TakingITGlobal

What Do We Already Know? Although Indigenous experiences of higher-education and employment have been largely absent from public discourse, there is a growing body of scholarship that seeks to make evident the need for more culturally safe spaces for Indigenous peoples (Cote-Meek, 2014; Battiste, Bell, & Findlay, 2002). Much of the research regarding Indigenous representation and experiences in social institutions suggests that mainstream models of education and employment training are incompatible with Indigenous traditions and lifeways (Ineese-Nash et al., 2018; Ball 2004). Indigenous students are often navigating social systems that are premised on colonial ideologies, which uphold a particular knowledge system above others. In the settler-colonial context of Canada, European-based knowledges are valued and taught through public education systems in ways that negate Indigenous experiences (Battiste, 1998). That is to say that Indigenous understandings are erased from public knowledge and their experiences of colonialism are not well understood or integrated into curricula. For Indigenous students, educational progress and success is hampered when their ways of being and learning are unrecognized. Public education has been used as a tool of assimilation in Canada (Neegan, 2005). Early education programs for Indigenous children and students were premised on xenophobic assumptions that placed higher value on European customs and knowledges and sought to eradicate Indigenous cultures (Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman, 2014). Canada's residential and day school systems were established and enforced through colonial policy (Czyzewski, 2011). These programs removed Indigenous children from their families and communities in order for them to adapt to the changing colonial society (Spencer & Sinclair, 2017). Indigenous children were forced to give up their language, their ceremonies, and oftentimes their lives in order to access mandated education programs (McKenzie, Varcoe, Browne, & Day, 2016). Although residential schooling ended in 1994, the underlying ideology of colonial education remains inherent in Canada's mainstream education system (Battiste, 2017). Schools across Canada are largely structured on European education models, which favour reductionist thinking, English and French language, and independent forms of learning (Battiste, 2017). These systems directly contrast with Indigenous pedagogies, which are land oriented and culturally based (McCoy,Tuck, & McKenzie, 2017). Post secondary education and employment training has historically been inaccessible to Indigenous communities (Ottmann, 2017). Education for Indigenous peoples was primarily reserved for children in an attempt to erase Indigenous cultural practices and languages (Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman, 2014). In order for Indigenous peoples to continue with post-secondary education, they were often forced to give up their Indian status and leave their communities in order to be classified as Canadian citizens (Assembly of First Nations, 2012). The Enfranchisement Act allowed for Indigenous peoples to gain entry into colonial institutions with the expectation that the would assimilate into the dominant society and contribute to the progression of colonialism and capitalism (Evans, 2019). While enfranchisement is no longer enshrined in law, the practices of assimilistic models of education are still present in the structure of education and training systems. Indigenous young people are still forced to leave their communities in order to access education and the programs that are available are not often culturally informed or appropriate (Finlay, Hardy, Morris, & Nagy, 2010). There are very few opportunities for Future Pathways Summit Report 5

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