The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 101

First Nations and Higher Education

literate knowledge, the university has served us
well. But there are other kinds of knowledge
in the world and there are other ways of conveying knowledge than those embodied in the
"Ivory Tower."
One variation of another kind of knowledge is that which has typically been associated
with First Nations people, usually referred to
in terms such as traditional knowledge, oral
knowledge, indigenous knowledge, etc., depending on which literate tradition you draw
upon (Goody, 1982). While the manifestations can vary considerably from one group of
people to another, some of the salient features
of such knowledge are that its meaning, value
and use are bound to the cultural context in
which it is situated, it is thoroughly integrated
into everyday life, and it is generally acquired
through direct experience and participation in
real-world activities. If considered in its totality, such knowledge can be seen to constitute a
particular world view, a form of consciousness,
or a reality set.
In an examination of contemporary values
and lifestyle in the context of a northern Athabaskan community, Ron and Suzy Scollon
(1981) identiﬁed four aspects of what they
described as a "Native reality set" (patterns of
behavior and ways of thinking) which they felt
distinguished it from "modern consciousness"
(as articulated by Berger, 1973). Native people
who live in isolated northern communities,
in Scollons' view, tend to favor a lifestyle that
exhibits a high respect for individual selfreliance, non-intervention in other people's
affairs, the integration of useful knowledge
into a holistic and internally consistent world
view, and a disdain for complex organizational
structures. The Scollons go on to point out

that these aspects of local consciousness create
considerable interactional tension and conﬂict
when Native people encounter the componentiality, specialization, systematicity, bureaucracy and literate forms characteristic of Western
institutions and modern consciousness. The
holistic integration and internal consistency of
the Native world view is not easily reconciled
with the compartmentalized world of bureaucratic institutions.
For the First Nations student coming to the
university (an institution that is a virtual embodiment of modern consciousness), survival
often requires the acquisition and acceptance
of a new form of consciousness that not only
displaces, but often devalues their indigenous
consciousness, and for many, this is a greater
sacriﬁce than they are willing to make. If they
enter and then withdraw before "completion,"
however, they are branded by the university as
a "dropout"- a failure. Those who persevere
and make the sacriﬁce can ﬁnd themselves in
the end, torn between two worlds, leading to a
further struggle within themselves to reconcile
the cultural and psychic conﬂicts arising from
competing values and aspirations.
Some of the institutional implications of this
struggle for recognition of competing realities
were summarized by Scollon (1981) in a study
of communication patterns and Native student
retention at the University of Alaska Fairbanks:
The problem of retention in an institution of
higher education lies as much in the deﬁnition
of the problem as in any other factor. Previous
research has indicated that the problem of
communication between modern bureaucratic
institutions and members of non-Western
cultural groups can be understood to a
considerable extent as a problem in conﬂict
of world view or reality set. More recent
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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

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