“Now I'm a Mandow”: Cree students adaptation to studying in the south

The rate of secondary school success in Chisasibi is low. In the 2000–2001 school year, only six students out of approximately sixty¹ graduated from the Chisasibi high school (excluding mature student graduation). The previous school years have yielded similar amounts of high-school graduates. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) reported in 1996 that only fifteen percent of Chisasibi residents have a high-school diploma (see Table 10 on page 69). Despite this low number of high-school graduates every year, one would assume that those who graduate high-school in Chisasibi and decide to study in southern post-secondary institutions would be well adjusted and succeed at the post-secondary level. This is not the case for Chisasibi students and Cree students in general. Many Cree students registered in post-secondary institutions have difficulty completing their post-secondary studies. This also seems to be a trend across most Native communities in Canada (see Figures A4–A9 in Appendix).

This thesis attempts to answer the following question: “Why do so few Cree students stay the amount of time necessary or pass the required amount of courses to graduate from the post-secondary programs in which they are enrolled?”

¹Approximately sixty students were of graduation age. The exact number of people of Grade 12 age is not available. The method I used to determine this number was by looking at the population chart (Table A2, p. 97) and dividing the number given by 5. 295 people were aged between 14 and 19. Thus, approximately 60 were of graduation age.