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The history of Indigenous participation in Canadian higher education has been marked by colonization and assimilation policies that have hindered access and success. Directly addressing challenges and barriers faced by Indigenous students in Canadian higher education, Dr. Michelle Pidgeon emphasizes that systemic supports are essential for them to successfully navigate their educational pathways. Her chapter 鈥淪upporting Indigenous Student Persistence: Empowering Student鈥檚 Cultural Integrity While Transforming Higher Education鈥� (in Research Handbook on the Student Experience in Higher Education, 2023) profiles how Indigenous students in post-secondary institutions continue to experience financial challenges; inadequate childcare, housing, and other support services; and anti-Indigenous racism, often in the form of microaggressions.

For Dr. Pigeon, cultural integrity鈥攁 positive act of calling on and understanding a student鈥檚 cultural background鈥攊s vital for supporting Indigenous students鈥� persistence and success. To that end, she proposes the Indigenous Wholistic Framework for 鈥渂alancing emotional, cultural, physical, and intellectual needs as an individual but also as a member of their families and communities.鈥� This framework also integrates an understanding of success as non-linear with attention to Verna J. Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt鈥檚 four Rs鈥攔espect, responsibility, relevance, and reciprocity鈥攁s central Indigenous principles to shape higher education for 鈥渢he next seven generations.鈥�

At the same time, the challenges of integrating Indigenous teachings raise questions about whether postsecondary institutions can effectively address the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada鈥檚 (TRC) calls to action for reconciliation in education. In 鈥淐ontemporary Colonialism and Reconciliation in Higher Education鈥� (Troubling Truth and Reconciliation in Canadian Education, 2022), Drs. Jeannie Kerr and Amy Parent attempt 鈥渢o trouble the context of higher education in Canada as a colonial structure that takes up the words of reconciliation in the lineage of the TRC while simultaneously maintaining colonial logics and violences.鈥�

Dr. Parent, , has also been appointed for Indigenous Knowledge Research Governance and Rematriation, seeking to advance Indigenous rights, knowledge systems, and self-determination. Identifying colonialism as a 鈥減ersistent structural phenomenon鈥� and modernity as intertwined with the violence of coloniality, Drs. Kerr and Parent draw from their teaching experience and educational work, proposing pedagogies toward decolonizing higher education and connecting teaching and learning with ethical relationality and the whole human being. These pedagogies include commitments to storying with place-based relational autobiographies and co-teaching models that acknowledge and support the emotional burden of teaching 鈥渄ifficult knowledges.鈥� They also stress the importance of a four Rs-informed code of conduct for centring ethical relationality, truth-telling, and Indigenous sovereignty in higher education.

Incorporating holism, interrelatedness, and synergy鈥攖hree of the seven Indigenous Storywork (ISW) principles of鈥痳espect, responsibility, reciprocity, reverence, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy鈥擠rs.鈥�Jo Ann鈥疉rchibald,鈥疩鈥檜m鈥疩鈥檜m鈥疿iiem, and 厂补谤补鈥疐濒辞谤别苍肠别鈥疍补惫颈诲蝉辞苍 show how 鈥渂ringing the concept of story together with work鈥� can guide pedagogical and research practice for both Indigenous and settler scholars. In their chapter 鈥淪haping Research Preparation and Design Through Indigenous Storywork鈥� (in Indigenous Research Design: Transnational Perspectives in Practice,鈥�2023), they share personal stories and reflections that illuminate how the full set of seven principles constitutes an ISW framework and how Elders鈥� teachings remain central to becoming 鈥渟torywork ready.鈥� Dr. Davidson shows how a productive dialogue between the two can emerge by drawing on the Indigenous Storywork Principles in her collaboration with her father to create the Sk鈥檃d鈥檃 (Haida learning) principles, illustrating how related Indigenous frameworks can inform and enrich one another while maintaining their conceptual integrity.

Citing uses of Storywork internationally and by non-Indigenous teachers, the authors demonstrate the versatility and relevance of the principles across different cultures and disciplines. Drs. Armstrong and Davidson also stress that the teachings of Indigenous Elders 鈥渨ho have strong cultural knowledge and who practice good ways are core to forming and sustaining respectful, responsible, reverential, and reciprocal research understandings and actions for becoming storywork ready.鈥�

Ancestral teachings also open possibilities for a participatory and transformative pedagogy attuned to place. Dr. Vicky Kelly, an Anishinaabe scholar/artist/educator, calls for a deep engagement with and centring of Indigeneity, which can transform modes of living and relationships. Her chapter 鈥淩esonance as an Act of Attunement Through Sensing, Being, and Belonging: Returning to the Teachings鈥� (in Relational and Critical Perspectives on Education for Sustainable Development, 2022) is an 鈥淚ndigenous M茅tissage鈥� that traces the pedagogical pathways traced by Anishinaabe Traditional Sacred Stories and Teachings with 鈥渟trands of personal narrative. . .as expressed through life-writing and visual art.鈥�

Acknowledging these stories and teachings as the work of 鈥渢he People of the Seventh Fire,鈥� Dr. Kelly expresses hope that the Ancestors can guide the development of curricula that honour all relations, leading to a more holistic understanding of knowledge and what it means to live on this earth.

A community learning project about a once-vital wetland, the 辩虚铆肠虚蓹测虚 Slough, opens Indigenous perspectives as a way toward understanding and remediation. 鈥淒isrupting Colonial Narratives of Place: The 辩虚铆肠虚蓹测虚 Slough Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Project鈥� (2024) received the 2025 R. W. B. Jackson Award for the best English language article in the Canadian Journal of Education for 2024. Here, Dr. Cher Hill and two co-authors from the 辩虚铆肠虚蓹测虚 and 尘谩迟丑虫飞颈 First Nations encourage 鈥渘ew relationships with place and with one another鈥� while providing insights into how engaging with Indigenous histories and local landscapes can disrupt colonial narratives and foster new relationships. Guided by Indigenous and post-human worldviews, elementary students learned from Elders and environmentalists about caring for the Slough, now polluted by the impact of colonialism.

More broadly, this project shows how key interrelated concepts鈥攖ime, inter/intra-connectedness, agency, and knowing鈥攁re critical for creating new relationships with place. 鈥淲e hope,鈥� the authors conclude, 鈥渢hat our stories inspire you to ... attend to the ways in which waterways have been colonized and to learn the stories of these places鈥攜esterday, today, and tomorrow.鈥�

Dr. Cher Hill, with co-authors including Dr. Vicki Kelly and FoE scholars Dr. Paula Rosehart and Kau'i Keliipio, also propose how Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing鈥攊ncluding storying鈥攃an 鈥渋nform and transform鈥� self-study as a research methodology. 鈥溾�楽elf鈥� in Self-Study: Alongside Stories as Indigenously Understood Inquiry鈥� (2024) explores multiple collaborative methods that foreground Indigenous practices of storytelling, witnessing, and 鈥渃ritical鈥� friendship. Among other insights, they also address the importance of developing ethical, caring relationships with others, the land, and the more-than-human and how Two-Eyed Seeing and intimate scholarship can bridge Indigenous and Western knowledge systems. Further, interweaving stories and personal experiences with theories and learnings opens ways to 鈥渂roaden and unbind鈥� self-study from its Western roots.

These authors invite us to move from understanding the self as a research object to re-visioning the self 鈥渋n relation and as relation, intersubjectively, with place, pedagogy, and people.鈥� By reframing self-study research through Indigenous perspectives, this inquiry emphasizes how relationality and interconnectedness can foster transformative learning.

References:

Archibald, J., & Davidson, S. F. (2023). Shaping research preparation and design through Indigenous Storywork. In E. S. Huaman & N. D. Martin (Eds.), Indigenous research design: Conscientization, decoloniality, and methodological possibility (pp. 41鈥�57). Canadian Scholars Press.

Hill, C., Bailey, R., & McKay, C. (2024). Disrupting colonial narratives of place: The 辩虚铆肠虚蓹测虚 Slough yesterday, today, and tomorrow project. Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l'茅ducation, 47(4), 1057鈥�1089.

Hill, C., Sivia, A., Kelly, V., Rosehart, P., & Keliipio, K. (2024). 鈥淪elf鈥� in self-study: Alongside stories as Indigenously understood inquiry. in education, 29(3).

Kelly, V. (2022). Resonance as an act of attunement through sensing, being, and belonging: Returning to the Teachings. In M. H盲ggstr枚m & C. Schmidt (Eds.), Relational and critical perspectives on education for sustainable development. Springer.

Kerr, J., & Parent, A. (2022). Contemporary colonialism and reconciliation in higher education. In A. Kempf & S. D. Styres (Eds.), Troubling truth and reconciliation in Canadian education, (pp. 308鈥� 329). University of Alberta Press.

Pidgeon, M. (2023). In C. Baik & E. R. Kahu (Eds.), Research handbook on the student experience in higher education (pp. 360鈥�376). Edward Elgar Publishing.