diversity of Aboriginal learners in British Columbia’s post-secondary education system.
  10. Recognition that the work needed to achieve systemic change is significant and will take time, thus long term investments are required to ensure programs, policies and services that meet the needs of Aboriginal learners are systemic, strategic and sustainable.

The following is a selection of other literature that addresses reparations for colonialism in higher education:

  • Ambo, T., & Rocha Beardall, T. (2023). Performance or progress? The physical and rhetorical removal of Indigenous Peoples in settler land acknowledgments at Land-Grab Universities. American Educational Research Journal, 60(1), 103-140.
  • Andreotti, V.D.O., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., & Hunt, D. (2015). Mapping interpretations of decolonization in the context of higher education. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 4(1).
  • Carr-Stewart, S., Balzer, G., & Cottrell, M. (2013). First Nations post-secondary education in Western Canada: Obligations, barriers, & opportunities. Anderson & Hanrahan, eds. Indigenizing the Academy. https://www.mun.ca/educ/faculty/mwatch/vol40/winter2013/firstNations.pdf
  • Daigle, M. (2019). The spectacle of reconciliation: On (the) unsettling responsibilities to Indigenous peoples in the academy. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 37(4), 703-721.
  • Brunette-Debassige, C. (2023). Indigenous Refusals in Educational Leadership Practices in Canadian Universities. AlterNative : An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 19(2), 377-386. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23793406.2023.2213234
  • Gaudry, A., & Lorenz, D. (2018). Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: Navigating the different visions for Indigenizing the Canadian Academy. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 14(3), 218-227.
  • Gregory, R., Halteman, P., Kaechele, N., Kotaska, J., & Satterfield, T. (2020). Compensating Indigenous social and cultural losses: a community-based multiple-attribute approach. Ecology and Society, 25(4).
  • Harvey, C. (2023). University Land Grabs: Indigenous Dispossession and the Universities of Toronto and Manitoba. Canadian Historical Review, 104(4), 467-493.
  • Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in US schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3-12.
  • Lee, R. & Ahtone, T. (2020, April). Land-grab universities: Expropriated Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university. High Country News. Available at: https://www.hcn.org/issues/52.4/indigenous-affairs-education-land-grab-universities
  • McMillan Cottom, T. (2016). Georgetown’s slavery announcement is remarkable, but it’s not reparations. Vox. www.vox.com/2016/9/2/12773110/georgetown-slavery-admission-reparations
  • Minthorn, R. S., & Nelson, C. A. (2018). Colonized and racist Indigenous campus tour. Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs, 4(1), 4. https://ecommons.luc.edu/jcshesa/vol4/iss1/4/
  • Palmer, M. A. (2023). Good intentions are not good relations: Grounding the terms of debt and redress at land grab universities. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 22(3). https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/2296
  • Pidgeon, M. (2022). Indigenous resiliency, renewal, and resurgence in decolonizing Canadian higher education. In Troubling truth and reconciliation in Canadian education: Critical perspectives (pp.15-37). https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781772126198-005/pdf?licenseType=restricted
  • Redshirt-Shaw, M. (2020). Beyond the land acknowledgement: College “LAND BACK” or free tuition for Native students. https://tinyurl.com/usxh6ud3
  • Safransky, S. (2022). Grammars of reckoning: Redressing racial regimes of property. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 40(2), 292-305.
  • Sriprakash, A. (2023). Reparations: Theorising just futures of education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 44(5), 782-795. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01596306.2022.2144141
  • Statistics Canada. (2023). Postsecondary educational attainment and labour market outcomes of Indigenous peoples, 2021. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231027/dq231027a-eng.htm#
  • Stein, S. (2023, Jan). Beyond apologies: Universities must do more to confront their complicity in slavery and colonization, moving toward restitution and repair. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2023/01/19/higher-ed-must-move-beyond-performative-apologies-opinion
  • Stein, S. & Andreotti, V.D.O. (In press). Confronting colonialism and mobilizing reparations in higher education. World Yearbook of Education 2026. 
    Stewart-Ambo, T. (2021). The future is in the past: How land-grab universities can shape the future of higher education. Native American and Indigenous Studies, 8(1), 162-168.
  • Stonechild, B. (2006). The new buffalo: The struggle for Aboriginal post-secondary education. University of Manitoba Press.
  • Tachine, A. R., & Cabrera, N. L. (2021). “I’ll Be Right Behind You”: Native American Families, Land Debt, and College Affordability. AERA Open.
  • Taiwo, O. O. (2021). Reconsidering reparations. Oxford University Press.
  • Taylor, M. L. (2020). Seminaries and slavery: An abolition struggle paradigm for research. Theology Today, 76(4), 308–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/004057361988268
  • Towards Recognition and University Tribal Healing (TRUTH) Project (2023). Oshkigin Noojimo’iwe, Naġi Waƞ Pẹ tu Uƞ Ihduwaṡ’ake He Oyate Kiƞ Zaniwicạ ye Kte Executive Summary. https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/executive-summary_tcm1193-572350.pdf
  • Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015). Canada’s residential schools: The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Available at: http://nctr.ca/assets/reports/Final%20Reports/Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf
  • Tuck, E. & Wang, K. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1). https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630/15554

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