scholarly journals Supporting First Nations and Métis Post-Secondary Students’ Academic Persistence: Insights from a Canadian First Nations-affiliated Institution

2021 ◽  
pp. 46-60
Author(s):  
Tania Kristoff ◽  
Michael Cottrell
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Academic Persistence ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Post Secondary Institution

Post-secondary institutions have a critical role to play in addressing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action through indigenization strategies (TRC, 2015) but, to date, it has proven challenging. In this study, the research lens was expanded to focus on First Nations-affiliated post-secondary institutions, since these come closest to providing authentic approaches to indigenization. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how social support affects the academic persistence of First Nations and Métis students at a First Nations-affiliated post-secondary institution. The findings revealed that administrative and pedagogical practices, consistent with Indigenous ontologies, enabled students to respond to challenges stemming from the generational effects of colonization, and promoted individual and familial advancement, cultural growth and identity formation, community development, and Indigenous sovereignty. It is concluded that mainstream institutions can benefit from the findings as First Nations-affiliated post-secondary institutions provide valuable understandings of potential transformations toward indigenization.

Missiological implications for Taylor Seminary arising from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-413
Author(s):  
Allan Effa
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Cooperative Effort ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Cultural Genocide ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
Set Up

In 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada concluded a six-year process of listening to the stories of Canada’s First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. More than 6000 witnesses came forth to share their personal experiences in listening sessions set up all across the country. These stories primarily revolved around their experience of abuse and cultural genocide through more than 100 years of Residential Schools, which were operated in a cooperative effort between churches and the government of Canada. The Commission’s Final Report includes 94 calls to action with paragraph #60 directed specifically to seminaries. This paper is a case study of how Taylor Seminary, in Edmonton, is seeking to engage with this directive. It explores the changes made in the curriculum, particularly in the teaching of missiology, and highlights some of the ways the seminary community is learning about aboriginal spirituality and the history and legacy of the missionary methods that have created conflict and pain in Canadian society.

scholarly journals Our Shared Future: Windows into Canada’s Reconciliation Journey — A Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 178-182
Author(s):  
Peter D Shipley
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Recovery Process ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Road Map ◽  
To Come ◽  
New Recruits

The challenges and complexity of the reconciliation process are still not well understood by a large number of non-Indigenous people in Canada. As a nation, we are attempting to grasp the intricacy of how to unravel and atone for the damage that has been done in establishing and managing the more than 130 residential schools in Canada. This not only impacted more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children but destroyed generations of families that are still and will continue to be impacted for years to come. The official apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper on June 11, 2008, to all Indigenous people in Canada for the atrocities of the Indian Residential Schools was the start of a very long and painful continuous journey. The 94 calls to action released in 2015 by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission provide a road map to a complex recovery process for Indigenous people across the country. In January 2018, Health Canada held a national panel discussion with Indigenous leaders and experts on the question “Reconciliation—What Does it Mean?” One of the main themes of reconciliation revolves around education, and, in order to stay focused, we must continue to educate Canadians, including police leaders and new recruits, as we move through the meandering path of econciliation. The book Our Shared Future provides an outstanding in-depth look through the windows into a number of individual perspectives on the reconciliation journey.

scholarly journals Risk and protective factors for anxiety impacting academic performance in post-secondary students

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Konrad T. Lisnyj ◽  
Regan Russell ◽  
Andrew Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Protective Factors ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Protective Factor ◽  
Risk And Protective Factors ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Post Secondary Institution ◽  
Significant Factors

This survey study measured the association between risk and protective factors of anxiety and its implications on the academic performance of 1,053 students at a four-year, public post-secondary institution in southwestern Ontario. Logistic regression analyses revealed 13 significant variables at the univariable level, while the multivariable model yielded seven significant factors. Students who felt hopeless significantly increased their odds of reporting anxiety adversely affecting their academic performance, while being able to manage daily responsibilities was the only protective factor against anxiety impacting students’ educational attainment. By planning, designing, and implementing proactive programs focusing on thesepredictor variables, such interventions can equip students against the debilitative influence of anxiety on their academic success.

scholarly journals Jordan’s Principle: Reconciliation and the First Nations Child

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Colleen Sheppard
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Nations Child ◽  
The Individual

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was mandated to “document the individual and collective harms” of residential schools and to “guide and inspire a process of truth and healing, leading toward reconciliation.”  The stories of survivors revealed the intergenerational and egregious harms of taking children from their families and communities. In seeking to redress the legacy of the residential schools era, the TRC Calls to Action include greater recognition of self-governance of Indigenous Peoples, as well as numerous recommendations for equitable funding of health, educational, and child welfare services.

scholarly journals The Inuit presence at the first Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission national event

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Pierre Gadoua
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
School System ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Residential School ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Residential Schooling

This paper addresses various forms of healing and reconciliation among Canadian Inuit and First Nations, in regards to the Indian residential school system and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Stemming from fieldwork at the TRC’s first national event in Winnipeg (June 2010), I present observations that are supplemented by previous studies on Aboriginal healing methods in Canada. Although Inuit and First Nations healing and reconciliation strategies are based on common themes—tradition and community—in practice they diverge notably, both in their principles and in their applications. First Nations seek healing by activating a sense of community that often transcends their specific cultural group or nation, using pan-Indian spiritual traditions and ceremonies. In contrast, the Inuit most commonly seek to preserve and promote specific Inuit traditions and identity as tools in their healing practices. This divergence could be seen in Inuit and First Nations’ participation in the TRC. The creation of the Inuit sub-commission within the TRC in March 2010, resulting from intense lobbying by Inuit leaders, was a first sign of the group’s distinctive approach to healing. But the unfolding of the TRC’s first national event in Winnipeg showed again how these differences materialise in practice and contribute to a better understanding of Inuit responses to the repercussions of their colonial past and strategies for healing from the legacy of residential schooling.

scholarly journals Hyper-compressions: The rise of flash fiction in “post-transitional” South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Blair
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Flash Fiction ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Historical Significance

This article begins with a survey of flash fiction in “post-transitional” South Africa, which it relates to the nation’s post-apartheid canon of short stories and short-short stories, to the international rise of flash fiction and “sudden fiction”, and to the historical particularities of South Africa’s “post-transition”. It then undertakes close readings of three flash fictions republished in the article, each less than 450 words: Tony Eprile’s “The Interpreter for the Tribunal” (2007), which evokes the psychological and ethical complexities, and long-term ramifications, of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Michael Cawood Green’s “Music for a New Society” (2008), a carjacking story that invokes discourses about violent crime and the “‘new’ South Africa”; and Stacy Hardy’s “Kisula” (2015), which maps the psychogeography of cross-racial sex and transnational identity-formation in an evolving urban environment. The article argues that these exemplary flashes are “hyper-compressions”, in that they compress and develop complex themes with a long literary history and a wide contemporary currency. It therefore contends that flash fiction of South Africa’s post-transition should be recognized as having literary–historical significance, not just as an inherently metonymic form that reflects, and alludes to, a broader literary culture, but as a genre in its own right.

Media Practices and Painful Pasts: The Public Testimonial in Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission

2013 ◽  
Vol 149 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda J. Brady
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
The Public ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
Aboriginal Children ◽  
Media Practices

From the 1870s through the 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were enrolled in government-funded, church-run Indian Residential Schools (IRS) in Canada. The schools reflected policies aimed at assimilating Aboriginal peoples into majority culture. Many Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes and suffered physical, sexual and psychological abuses. As part of its Mandate, Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) collects testimonials from residential school survivors in various mediated forms to create a historical record. This article explores the TRC's public statement-gathering process and the ways in which media practices shape and guide testimonials. It argues that the TRC encourages particular survivor narratives as it signals to speakers that they should anticipate the norms and uses of media and narrative guidelines. However, there is a layer of meta-narrative common in TRC statements, suggesting resistance to and subversion of the process. This article considers the nuances of First Nations testimonials against the backdrop of storytelling traditions.

scholarly journals Sustaining Cultural Genocide—A Look at Indigenous Children in Non-Indigenous Placement and the Place of Judicial Decision Making—A Canadian Example

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Peter Choate ◽  
Roy Bear Chief ◽  
Desi Lindstrom ◽  
Brandy CrazyBull
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Raising Children ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Cultural Genocide ◽  
The Sixties

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called upon Canada to engage in a process of reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of Canada. Child Welfare is a specific focus of their Calls to Action. In this article, we look at the methods in which discontinuing colonization means challenging legal precedents as well as the types of evidence presented. A prime example is the ongoing deference to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Racine v Woods which imposes Euro-centric understandings of attachment theory, which is further entrenched through the neurobiological view of raising children. There are competing forces observed in the Ontario decision on the Sixties Scoop, Brown v Canada, which has detailed the harm inflicted when colonial focused assimilation is at the heart of child welfare practice. The carillon of change is also heard in a series of decisions from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in response to complaints from the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations regarding systemic bias in child welfare services for First Nations children living on reserves. Canadian federal legislation Bill C-92, “An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families”, brings in other possible avenues of change. We offer thoughts on manners decolonization might be approached while emphasizing that there is no pan-Indigenous solution. This article has implications for other former colonial countries and their child protection systems.

scholarly journals Evaluation of the Aboriginal Relationship and Cultural Competency Courses among a sample of Indigenous Services Canada nurses

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Rand ◽  
Amanda J. Sheppard ◽  
Sehar Jamal ◽  
Alethea Kewayosh ◽  
Angela Mashford-Pringle
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Cultural Competency ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Cultural Safety ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Online Module ◽  
Competency Training ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Focus Group Data

In 2015, Cancer Care Ontario launched the Aboriginal Relationship and Cultural Competency (ARCC) courses, which stress the importance for healthcare professionals to understand and apply First Nations, Inuit, and Métis (FNIM) cultural safety to provide effective person-centred care. The courses address a key recommendation from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report, to provide skills-based training in cultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights and anti-racism. The objective of the evaluation is to validate the tool to assess: if the delivery mechanism is appropriate and feasible; if participants acquire an increased knowledge of the courses' contents; and if positive change in how healthcare practice is delivered is perceived to have resulted. After the ARCC courses were mandated for Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) nurses, an anonymous survey was delivered and a focus group was conducted at a regional meeting. The responses from the surveys were gathered in an excel spreadsheet for analyses and the focus group data were analyzed for key themes. All the nurses in attendance completed the survey (n=22) and a portion participated in the focus group (n=8). Our evaluation demonstrated that free, online, module formatted courses were appropriate and relevant for ISC nurses (81%); the courses increased the knowledge about FNIM people (72%); and the nurses have/will apply what they learned in their practice (82%). There has been an increasing movement for regions and organizations in Canada to complete cultural competency training. Our evaluation demonstrated that free, online, module formatted courses were successful at meeting learning objectives.

scholarly journals Where are you From? Reframing Facilitated Admissions Policies in the Faculty of Health Sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle N. Soucy ◽  
Cornelia Wieman
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Medical School Admissions ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Blood Quantum ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Admissions Policies ◽  
Specific Barriers ◽  
Indigenous Learners

Understanding that Indigenous learners can face specific barriers or challenges when pursuing higher education, schools and programs within McMaster’s Faculty of Health Sciences have facilitated admissions streams for Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) applicants. The intent of reframing admissions policies is to provide equitable access while aligning with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, specifically Number 23. This work explores the development of an Indigenous-determined Facilitated Indigenous Admissions Program (FIAP), a self-identification policy that moves away from the politics of mathematical blood quantum to nationhood, community, and seeing the applicant as whole being. Further, it critiques (for example) medical school admissions as biased, in that they often replicate an elite and narrow segment of society. It also addresses how interpretations of decisions like Daniels v Canada, which speaks to the rights of Métis and non-status Indigenous peoples, are communicated or miscommunicated within emerging population groups in terms of rights and their potential relationship to admissions.

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