In Quest of Indigeneity, Quality, and Credibility in Aboriginal Post-Secondary Education in Canada: Problematic, Contexts, and Potential Ways Forward

Overview & Synopsis

Learning involves conceptual frameworks embedded in worldviews and values. The overarching problematic of Aboriginal post-secondary education is complex and multifaceted. Normative and institutional forces as well as the credentialing and certification agenda of post-secondary education limit the degree to which Aboriginal education at any level can simply go its own way. To what degree and in what ways should Aboriginal post-secondary education differ from mainstream post-secondary education--and can it? The "parity paradox" (Paquette & Fallon, 2010, p. xii) prevails in post-secondary as in lower-level education. Education that purports to be meaningfully "Aboriginal" must fulfill two seemingly opposing purposes: provide education that is grounded in Aboriginal cultures but also provide a reasonable degree of parity with the content and quality of mainstream education. In short, Aboriginal post-secondary education is situated at the nexus of colliding epistemic universes of hugely unequal power. What can and should be Aboriginal in Aboriginal post-secondary education? What is the Canadian experience to date in that respect--with particular focus on the British Columbia case example--and what can be learned from it?