And Still They Persisted: A Discussion of Indigenous Students Perspectives on a Year in Pre-Nursing Transitions

Abstract

Access and Transitions Programing has been a focus in Canadian Educational reform for over fifty years. Though made smaller through transitions and access supports, the gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous students’ attainment in higher education, remains large. One has to ask why? Evaluation of said programs in current literature is dominated with Eurocentric approaches and bias based in institutional needs such as retention, attrition and graduation rates. However, the statistics do not tell a complete story about how Indigenous students are navigating post-secondary experiences. Through the lens of the Medicine Wheel the experiences of four women participating in a Pre-Nursing Transitions Program (PNT) at a western Canadian University will be discussed. The results of this case study which was conducted during the 2013-14 academic year identify clashes between the Eurocentric paradigm of the University and students’ values. At face value, conflicts centered around prioritisation of family, types of knowledge valued and the way information was presented. However, these conflicts speak to larger issues around the construction and intention of transitions programming and this article aims respond with a word of caution for post secondary institutions however well intentioned aiming to respond to the 2015 Truth and reconciliation call for indigenization of the academy.