Mobilizing Decolonized Nursing Education at Aurora College: Historical and Current Considerations

Abstract

Nursing education at Aurora College in the Northwest Territories, Canada has evolved from its beginnings as a diploma nursing program to today’s undergraduate degree program. The purpose of this report is to share the evolution of the program and the movement towards decolonized pedagogy and epistemology throughout its development. Since 51% of the territory’s population is Indigenous and the other 49% is diverse, traditional knowledge and different ways of knowing, along with cultural safety and competency, are important concepts for northern nursing. The concept-based curriculum lends itself to teaching and learning from a critical post-colonial perspective where students learn to critique and question colonial practices and dominant discourse. Focusing inquiry into colonial pedagogy of this nature will provide new insights and considerations of power and power relations within education. This report contributes to the topic of decolonizing nursing education at a time when there is little substantive effort in this direction. This report is part of a special collection from members of the University of the Arctic Thematic Network on Northern Nursing Education. The collection explores models of decentralized and distributed university-level nursing education across the Circumpolar North.