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.