A critical analysis of decolonisation of postsecondary education in Canada

Jaffray, Jodi-Lyn (2025) A critical analysis of decolonisation of postsecondary education in Canada. Ed.D thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

In 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015b) released a report entitled Calls to Action. This report provided clear steps for Canada to follow to atone for the cultural genocide committed against Indigenous Peoples through the Indian Act (1876) and in particular the Residential School system. Several of the calls to action focus on the education system. Since the release of this report, indigenisation has become a focus of Canadian postsecondary education strategic plans. My dissertation sought to better understand what is meant by the term indigenisation, which political, economic, and structural forces are impacting indigenisation, and how indigenisation efforts are or are not meaningfully moving decolonisation forward in Canada. As a settler in Canada who spent my formative years living and going to school alongside Indigenous youth and then lived and raised my children in a remote Inuit community, my goal was to be able to illustrate what the ideal future could look like where indigenisation policies were effectively contributing to decolonisation.

Deconstructing the current state required an examination of past policy and discourse to understand the systemic factors competing with indigenisation. I first explored key theoretical constructs: poststructuralism, postmodernism, critical race theory, colonialism, postcolonialism, decolonisation, whiteness, neoliberalism, and social justice. After discussing my methodology and the postsecondary education system in Canada, I examined the Indian Act (1876), the results of Aboriginal Commissions in the 1990s, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (2015a, 2015b) work, and the impetus to embed indigenisation within public and postsecondary education. After describing the current system of postsecondary education in Canada and the political, economic, and structural drivers for indigenisation, I shared the results of my examination of college websites, as I sought to understand how ingrained the indigenisation efforts were.

The latter part of the dissertation focused on the meaning of indigenisation, what it looks like in its current state, and how it could look in an ideal future. Recognising the clash between neoliberalism and social justice movements, and the human need to categorise leading to “otherness,” I suggested that decolonising requires a disruption and dismantling of the current postsecondary education system.

This dissertation contributes to the discussion on how to dismantle colonial institutions such as postsecondary education. It explains the need to move beyond token actions, beyond inclusion practices, beyond hiring some Indigenous staff and professors to carry the workload of indigenising the academy. I argue that creating the third space that Bhabha (1994) referred to requires ceding power and rebuilding a new framework of governance. This requires reimagining and reconstructing the future of education for Canada in whichbinaries no longer exist and change happens at all levels. Then, and only then, can Canadians say that reconciliation has taken place and decolonisation is underway.

• Item Type: Thesis (Ed.D)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: F History United States, Canada, Latin America > F1001 Canada (General); L Education > LB Theory and practice of education; L Education > LC Special aspects of education
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Hedge, Professor Nicki and Daniels, Dr. Stephen
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85278
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 01 Jul 2025 13:28
• Last Modified: 01 Jul 2025 13:32
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85278
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85278