The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 97

First Nations and Higher Education

adapt to conventional institutional norms
and expectations and do not achieve levels of
"success" comparable to other students, the
typical response is to focus on the aberrant
students and to intensify efforts at socializing
them into the institutional milieu. The lackof-performance issues in such circumstances
tend to be deﬁned by the university in terms
such as "low achievement," "high attrition,"
"poor retention," "weak persistence," etc., thus
placing the onus for accommodation on the
students and fortifying the entrenched nature
of the university as an institution.
The institutional response, when faced
with these internally constructed and externally reinforced problems of inadequate achievement and retention, is usually to intensify the
pressure on First Nations students to adapt
and become integrated into the institution's
social fabric, with the ultimate goal that they
will be "retained" until they graduate. Typical

What First Nations people are
seeking is not a lesser education,
and not even an equal education,
but rather a better education - an
education that respects them for
who they are, that is relevant to
their view of the world, that offers
reciprocity in their relationships with
others, and that helps them exercise
responsibility over their own lives.

solutions that emanate from this "blame-thevictim" perspective are special counseling
and advising centers, "bridging" and "developmental" programs, tutorials, and an array
of additional student support services, all of
which are intended to help problem students
successfully partake of what the university has
to offer. To the extent that students are willing
and able to check their own cultural predispositions at the university's gate, these kinds of
initiatives can and do assist them in making
the transition to the culture of the institution,
but such intensiﬁcation efforts alone do not
appear to produce the desired results of full
and equal participation of First Nations people
in higher education. Even with the many wellintentioned support services that have been
proliferating for two decades in institutions
across Canada and the U.S., the overall "attrition" and "retention" rates of First Nations students remain near the bottom of all university
students in both countries. The statistics speak
for themselves:
* In Canada in 1986, only 1.3% of the
First Nations population had completed
a university degree, compared to 9.6%
of the general population. In other words,
non-Indians were 7.4 times more likely
to have successfully completed a degree
program than First Nations people
(Armstrong. Kennedy & Oberle, 1990).
* In the U.S. in 1984, less than 60%
of the American Indian students completed
high school, and approximately one-third
of these went on to college, but only 15%
of those who went on to college completed a
four-year degree, for an overall average
college graduation rate of 3%, compared to
16% for the general population (Tierney, 1991;
Fries, 1987).

V O L U M E 4 2 , NO. 2 * 2 0 1 6

97
The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2
