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Colonized Classrooms, 2nd Edition

Colonized Classrooms, 2nd Edition

Racism, Trauma, and Resistance in Post-secondary Education

by Sheila Cote-Meek foreword by Jacqueline Ottmann

This powerful analysis of reconciliation in higher education exposes the limits of progress and calls institutions toward accountable and transformative change.

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About the book

In the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Sheila Cote-Meek examines how post-secondary institutions have responded to demands for reconciliation, Indigenization, and systemic change. Drawing on the voices of Indigenous students and professors, the second edition explores both the progress that has been made since the TRC and the enduring challenges that continue to shape Indigenous experiences in higher education. Important institutional post-TRC shifts include curricular and pedagogical changes, increased Indigenous faculty and staff and Indigenous spaces on campuses, expanded student supports, and heightened awareness of Indigenous histories and contemporary realities. At the same time, Indigenous students and professors continue to navigate racism, tokenism, and the burden of representation within institutions that remain grounded in colonial structures. Performative responses to reconciliation can reinforce, rather than dismantle, systemic inequities, while placing disproportionate labour on Indigenous faculty.

Grounded in lived experience and rigorous scholarship, the second edition of Colonized Classrooms offers a powerful analysis of the tensions and possibilities facing post-secondary education today. Cote-Meek challenges institutions to move beyond symbolic gestures and toward genuine, accountable, and transformative change.

Education Indigenous Resistance & Decolonization

What people are saying

Jesse Staats, Six Nations (Mohawk), PhD candidate, University of Toronto
“A timely renewal of an enduring work. Dr. Sheila Cote-Meek continues to make Indigenous academics and students feel seen in a post-TRC era where they face institutional performativity and threats to Indigeneity head-on. Colonized Classrooms is a must-read for addressing these challenges and guiding the path forward.”

Stephanie J. Waterman, Onondaga, Turtle Clan, Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
“In Colonized Classrooms, Sheila Cote-Meek shares the experiences of recent Indigenous students and Indigenous professors in higher education who are earning educations while experiencing the racism and colonial violence in their lives and in the classroom. While I was not a participant in her research, I can relate to all her findings. I teach Indigenous student perspectives in higher education at the graduate level and have assigned her book since 2019. I highly recommend her work. It is an essential resource regarding Indigenous experiences in higher education.

Carolyn Roberts, Speaker, Author and Faculty Lecturer at UBC Teacher Education
Sheila Cote- Meek’s second edition of Colonized Classrooms is essential reading for anyone teaching or working within higher education today. It offers not only a critical understanding of how colonialism operates in educational spaces but also is a call to action! A call for ethical spaces, a more just educational experience, and pathways to genuinely step into the work of decolonizing learning environments.”

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Authors

Sheila Cote-Meek

Sheila Cote-Meek is Anishinaabe from the Teme-Augama Anishnabai. She is a professor and interim vice-provost, Indigenous Engagement at Brock University. She was the inaugural vice-president of Equity, People and Culture at York University, where she led the development of the Decolonizing, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (DEDI) strategy and York’s Black Inclusion Strategy. She was the inaugural associate-vice-president of Indigenous and Academic Programs at Laurentian University, where she developed and led the Indigenous Sharing and Learning Centre, the Maamwazing Indigenous Research Institute and the Master of Indigenous Relations. Dr. Cote-Meek co-edited Decolonizing and Indigenizing Education in Canada (2020); Critical Reflections and Politics on Advancing Women in the Academy (2020); and Perspectives on Indigenous Pedagogy in Education: Learning from One Another (2023). She is well-known nationally for her work in advancing Indigeneity, equity and inclusion in higher education.

Jacqueline Ottmann

Jacqueline Ottmann is Anishinaabe (Saulteaux) from Fishing Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan. She was an elementary teacher and high school teacher and principal. In her post-secondary career, Jacqueline was the Coordinator of the First Nations, Métis, Inuit undergraduate teacher education program, Director of Indigenous Education Initiatives, and Provost, Indigenous Strategy at the University of Calgary. As well, at the University of Saskatchewan, she was Professor and Vice-Provost Indigenous Engagement before being appointed President of the First Nations University. Jacqueline is also the first Indigenous person to become President of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education. She has been recognized as an international researcher, advocate, and change-maker whose purpose is to transform practices inclusive of Indigenous leadership, methodologies, and pedagogies.