Elaine’s mentorship, community building, and advocacy

MA research: Echoes of Poverty

“Don’t walk through the world looking for evidence that you don’t belong because you’ll always find it. Don’t walk through the world looking for evidence that you’re not enough, because you’ll always find it. Our worth and our belonging are not negotiated with other people. We carry those inside of our hearts. And so for me, I know who I am; I’m clear about that. And I’m not going to negotiate that with you. I will negotiate a contract with you. I will negotiate maybe even a topic with you. But I’m not going to negotiate who I am with you. Because then, and I think this is the heart of the book, then I may fit in for you, but I no longer belong to myself. And that is a betrayal I’m not willing to do anymore. I spent the first 30 years of my life doing that. I’m not willing to betray myself anymore. To fit in with you. I just can’t do it.”

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1824087924272975

From: bréne brown –Talking “Braving the Wilderness”

You are not alone. I come from generational poverty. Being in school (early educational landscapes, college, and especially university) has never been easy. This is why I am so dedicated to supporting students whose lives are shaped by persistent poverty as they compose lives on the higher education landscape.

Elaine laberge elaberge@uvic.ca

Here are the findings from my master’s research. You may find stories that speak to or diverge from your own experiences. I do not make generalizations. Our lives are all shaped by the intersection of multiple social characteristics and sites of oppression. You will also notice that I refrain from engaging in identity politics; social class is at the centre of all I do.

Anytime you can reach out to me: elaberge@uvic.ca or via my personal Facebook page: Elaine Laberge: https://www.facebook.com/elaine.laberge.92

Chapter six: Seeking, wondering, dreaming

Discovering Resonant Threads

Clandinin (2013) notes that with narrative inquiry, we move through several “level[s]” of analysis (p. 132). First, I co-composed research texts from field texts (data). That is, narrative accounts are “a representation of the unfolding lives of both participants and… [the researcher], at least as they became visible in those times and places where our stories intersected and were shared” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 132). These “drafted narrative accounts” were negotiated with participants, a process unique to each research-participant relationship (Clandinin, 2013, p. 132). Second, after reading across all three “narrative accounts to inquire into [discernable] resonant threads or patterns” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 132), I was able to identify areas that echo across the participants’ undergraduate experiences. Although only I had direct contact with participants, I agree with Clandinin (2013) that others “engaged in this process as a collaborative research team… with an overall intention to open up new wonders and questions” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 132) as to how systemic childhood poverty shapes undergraduate students’ experiences.[1] This process entailed metaphorically bringing the three narrative accounts alongside one another, searching for “what we, as a team, saw as resonances or echoes that reverberated across accounts” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 132). Throughout, I remained attentive to each participant’s whole life in the making. Clandinin (2013) explains that in “looking across the narrative accounts co-composed between researcher and participant… [we] hold onto storied lives and not … reduce them to themes or categories” (Clandinin, 2013, p. 137). Third, two main narrative threads are foregrounded for discussion in this chapter: belief in and poverty is not a box, which show aspects of each participant’s life making in relation to larger social, cultural, familial, and institutional narratives.

Within each narrative thread, there are sub-threads. Each sub-thread is not necessarily demonstrated within the lived experiences of all participants; I did not search for ways to force lived experiences to fit neatly into each of these sub-threads. The narrative threads and sub-threads are not an exhaustive portrayal of the participants’ lived experiences and unique biographies. Nor, are all private stories being made public; there are many silent stories that participants are still discovering or chose not to make visible (Neumann, 1997).

Starting in and Staying with Experience

A distinguishing feature of Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) narrative inquiry methodology is “the place of theory … differs from the place of theory in formalistic inquiries” (p. 128). They write “that formalists begin inquiry in theory, whereas narrative inquirers tend to begin with experience as lived and told in stories” (p. 28). Hence, “for narrative inquiry, it is more productive to begin with explorations of the phenomena of experience rather than in comparative analysis of various theoretical methodological frameworks” (p. 128). As a result of this methodological philosophy, I did not ground this inquiry in what would normally be expected with this topic: Bourdieu’s (1999) forms of capital theory (i.e., social, cultural, symbolic, economic). My starting place was—and, remained, with lived experiences (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).

Nonetheless, the work of poverty-class scholars such as Adair (2003, 2001) deeply informed this research. Adair’s theory that systemic childhood poverty shapes an entire life is a cornerstone to the premise of this thesis. As Adair (2003) writes, our identities and lived experiences of systemic childhood poverty “cannot be forgotten or erased” (p. 30). Sayer (2005) advocates for “greater consideration of the experience of class, and the concerns that people have regarding their class position and how others view them” (p. 947; italics added). Like Young (2005), who brings forth her intergenerational narrative reverberations theory (in relation to Canadian residential schools), Sayer (2005), too, asks us to consider that “the lottery of the market of birth and the intergenerational transmission of capitals [that] can produce (and have widely produced) class inequalities even in the absence of these forms of discrimination” (p. 948).

As a first-year, narrative inquiry apprentice, this paradigm shift held many tensions. It has been engrained in me to start with theory—a canonized theory—and look for proof to support this existing theory. A narrative inquiry paradigmatic shift allowed for the potential to discover—and be curious about—emerging wonders as I came alongside participants. Research conversations, using the narrative inquiry method, allowed for engaging in a long-term, in-depth exploration of the many layers of how childhood poverty shapes undergraduate students’ experiences. I remained grounded in, and, as Clandinin and Connelly (2000) write, “focused on trying to understand … experiences narratively, which meant thinking about their experiences in terms of the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space; that is, along temporal dimensions, personal-social dimensions, and within place” (pp. 128-129).

Coming to a Theoretical Framework: Belief in and Poverty is not a Box

Across the narrative accounts, I saw that moving backwards and forwards across time, social relations, and place (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) was integral to understanding how belief in and poverty is not a box shaped margaret rose’s, Mildred’s and Sarah’s undergraduate experiences. Lessard (2017) drew attention to ways that belief in a student, from those in positions of authority, community, and family, shape experiences: “belief is a game changer: if we can’t imagine otherwise, it’s difficult to see possibilities beyond our world that we inhabit” (S. Lessard, personal communication, February 4, 2017). Lessard draws on Greene (1995) who writes: “To call for imaginative capacity is to work for the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise … each person’s reality must be understood to be interpreted experience—and that the mode of interpretation depends on [their] situation and location in the world” (p. 19). Greene draws me to Elbow’s (2008) believing game theory to unpack these narrative threads: [2] Elbow (2008)¹ also speaks to seeing things as they could be otherwise and shifting understandings based on situated experiences (see note 1 for an detailed explanation of Elbow’s (2008) theory).

Elbow’s (2008) conceptualization of the believing game and doubting game serves as the theoretical framework for exploring these resonant threads. Rather than layering Elbow’s theory onto the participants’ experiences, bringing his ideas alongside the two resonant threads supports demonstrating the complex life that each participant is composing on the higher education landscape. I see Elbow’s (2008) believing game and doubting game theory as a way to move from the centre to the margins to understand how systemic childhood poverty shapes undergraduate students’ experiences.

Philosophical entanglements: Unravelling Elbow’s theory. The following discussion, situated in relation to Elbow’s philosophy, draws on the theory that we can begin to see belief in as Lessard’s game changer—if, we get close to lived experiences as a primary source of knowledge (Adair 2003; Brown & Strega, 2005, Greene, 1995; Hill Collins, 1998; hooks, 2000). Further, the following discussion will make visible dominant higher education assumptions (narratives) of what constitutes the mythical “top student” and how this may marginalize poverty-class students.

Philosophical entanglements: Unravelling Elbow’s theory.

The following discussion, situated in relation to Elbow’s philosophy, draws on the theory that we can begin to see belief in as Lessard’s game changer—if, we get close to lived experiences as a primary source of knowledge (Adair 2003; Brown & Strega, 2005, Greene, 1995; Hill Collins, 1998; hooks, 2000). Further, the following discussion will make visible dominant higher education assumptions (narratives) of what constitutes the mythical “top student” and how this may marginalize poverty-class students.

Although I present belief in and poverty is not a box resonant threads, there is not an equal balance in the discussion. This is not due to a lack of lived experiences to demonstrate these threads; rather, belief in and poverty is not a box provide a way forward in considering how higher education must shift their inclusivity efforts. Juxtaposing belief in and poverty is not a box makes visible the importance of practicing Elbow’s believing game to create sustainable “widening access” to higher education and EDI initiatives. The doubting game makes visible the damage that can be inflicted upon poverty-class students’ lives in the making—and, how it does not advance knowledge and understanding, nor interrupt dominant institutional, cultural, familial, educational, and institutional narratives. Further, placing the believing game and doubting game in relation to each other sheds light on how privilege continues to be perpetuated in higher education (Adair, 2003; Brady et al., 2016). Finally, some lived experiences are experienced across the threads; a lived experience, for example, may show both belief in and poverty is not a box.

“Belief in” Threads

Beginning in ways forward. Belief in was experienced directly and vicariously across the participants’ diverse lives—and, across time, place, and social relations (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The participants brought this thread forward; they made visible how belief in is a game changer. The following discussion is not exhaustive of all participants’ belief in experiences. Rather, what follows are threads that resonate in profound ways: support for building communities, it only takes one teacher, brownies and graduation dresses, unsettling the normalized academic trajectory, dreaming in a safe space, and belief in self.

Support for building communities. Caine (2010) writes, “Traveling to and within unfamiliar landscapes” can be daunting (p. 1304). Entering onto an unfamiliar university landscape, without guidance or a map, can leave the poverty-class student traveller disoriented and lost. Support for building communities was crucial for margaret rose. She “jumped through all the hoops just to even be within this space”; however, without Clover, margaret rose may have left before she began.

Clover, margaret rose’s academic advisor from the college-sized university where she was completing her academic upgrading, practised belief in by bringing margaret rose to the university. Clover took her directly to the Aboriginal Student Services Centre and introduced her to Sage, the Aboriginal Students Services coordinator. margaret rose found out about the transitional year program (TYP). Through the support of these two individuals, from the first day of her transitioning into university, belief in played a critical role in margaret rose becoming part of a supportive—and, responsive—community. margaret rose, in turn, contributes to building and sustaining this community. For example, she reaches out to Indigenous youth who are considering attending higher education.

Sage brings in Indigenous university alumni to practice belief in: “Hey, you can do it!” You can do it on a landscape that was not, as margaret rose says, “historically … meant for ‘Indians’ or even women.” The power of belief in is articulated by Sage’s understanding that many Indigenous students arrive without an understanding of how to navigate the landscape: policies, procedures, the hoops—and, the space itself. Clover and Sage practiced belief in by storying margaret rose as a student with unlimited potential. Sage practiced belief in when she brought Indigenous alumni in to talk to students; she practiced belief in margaret rose when she took her to Indigenous events on campus. These belief in practices are, as margaret rose says, “Why I’m still here today.” margaret rose shares that she knows other Indigenous students, who did not have the same belief in experiences, “are not here today. Because—community within a community is so integral to survive this institution.”

margaret rose captures why community on the higher education landscape is Lessard’s (2017) game changer:

That moment when you’re not alone

That silence

Broken

margaret rose

As I think about Sarah’s experience with the very public “privilege walk,” I draw on Elbow’s (2008) “rhetoric of experience” in relation to belief in (p. 8). I ask Sarah what difference having community on campus makes: “It’s huge!” she says. There is solidary in the Indigenous community to which she belongs. This solidarity is driven home because, as Sarah says of the privilege walk, “We [Natives] all took steps back for the most part.” The Native students could not take any more steps back; their backs were pushed up against the wall. Students in front could not see their fellow students who stood behind them. Belief in was experienced within the Indigenous student group in this class. It is a belief in of shared experiences. Yet, community may also result in exclusion and isolation. As Sarah explains, if she had been in a class with mostly Caucasian students, she “probably would have felt very uncomfortable. But because [she] was in a community of Indigenous people, [they] were there together in solidarity.”

It only takes one teacher. When teachers say, in a multitude of ways, “Let me enter into your experiences and understandings so I can ‘get a better perspective on my thinking’and see if there’s something important that you can see that I can’t see” (Elbow 2008, p. 6), lives can be shaped in meaningful ways.

Mildred’s high school teacher created a safe space for Mildred to engage in conversations that were respectful of her lived experiences. In sharing how her life on western African and Canadian landscapes was shaped by childhood poverty, Mildred’s isolation on the high school education landscape began to lessen. Mildred’s teacher practiced belief in by opening up a space where she could get close to what was shaping Mildred’s challenges without storying Mildred as “deficit.” Her teacher could appreciate what it is like to believe that, as Mildred says, “You don’t deserve to be somewhere or you feel like you can’t do it.” Belief in by this teacher was demonstrated to Mildred by the way her teacher knew when Mildred did not really understand the course material. She picked up on the minutiae of Mildred’s facial expressions when they signalled a lack of understanding even when, as Mildred says, I “lied to her that [I] got it.”

why-Mildred emerged because a teacher had belief in her. Mildred holds close her Canadian high school chemistry teacher’s belief in that she would eventually understand the material—with support. Mildred still felt a sense of wonder when she retold an experience with this teacher. Mildred is very, very, very meticulous. For Mildred, a profound belief in moment was, as Mildred says, “the first time he used [the] word “meticulous”, I was so excited about myself.” Mildred remained excited when she retold this experience in a research conversation; her education chronicle reflects a pride in being meticulous.It is a way that she communicates her identity, without making herself visible. I wonder, had this teacher not praised her for her meticulousness, would Mildred have drawn her education chronicle differently, or would she have drawn it at all?

Sarah experienced belief in vicariously through her mother. This opened up possibilities and wonders regarding teaching-learning relationships. The woman in the shelter had belief in Sarah’s mother to go to higher education not solely for pragmatic reasons. She opened up the possibilities of education as an avenue of exploration. In this sanctuary for “lives on the edge” (Polakow1994, cover), Sarah’s mom’s life shifted from oppressive survival to extraordinary potential—and, so too did Sarah’s. I remain drawn to how the woman at the shelter opened up understandings of higher education beyond utilitarian purposes. I am drawn to how a single moment in time, when a single person is wakeful and attentive, can profoundly shift a life in the making. Sarah’s undergraduate friend has shared this kind of belief in with Sarah. Sarah now sees education as a way to enrich a whole person and life in the making. I wonder how this shelter-experience will echo through the rest of Sarah’s undergraduate journey.

margaret rose’s Indigenous first-year, English teacher wanted to get close to the “rhetoric of experience” by encouraging students to explore their lived experiences as a primary source of knowledge (Elbow 2008, p. 8). This belief in experience echoes through margaret rose’s undergraduate experiences. margaret rose says, “She taught me that everyone has a story. Everyone has a story. It doesn’t matter where you come from. Treaty, non-Treaty, Indigenous, non-Indigenous—it doesn’t matter. We all have a story to tell. And that’s something I’ve always, always, always, kept with me.” The opportunity to explore experiences and knowledge inside of academia profoundly shapes her. It is reshaping the way she understands how she can be a part of opening up spaces to have different conversations that push up against institutional privilege—even when she feels she is “too deep into this institution.”

This first-year English teacher practiced belief in by being willing to “dwell in” the lived experiences of students in order to “get a better perspective on [their] thinking” (Elbow, 2008, pp. 6-8) and assumptions; belief in results in understanding something of how students’ lives have been shaped.

Brownies and graduation dresses. margaret rose shared her experience,of belief in,with an undergraduate research funding program coordinator, Jewel, and how she “was right beside her” the day the application was due. margaret rose camped out in Jewel’s office from 8:00am until she pressed send that day. Jewel told margaret rose, “I believe in you. [The] research you’re doing … [is] needed.” For margaret rose, Jewel’s belief in allowed her, for the first time, to experience being a student first. Both margaret rose and myself have experienced Jewel’s belief in that encompasses her endless support of our applying for undergraduate research funding, doing the research, and dropping in for chats where we knew Jewel will have made a pan of brownies to nourish our spirits.

Mildred and her twin sister might have graduated from high school without teachers’ support; however, they would not have attended convocation—or, at least without feeling highly exposed as coming from an impoverished family. Mildred’s teacher, along with the principal, raised funds so Mildred and her twin sister could buy graduation dresses. Mildred and her twin walked across the high school convocation stage not marked as poverty-class students. Their teachers practiced belief in Mildred and the power of this symbolic moment to shape her future education journey; belief in that Mildred, too, should be able to publicly celebrate this milestone in her young life.

Unsettling the normalized academic trajectory. I shared with participants that it took me over fifteen disjointed years to complete my first undergraduate degree as a way to demonstrate belief in to margaret rose, Sarah, and Mildred. This is a counter-narrative to the dominant linear four-year undergraduate academic trajectory narrative. For me, this is what a relational methodology looks like; this is what coming alongside participants looks like in practice.

                  I did not try to hide that my higher education trajectory and experiences were shaped by intergenerational poverty. I could not pretend, nor, could I try to distance myself from vulnerability. I owed this to participants as a sign of respect and honour for their sharing their lived experiences and all they were willing to sacrifice in coming out of the shadows and margins to share these experiences. In this way, we were able to out ourselves to each other without the fear of being ousted. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) illustrate: I (hopefully) “composed … research text[s] that illustrated how” larger education, familial, social, and institutional narratives of poverty-class students are shaped by the” higher education landscape “and gave form to” students’ “cover stories.” My motivation was to write “about penetrating cover stories because of the relationships … [I] created and into which spaces the … [students] told and lived their stories.” (p. 132)

                  To demonstrate the unsettling of the normalized academic trajectory, margaret rose arrived at our first research conversation exhilarated to be able to “afford” to participate. She also arrived exhausted from the six-year academic struggle she has been engaged in. Stories were planted in her that the Canadian undergraduate experience has a certain look: finish in four years with at least a satisfactory academic standing—and, sans-RTWs, emergency loans, and homelessness. When I told margaret rose that “I would change majors, I would quit, I would screw it up …” there was a visceral sense of relief that she was not an anomaly—at least within the invisible and silenced poverty-class student community.

                  Belief in with this thread is rooted in Elbow’s (2008) rhetoric of experiences and interrupts dominant assumptions about education journeys. Tensions with these dominant institutional narratives are seen in Sarah’s education chronicle: Sarah is a “mature” student (as defined by Canadian higher education institutions) in her second year of undergraduate studies. How early familial, institutional, and education experiences will manifest as she continues seeking in her undergraduate exploration is yet to be known. She remains wakeful to the academic linear fallacy.   

Dreaming in a safe space. Dreams were a crucial source of knowledge to Mildred and her twin sister. Mildred’s sleeping and awake dreams helped her imagine forward-looking stories. Second, as Mildred says, through her dreams, “It makes me feel like there is hope for me. You know, I’m not really done because I’m going to an academic warning, academic challenge. That’s not the end of it. Things will get better.” Mildred and her twin sister “take dreams very seriously.” Dreams are also a safe space in which to imagine a life beyond systemic childhood poverty—and, education for utilitarian purposes.

Belief in self.  Joy, hope, and a desire to create social change, figure prominently in Sarah’s life. Living without a high school diploma, working at a retail job, and not being able to be part of conversations about how lives and policies are shaped was not a sustainable life for Sarah. Belief in self is the “healing path becoming more clearer” and things becoming “more flowy” with less “scribbles and squiggles”; yet, squiggly lines extending forever. Belief in self is shaped by “sense making”: the question mark pieces fitting, the circles and squares no longer at odds, and coming full circle back to creativity in her current creative writing course. Sarah aspires to be like her Indigenous creative writing teacher: powerful, confident, caring, and working towards social justice through storytelling. Belief in herself is shifting her understanding of higher education beyond utilitarian purposes: she seeks education that intrinsically shapes the whole of her life in the making.

From the outset of our research relationship, margaret rose had a tenuous belief in herself both in her desire to have the doctorate title and the privilege it comes with—that is, to have a voice at the table where she is “taken seriously when [she has] this conversation.” What this conversation is, is still unfolding; however, as she says, it includes accepting that “Not many of my relatives can ‘survive’ within these spaces…. I can. I can walk both worlds, encouraging understanding.” Belief in is symbolized in her struggling to understand how she can honour her ancestors, Elders, Indigenous youth, her partner, and her son in her quest for the privileged academic paper. Belief in is manifested by the deep responsibility an Elder taught her: “We have a responsibility to share our knowledge. Can’t keep all this goodness to ourselves! Let’s share!”

margaret rose also sustains belief in of herself by forward-looking stories. One day she hopes she may be taught the knowledge and wisdom of her ancestors and relatives in order to become an Elder. She is reflexive: “I can be an Elder and have a PhD. I’m learning that I can’t romanticize my culture and traditions. These are ‘new’ traditions. We are adapting as Indigenous peoples, utilizing ‘new’ gifts for oral traditions. Wow. Those readings you shared, plus this ‘new’ book I’m reading is changing me. I’m learning that I can change, and that I can grow. That the way I think today could be different tomorrow. How else am I going to evoke change, unless I accept it as well?”.

Mildred’s belief in self is shaped by stories planted in her. She says, “I think I’ve had a very challenging experience believing in myself, having faith in myself that I can also be somebody who would be impactful in society, somebody who can make a difference in other people’s lives.” Along the way, a philosophy was planted in her: “As long as we’re living, as long as we’re going to be trying to survive to make life better, our stories are going to be continuing until we are—no more.” Mildred speaks about the importance of supporting and coming alongside others; she dreams of returning to western Africa as a healthcare practitioner to give back. Lately, she is learning vicariously through others that she too is “capable of going somewhere in [her] life, [she is] also capable of …” Indeed, our stories are not finished, nor are they to be prescriptively defined because of coming from systemic childhood poverty.

Resonant Reflexivity

I preface the next narrative threads with the following prose. It reflects the many tensions I felt as I transitioned from the hopeful to the more difficult participants’ experiences. At moments, I thought I would not be able to once again sit with these experiences. This prose provided a way forward that helped me to continue to have belief in this research and myself as a poverty-class student who is composing a life on the higher education landscape.

Blood-soaked and pain stricken, the ravaged fingertips of her red worn hands could not reach the keys for many weeks.

Generally accepted academic principles contort her aged-fingers with childhood poverty and academic rigour. She habitually hears, “It’s just poverty; it’s just a master’s….  Just hammer out the analysis—and, move on.”

With an auctioneer’s voice, these beliefs boom through, slice and shred her emerging scholarly confidence like a newly sharpened butcher’s knife. Dominant assumptions about lives shaped by systemic childhood poverty hack away at her belief in this narrative inquiry. Her ological-stances feel shredded. She picks up the pieces; she will not discard them.

She does an analytical yo-yo like dance: she holds lack of belief in and poverty is seen as a box/poverty is not a box resonant threads close, then pushes them away, then draws them close again. She wants to hide out in the narrative accounts; the hard stuff feels like too much to bear; she worries she will not survive intact.

She remains focused on piecing together the research puzzle by making tensions and lived experiences visible. Yet, it is as excruciatingly painful as her higher education-torn fingernails.

So many layers of her fingernails have been torn off, the blood has risen to the surface; the middle finger of her left hand looks as if a hammer beat it.

Educators, community, and family assumed she would travel the same path as generations before her. No one expected her to succeed in education. She could hardly imagine anything else for herself: to imagine a life beyond the wrong side of the social tracks was too much of a stretch. She knew this was never going to be just a masters. It is her life; it is not her life’s work.

She is gifted with a healing salve: she learns that her master’s is a starting point on a longer journey. She will get voices to ring loud, true, and strong—in other places and spaces; she need not die on the thesis-hill.[3] Her friend, Mary Lee Bird,[4] practices belief in when she says, “Spit your truths! I’m nobody to silence that.”

Doubting Threads

Bumping up against the doubting game. As with the above belief in resonant thread, doubt (lack of belief in) was experienced directly and vicariously across the participants’ diverse lives—and, across time, place, and social relations. The doubt threads are as follows: no support for building community, transcripting poverty-class students, and (un)acknowledged institutional stereotypes.

No support for building community. Unlike Sarah and margaret rose, Mildred does not have community on the higher education landscape. A lack of support for building community translates into the silencing of Mildred and her lived experiences. She becomes increasingly aware that this creates generalizations and homogenizes Black students. While she does not seek to be put into a Black box, she longs to be alongside western African students who can mentor her. She wants to learn from them and share with them “similar things, which are cultural, language, and a lot of things. Similar childhood experiences. Maybe. Maybe not.” What is missing in higher education for Mildred is a belief in through community. Mildred said, “It would be so encouraging to have older people that you would call for like—older siblings, older mentors, older friends that bonds with them. Grow with them. Be encouraged with them. That’s part of sustainability.” Like Lugones (1987), Mildred wants to be able to “‘world’-travel” with students from other racial, social class, and cultural backgrounds. She sees community beyond a narrow lens that fails to see the multiplicity of students’ lives. She has a Lugones-type (1987) philosophy in that she feels that we all “need to [metaphorically] go somewhere and be a foreigner.”

Mildred and margaret rosehave a shared understanding, which Mildred eloquently expresses: “They’re aren’t many of us here. Some of us come and drop out because we are intimidated by how great, by how big the university is. There are so many things. Our financial circumstances. So many things hold us back.” Regardless of any social characteristics, Mildred says, “everybody has a different experience” and she longs to learn of—and, from—stories of silence.

Transcripting poverty-class students. Throughout our time together, there exists tension between outlier-Mildred and why-Mildred. When Mildred started university, academic advisors helped her choose her classes and navigate her program. Five years later, after two academic probations, they have no time for Mildred—or, students like her. Mildred witnessed this first-hand as she waited in line to speak with an academic advisor in her department.[5] Another student on probation was sent away when she requested support in choosing her classes so she could meet her academic probation conditions. Mildred practiced belief in when she thought, “Imagine if she’s here alone or if she has some friends but she’s not comfortable talking to them; [yet, she might be] more comfortable coming to someone who’s an advisor. Somebody who’s seen a lot of undergrads” and lived experiences. The advisor had a lack of belief in this student; they storied this student based on her academic transcript and trajectory. Mildred was afraid to be sent away as well so she nervously told the academic advisor, “Oh, I’m in a similar situation. I heard what you said to her. Thank you.” Mildred silently left. This lack of belief in chipped away at Mildred’s confidence and ability to understand and navigate higher education policies and the landscape. I wonder, if the advisor had taken the time to understand Mildred and this other student’s experiences, how might their assumptions shifted? I wonder how they may then have been able to attend to these students’ lives in the making in meaningful ways. I wonder if they would realize that Mildred vicariously experienced the lack of belief in? Although Mildred may not be able to name the dominant institutional “top student” narratives using academic lingo, she can articulate them using her lived experience lingo: “Maybe because of my fifth year they feel like, ‘Oh, it took too long! Grow up…! Maybe they look at my transcripts and they’re like, ‘You’re not a baby student. You’re an adult student. Grow up!’.” Mildred just walked “out of there with [her] embarrassment.” I wonder how many outlier-Mildreds permanently walk off the higher education landscape never to return? I wonder how many why-Mildreds are forever silenced.

margaret rose, after struggling to fit into higher education, succinctly explains how this can shape lives: “I’m just so used to the ‘withdrawal’ game.”. It reduces risk; it causes harm. Mildred echoes margaret rose’s lived experience:

Who says I shouldn’t be here because I failed a class

I failed three classes

I failed whatever

Nobody’s a bum

What’s keeping them at this place?

Don’t pull my hair

No, you need to understand

Answering for me

Missing quite a bit

Hunger in my eyes

Not at peace

Give me the opportunity to say something

Mildred

(Un)acknowledged institutional stereotypes. I had thought it would be an excellent opportunity to attend the Canadian federal government’s roundtable EDI discussion. It would be the first time I would be privy to this type of discussion by policy makers, administrators, and faculty. On the higher education landscape, outside of my own experiences and the experiences participants shared with me during our research conversations, I only got close to institutional stereotypes through the literature I reviewed for this inquiry—I had never heard these dominant institutional narratives reinforced publicly. I invited margaret rose. I thought it would be a way to make poverty-class students’ voices heard. For me, it was an experience that made visible institutional stereotypes that perpetuate a lack of belief in students who are Other.

                  A dean commented that their department “saves seats for Indigenous students,” but they are ill-qualified for the program. The holders of academic authority made Indigenous and “disabled” students the object of discussion rather than part of the discussion (Adair, 2003). The idea of saving seats has resonances of charity and deficit-based thinking; “ill-qualified” does not unpack issues of, for example, formal school readiness, and the inherent inequalities at all levels of Canadian education. Without practicing Elbow’s (2008) belief in, those in positions of authority did not have to “find flaws in their thinking” (pp. 5-6), nor did they have to “believe an alien idea [that could] make [them] fear being changed or polluted” (p. 7). That is, those in positions of power may be complicit in perpetuating stereotypes of non-privileged students and institutional inequality.

                  I was born in Canada. I am a Canadian citizen. I am white. I do not carry my birth certificate or passport with me. Mildred was not born in Canada.She is a Canadian citizen.She isBlack.As Mildred and I sat down with a financial advisor at the university’s registrar’s office, seeking an emergency bursary for Mildred, her citizenship was questioned: “Are you a Canadian citizen?” Mildred’s distress was plainly visible. Her hand quivered as she reached into her bag to pull out her passport. She could not find it. She panicked. All she had was her student identification card, the same thing I carry with me. The advisor again asked, “How long have you been in Canada?”

“Eight years,” Mildred meekly answered. Mildred was silenced.

Mildred and I still carry many wonders about this experience and institutional assumptions that may have shaped this experience. We try to practice Elbow’s believing game; it is hard.

                  Visibility as Other. As Sarah and I temporally travelled to an experience on her early childhood education landscape, a lack of belief in students from poverty becomes painfully clear. The teacher (perhaps the institutional administrative culture as well) assumed that the little boy was a thief because he was marked by poverty: his clothes were not neat and tidy, his hair bore the markings of a homemade cut, his behaviour was problematic, and his parents were not around. Therefore, a twisted logic followed, “How could he, the poverty-class child, possibly own a set of coloured markers?” A lack of belief in was practiced by the teacher, enabled, because as Sarah says, “There was an assumption that was going to be made and there was the assumption that there was nothing [his mom] could do.” Neither the children or the little boy’s family would ever be able to interrupt this stereotype or damage the institutional poverty narrative. The public shaming, marginalizing—and, bullying—of this little boy echoes through Sarah today. I wonder how this shaped her experiences in the public “privilege walk” she had to do on campus as part of a course exercise?

Student’s lack of belief in themselves. margaret rose tells a familiar tale. It is a struggle to have belief in yourself, that you are good enough to be in university, and that you are meant to be here. This struggle is expressed through a found poem from her narrative account:

Six years

I still struggle

I’m not good enough

Still question if I’m meant to be here

For margaret rose and Mildred,their lack of belief in themselves is shaped, in part, by experiences on early childhood education landscapes. This lack of belief in shapes our higher education experiences. This lack of belief in manifests itself in different ways. I share with margaret rose, Mildred, and Sarah that it took me over fifteen years to complete my first undergraduate degree. I learned that margaret rose and myself have such a profound lack of belief in ourselves in higher education that we sabotaged school in many ways: didn’t finish assignments, wrote papers the night before, dropped out, changed majors, peaced out, took “time off,” accepted damaging institutional, social, and cultural narratives, self-harmed, feared completion and what completion of higher education may mean …

Switching pronouns to distance—and protect—herself, Mildred articulates her lived experiences and understandings how lack of belief in shaped her life: “This is what is causing a lot of problems with students taking their own lives. Because they feel like, ‘Hey, I’ve got to this point and now I’m a disappointment to my organization. I’m a disappointment to this faculty. To this university. To this nation. To taxpayers. This family. Myself.’ I don’t have one friend and I have nobody to talk to. Nobody wants to welcome them.”

Poverty Dichotomies

Even students whose lives have been shaped by systemic childhood poverty struggle with the poverty is not a box versus the poverty is seen as a box dichotomy. Many early and current experiences shape these tensions. Participants experience poor-bashing and individualistic explanations for the struggles they face in relation to the “bootstrap” and “top student” narratives. Ubiquitous noun-based assessments question not only our right to be in higher education, but our moral worth and academic aptitude. To illustrate, “top students” persevere; they are strong, resilient, and hardworking. They just “suck it up,” and make it through like everybody else. These words convey profoundly silencing and marginalizing connotations. What does perseverance, strength, and resilience look like? I wonder if these noun-based narratives are dominant stories that create mythical poster students of success—and, perpetuate the illusion of higher education being situated on a level-playing field? I wonder if these narratives diminish the experiences and experiential knowledge of students whose lives have been shaped by childhood poverty? Are narratives foisted upon us stories that are not our own?

Larger familial, education, social, cultural, and institutional narratives blame the individual while ignoring structural reasons for poverty (Adair, 2003; Brady et al. 2016). As such, poverty-class students are pushed further into the shadows and margins of the higher education landscape. Consequently, there is the perpetuation of silencing their experiences and knowledge (Ghosh & Adbi, 2013). Participants have all experienced being the object of discussion instead of part of the discussion (Adair, 2003). Participants have experienced students, staff, administrators, and professors’ shock when it is suggested that poverty-class students are on the higher education landscape beyond the bodies doing the labouring. Participants, too, have experienced, the silencing judgements that if you are struggling you are not meant to be here.

The thesis of this research is built upon the premise that systemic childhood poverty shapes an entire life. In particular, my thesis pushes against the dominant belief that as soon as a poverty-class student crosses the higher education landscape threshold, childhood poverty miraculously vanishes like dandelion fluff carried off by a strong breeze.  Thus, I assert, that childhood poverty echoes across time, social relations, and place (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). This thesis seeks to make visible that we cannot, and should not, silence the poverty-class student by thinking poverty exists in a box in order to contain it to any specific temporal moment. 

“Poverty is seen as a box” thread. I wonder if seeing poverty in a box is a result of, as Elbow (2008)  says, a fear of “trying to believe an alien idea [that] can make us fear being changed or polluted” (p. 7)? That is, that poverty shapes an entire life in the making. Poverty-class students can therefore be contained; their problematic selves then do not threaten or outwardly contaminate the privileged higher education institution; as the dangerous Other, they are enclosed in the margins (Polakow, 1993). The following are the poverty is seen as a box threads: get back on the reserve, erasing identities, Othering assimilation narratives, keeping the centre sacred, invisibility of social class, and it’s your own damn fault.

Practicing the doubting game holds constant damaging and marginalizing dominant poverty-class student (and poverty) narratives. The doubting game offers an ideological reprieve: we do not have to “try to believe things we don’t believe—especially things we don’t want to believe” (Elbow, 2008, p. 4). For example, by holding close cherished ideologies situated at the centre—that is, seeing poverty as a box, we can keep counter-narratives and experiential knowledge and experiences of Others at a safe distance—in other words, in the margins. We do not have to acknowledge, or challenge, higher education landscapes as sites of uncontested privilege. We need not “find flaws in our thinking” or get close to the “rhetoric of experience” (Elbow, 2008, pp. 7-8) that would interrupt dominant narratives that preserve “fake it till you make it” and other silencing assimilation dogmas—beliefs that are enacted and held firmly in the grasp of those who occupy the centre. In this way, the doubting game allows us to see poverty as a box in order to blame the individual and story SES “disadvantaged” students as less-than. This keeps us from even imagining how systemic childhood poverty shapes poverty-class students in profound and complex ways; their unique biographies remain silenced and invisible.

The doubting game also allows us to skip the history book chapters on historical understandings of how social class in Canada and Canadian higher education institutions have been informed and shaped by British notions and structures (Burtch, 2006). As long as we are diligent in playing the doubting game, and keeping poverty in a box, poverty-class students do not become the higher education institution’s “problem.” Utilizing the doubting game within the poverty is seen as a box context, results in a lack of Greene’s (1995) “call for imaginative capacity … to look at things as if they could be otherwise” (p. 19). In other words, our imagination is as boxed in as our understandings of how systemic childhood poverty shapes an entire life. Practicing the doubting game reinforces the idea that once a student crosses the academic threshold, the experiences of childhood poverty magically vanish from embodied selves; one just needs a good scrub brush and bar of soap, and the stain of poverty disappears.

Historically, we know these institutions were built for those who could access them (Burtch, 2006); however, as margaret rose says, “Historically speaking. Historically this, Oh, fuck! Historically, that shit ain’t working!” By way of example, the following demonstrates how participants experienced poverty is seen as a box, and, which I hope shows, that this too, can be Lessard’s (2017) game changer; yet, not in the belief in way. I saw throughout this inquiry how belief in was often shattered by poverty is seen as a box.

Get back on the reserve. As an Indigenous person, margaret rose, her family, and ancestors have had turbulent experiences with social workers and colonial social service institutions. margaret rose had to put herself at risk in seeking social service assistance last summer. She had no choice. She was in a precarious position both with housing, finances, and her university education. Her identity as a university student, who had been raised in an urban inner city, was erased by social workers; they did not try to see hers as a life in the making. I wonder if this was too much of a stretch, too much of “an alien idea” for the social services personnel to imagine a counter story to the damaging Canadian Indigenous stereotypes (Elbow 2008, p. 7).

 margaret rose was “treated inhumanely.” They turned their backs on her. They practiced the doubting game and saw her in an Aboriginal poverty box; they turned their backs on her and from “the rhetoric of experience” (Elbow 2008, p. 8):

“Oh, but you’re First Nations. Can’t you go just go back to your reserve?”

“Oh, you’re First Nations. Doesn’t your band give you money for welfare?”

“Oh, no! That’s not our responsibility. You’re gonna have to go …”

Erasing identities. Within her university’s native studies program, Sarah can do the privilege walk alongside her Aboriginal classmates. She takes steps back until her back is up against the wall. Situate her in a predominantly White class however, Sarah says, “I probably would have felt very uncomfortable. But because I was in a community of Indigenous people, we were there together in solidarity, so it was different, right.” In a “privilege walk” education lesson, conducted in a primarily White class, Sarah would have to erase her identity in order to decrease her visibility. I continue to wonder about homogenizing Native students in this privilege walk. I wonder how others story them? Were they storied in a similar manner as margaret rose when she tried to access social assistance?

Erasing identity manifests itself in a multitude of ways for Mildred. She tells me, “Oh, I’m down and I’m alone and nobody can hear me. Not even my African society. Not even anybody else.” Black students have been homogenized on her higher education landscape; they become a silenced, highly visible, fragmented minority. Perhaps, if she could erase her beautiful soft accent, her citizenship would not be so readily questioned. This aloneness causes Mildred to withdraw herself “from the bigger society … it makes [her] feel worthless.” She says, “You’re just—nobody. And you just withdraw from school and your future’s closed.” If she has to erase her identity in order to connect with others, she says, “You just go away. I mean go away from here. You lose a lot.” Mildred says that as a child from systemic poverty she learned that “curiosity made us noticeable” and that was a dangerous risk; safer to erase why-Mildred. For example, Mildred still relives the painful experiences of early education landscapes where children from poverty were seen as problematic because of their origins of birth: the public beatings on the school landscape, having no where to run while her parents’ were creating a home in Canada, and having to make survival on familial landscapes a priority over learning and curiosity.

I bring forward a found poem from margaret rose’s narrative account as it aptly describes the experience of having to erase her identity in order to assimilate into the middle-class, higher education landscape:

Wearing masks

A white mask

Masks to fake it

Killing my soul

margaret rose defines a white mask as, “I have to speak a certain way. I have to dress a certain way. I have to, I’m expected to act a certain way now” that I’m “so deep inside the institution.” She also says that she has survived and that she “didn’t have to fake it.” She juggles theatrical counter-cover stories that show the tensions of trying to move from the margins to the centre, while simultaneously erasing—and, resisting erasing, her identity. margaret rose tries to erase the deeply embedded lived experiences in her embodied self. She has tried out for the higher education “top student” role. She has not been able to master this character, or to learn her lines well enough to go off-book.

Mildred learned on early familial, education, and community landscapes to silence why-Mildred. Poverty was visible in Mildred’s world; she recalls how poverty publicly marked children: “You could say, because sometimes you would see kids and the way they dressed up for school. If they had food to eat. Are they buying the textbooks? Are they neat, are they washing their clothes, are they wearing socks? You know, like, some basic things, basic things. You could see it. Definitely, it’s easy to see.” She was taught that invisibility kept her safe on the many landscapes she inhabited; invisibility came from conformity to social class expectations. Why was reserved for the privileged; on early education landscapes, children in poverty were labelled “bad” and subject to public beatings. On the familial landscape, why did not bring in money, put food on the table, or clean the home. Being born into a homogenous cement box community, why-Mildred did not have much opportunity to “‘world’-travel” (Lugones, 1987). Today, as she is composing a life on a higher education landscape, why-Mildred is wrapped in a “be still!” stillness.

Mildred and margaret rose have been reduced to a RTW-identity. Neither Sarah, Mildred nor margaret rose can scrub their skin white; regardless of how much I scrub my skin, it remains “not quite white” (Wray, 2006). None of us can, or should have to, erase how our identities are shaped by systemic childhood poverty. Yet, because our experiential knowledge remains situated in the margins, our identities must be, at least, hidden. That is, unless, like margaret rose (and myself through this research and public presentations) publicly choose to come out of the “poverty closet” and interrupt the highly valued “erasing of your identity” and “fake it till you make it” dominant narratives.

Othering assimilation narratives. The participants make me wonder about identity on their higher education landscapes, what constitutes the right student, and how to live where our experiences and identities are valued. I wonder how we do not cave into the pressure of faking it till you make it or assimilating middle-class university culture, especially in light of how this belief is so highly valued, normalized, and seen as “transformative?” How often I have heard and read in literature, “Fake it till you make it builds character!,” (Ivana, 2017; Lehmann, 2013). I wonder, what character are poverty-class students supposed to build? 

margaret rose captures these tensions: margaret rose’s Two-spirit Cree woman versus assimilation identities sits in binary opposition; her life on this colonized university landscape is fraught with great tensions. She desperately wants to live an authentic way of life, on and off the higher education landscape—a way of life that honours her ancestors, non-Indigenous people, and the youth who will follow in her footsteps. But she gets so exhausted wearing a mask that reduces her life to a single story: “I get so lost in this [colonial, capitalist] mask that I’m forced to wear for my government rations”: university paycheque rations, student loan rations, academic transcript rations. I wonder what happens to poverty-class students who are unable to make it till they fake it? I wonder why this dogma is seen in research as something to be commended (e.g., see Lehmann, 2013).

Keeping the centre sacred. Sarah, margaret rose, Mildred, and myself are storytellers. Mildred first and foremost knows how to convey knowledge orally. margaret rose articulates this: “I know that dialogue and storytelling is integral to who I am as a Cree person.” Sarah imagines a life where she is creating social change through storytelling. Mildred demonstrates her understanding of the importance of making storytelling a critical part of education by the way she glides into narrative research and oral explanations of complex theories. Yet, this knowledge is kept close and within the safe confines of a small circle.

Most seek to apply experiential knowledge to understand canonized theories. Most seek opportunities to learn theories, philosophies, methodologies, and the potential of education beyond what is mandated (and often standardized) course readings. But, knowledge from the margins rarely finds its way to the centre. Consequently, we often do not find, outside of very select classes, footsteps in which we can safely tread. I wonder if shifting our embodied knowledge and poverty-class bodies from the margins to the centre is too much of an “alien idea [that] can make … [institutional power] fear being changed or polluted” (Elbow 2008, p. 7)? Often, participants can only vicariously travel to the centre. Mildred is drawn to Abal and her husband James—and, TedTalks. Sarah and margaret rose draw close to, and retell, the personal stories professors share of themselves in class.

Invisibility of social class. Unless I brought it up in our research conversations (e.g., myth of the classless society), participants did not have access in formal education to explore how social class shapes their experiences on the higher education landscape. Canadian culture and institutions are deeply embroiled in the myth of the classless society. Poverty-class students are deeply embattled by the myth of the classless society. This myth requires the doubting game to continue to see poverty in a box where the individual is blamed while the structural is ignored. Retelling a childhood experience, Mildred makes visible the power of social class.

In western Africa there is no universal health care. Even if there had been, the adults in Mildred’s family worked relentlessly to feed their family. The family had no nanny to care for the children. There was no money for transportation. The nice-man noticed Mildred’s little sister’s condition and took her to the hospital. As little Mildred watched the nice­-man navigate the hospital, she witnessed her sister being attended to “because of his status.” She says, “When you get people like that to go with you to places, it really makes a difference than to go by yourself.”

While it was “really, really, really nice” of the nice-man, he could travel and successfully navigate places and systems that Mildred and her family could not—because of his social position. The nice-man did not have to stay fixed in this moment or in the cement box underclass community where bodies and limbs were intertwined during rest and work.

It’s your own damn fault. Through institutional policies, there is the perception of universities treating all students in an equitable manner via their policies. Regulations, enacted through prescriptive policies developed, shaped, and amended by and for the elite, include course withdrawal deadlines, GPA requirements, and navigating the entirety of the higher education landscape. Yet, students do not experience these policies in an equitable manner. Further, these policies reinforce the belief that it’s your own damn fault if you are not meeting a university’s expectations. Mildred has experienced this in painfully silencing ways.She has become terrified and confused as to how to understand the enormity of the legalese of institutional policies and her departmental regulations. I wonder how these policies protect higher education institutions from legal challenges while simultaneously ignoring the unique biographies of poverty-class students. I wonder how institutional policies keep individuals who grew up in poverty from entering into and successfully transitioning through higher education.

When Mildred sought support from academic advisors, she was met with indifference and frustration. As she said, “Once you’re a student struggling through school and you go to these offices many times, they “know” you. ‘Here she comes again!’” She tells me that she felt shame when they looked at her GPA. She sensed they “looked down at” her. She says, “It makes you feel like you are not capable. Before them, you’re not worthy to be here. You don’t deserve the opportunity to be here. And it intimidates you. It’s like you don’t even want to ask for help anymore. Just like giving up.” There is a lack of understanding that her life is more complex than numbers on a computer screen. She just walks out of their offices with her “embarrassment” and damning assessments. Neither her department chair or academic advisors nor the registrar know the complexity of what shapes her undergraduate experiences. Mildred keeps her experiences and how she experienced this moment safely hidden.

Remaining immovable to the idea that higher education policies are equitable for all students ensures that what is invisible in our thinking does not become visible in terms of larger social, cultural, and institutional narratives (Elbow 2008, p. 5; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). For Mildred and margaret rose, living higher education RTW- and probationary-lives is like a crushing defeat. As they precariously compose lives in higher education, they strive for “imaginative capacity” in order “to look at things as if they could be otherwise” (Greene 1995, p. 19). As Mildred and margaret rose retold and relived their experiences, it became evident that higher education institutions are in no mood for Greene or Elbow; they are not ready “to look at things as if they could be otherwise” (p. 19) and practice the believing game. The believing game could make visible the poverty behind the minds of poverty-class students.

‘Poverty is not a box’ thread. Participants’ unknowingly practiced Elbow’s believing game. The act of participating in this narrative inquiry meant that they are giving myself as the researcher and readers the opportunity to get close to different ways of understanding how childhood poverty shapes undergraduate students’ experiences. Participants “help [us] see what [they] see because [we] cannot see it” (p. 8). Participants made visible how Young’s (2005)intergenerational narrative reverberations ripple across their lives; that is, how childhood poverty is not a box and shapes an entire life. Participants hope their belief in us (administrators, advisors, professors, researchers) will shape shifts to create “widening access” and EDI higher education landscapes. The following are the poverty is not a box thread: survival not learning, lives fraught with fear (fear of authority, fear of eviction, no where to go back to, doing without affects pace), and a poverty-class student visits the classroom.

Survival not learning. “Just”surviving their undergraduate degree became Mildred’s and margaret rose’s end goal. Mildred says, “If you have been through the downs and coming from a different place to a different place. You feel like, I don’t want to be here anymore. I just have to do this and get away from it. It doesn’t have to be so …” There are no words she can grasp onto to complete her thought; there are no words that I can bring forth either. Both Mildred and margaret rose started university with Greene’s (1995) “imaginative capacity” that higher education held untold possibilities to learn things they could never imagine. They had belief in being able to “‘world’-travel” (Lugones, 1987) to places and experiences that would be so powerful in shaping their becoming agents of social change for themselves, their families, and communities. However, throughout our research relationship, survival, not learning, became what they strove for. Mildred’s stories give us a sense of this:

I was confused—that’s it

I was just confused with my undergrad

I’m still an undergrad

I wasn’t treading water

I don’t know what I was doing

You can define it

You name it

                  Lurking homelessness and looming authority blanketed margaret rose as she tried to compose a life on the higher education landscape. Wearing masks, receiving RTW-letters, trying to find her stolen Indigenous culture, heritage, and ancestral knowledge “triggered” by …

Survival

Survival in the higher education institution

A colonial rite of passage

            I wonder how many poverty-class students walk away from their undergraduate without the piece of paper in their hands. I wonder how “just” surviving shapes the lives of poverty-class students. I wonder how surviving—not surviving—echoes across their lives.

Lives fraught with fear.

Fear of authority. Some participants experienced systemic, debilitating fear of authority on the higher education landscape. This shapes their university studies and experiences. We hear, “It’s a student’s responsibility to ask for help,” or “I’m a nice, approachable professor, why don’t struggling students just come to my office hours?” The assumptions are that: (1) we know how to navigate policies; (2) that we know we have student rights; (3) we are comfortable using our voices to assert these rights.

margaret rose explains the danger of authority:

I didn’t even feel comfortable accessing a “social worker” because of my experiences growing up, my brother being taken out of our home, put into child welfare system, … because of my personal interactions growing up, you know a social worker has that status—I’m scared! I’m scared and I don’t trust. I don’t trust. I’m sorry if I don’t trust a lot because of my history with these different systems. And people in positions of authority. Right. Like, can I trust you? Can I not? Are you gonna, like you know …

I tell margaret rose, “The fear of the social worker coming to the door is terrifying.” She concedes, “The police too, right. Even campus security. My heart just palpitates.” Holding up her hands mockingly, she proclaims, “I’m not a criminal! I’m sorry!” We laugh, but it is not in jest.

Mildred lives in fear that when she seeks support from her department they will find her out and punish her. She was taught on early education landscapes not to trust education authority. For Mildred, a misstep could result in a beating on the education landscape. Letting why-Mildred out could result in damaging assessments. Mildred says, “You know, when you don’t know what you’re going through, you can’t really define what the problem is. You don’t ask for help, you just go—you feel like your head itches.”

Why are we so afraid of authority on the higher education landscape? In part, the fear of eviction.

Fear of eviction. Belief in goes a long way towards understanding justified fear of eviction from university; regardless, if one thinks it is unwarranted. If you get close to Mildred’s and margaret rose’s lived experiences, one can see that the fear of eviction is shaped by childhood poverty. The fear of eviction echoes across their undergraduate experiences that affect pace, health, and learning. Mildred says, “I don’t think they care about us the same.… If I have to say it they will kick me out.” “It” is how her life on the higher education landscape has been shaped by systemic poverty. “It” refers to her malnourished body, the constant stress of how she will pay for school and support her impoverished family, and how profoundly silenced why-Mildred remains in the classroom and in the face of authority.

One of the ways margaret rose’s fear of eviction is shaped is by her storage container learning experience. This experience has left gashes in margaret rose. As a child, margaret rose was evicted and torn from the education landscape because she was a bad child. She excelled in the storage box where she was isolated from other students. She learned that she “didn’t fit the traditional mould of students.” She lived in fear of being put into foster care where generations of Indigenous children suffered horrific atrocities against their vulnerable selves. Being ejected into anything that conjures up residential schools echoed throughout young margaret rose’s self.

As I sit writing this thesis, I, too, continue to face the fear of eviction from university; this fear never seems to leave me. Part of what shapes this fear is that we have nowhere to go back to if we are evicted from the higher education landscape. It is as Daisy said, “publish or perish”; graduate or live the way we grew up yet, with the taste of potential forever lingering in our souls.

No where to go back to. When margaret rose has been on the cusp of quitting, when she has no more strength to fight to survive the institution or her precarious life, she wants to run to her dad’s reserve—and, just “peace out.” In these fragile moments, her partner, tanis, gently draws her back from the precipice. margaret rose says, “Just being a caregiver.… I’ve never—well, first of all I’ve never had anywhere to go back because of my dad’s [illness]—and living on the reserve and stuff like that. I guess if I really, really, really had to, I could go stay on a trailer somewhere on the backroads—if I really had to. But growing, up I never had that Plan B [long pause]. I’ve had phenomenal friends that have taken me in that are probably more family than my entire family.” Her family has been fragmented from intergenerational poverty and residential schools. There simply is no community to go back to that can sustain margaret rose and her “imagined capacity” (Greene, 1995, p. 19).

Mildred lives under intense pressure. Her parents scrimp and save so they may retire to western Africa. If Mildred does not graduate, they worry she will continue the familial intergenerational poverty legacy. Her parents have seen many of their friends’ children enter into Canadian higher education and drop out. Her parents want more for her than what they inherited. Yet, there is not the time or money for Mildred to explore all the wonders that are madly swirling around—why­-Mildred’s heart. If Mildred does not complete her undergraduate degree, and move onto further studies so she can seek a career, she will be forced to work non-living wage jobs. She can perhaps marry laterally.

Doing without affects pace. Although Mildred is physically strong, her ribs protrude in a way that is not the result of a naturally tiny frame. She says, “I am underweight right now as you can see.” However, that is an underrepresentation; her doctor is deeply concerned. She says, “I find it really hard to eat sometimes because I feel like I’m tired. I’m always fatigued. I don’t know. I don’t sleep well, especially after the last two semesters. I have [not been] myself, not eating well, not sleeping well. It’s a bit of a hassle.” She reduces her situation to an annoyance. If she forgets her lunch or water bottle at home she normally goes without food or water for the day. She cannot afford the luxury of buying food or beverages on campus.

margaret rose expends a great deal of energy on figuring out how she will pay rent and feed and clothe her ever sprouting son. This consumes the majority of her energy. Without the bus pass included in her tuition fees, most days she cannot afford to leave the house. margaret rose chases contract jobs that will allow her to continue with her studies; she cannot turn to family who are living impoverished lives.

Mildred and margaret rose are always exhausted: emotionally, mentally, and physically. At the end of the school and work days, they then try to study. I imagine dozing heads, made over heavy by the burdens they carry, falling down on top of their homework. Hard textbook covers become pillows as their bodies contort over tables that must bear the weight of their lives.

A poverty-class student visits the classroom. It is rare that a professor is wakeful to understanding there are students who do not come from privilege in their classroom. Mildred’s introductory sociology professor is an exception. Mildred’s professor practiced belief in that childhood poverty is not a box and shapes an entire life in the making. The professor invited a doctoral student to discuss with the class how systemic childhood poverty shaped their higher education experiences. Mildred felt a sense of relief that she was not alone in her experiences. Unknowingly, Gerry (and the professor) made her feel, for the first time, “welcomed into the university system.” Because Gerry was willing to make his lived experiences visible, Mildred felt a kindred-spirit with this poverty-class student. She found “somebody else [who] understands, somebody else who has gotten there [and] has also been through challenges or failing. Even though he may have felt that he didn’t belong there too, he never gave up. That’s what I’m looking forward to—to never give up.” Although Mildred was too unsure to approach Gerry when she saw him in the library, she emailed him and shared how childhood poverty was shaping her undergraduate experiences. This was a “tortoise-type” leap for Mildred. After two years, this experience sustains her. This belief in raised many wonders for Mildred; why-Mildred poked her head up after this experience. Gerry had the courage to use the “rhetoric of experience” (Elbow 2008, p. 8)toshare experiences that are profoundly silenced on the higher education landscape. I wonder how this type of experience—and, conversation—can shape experiences. I wonder how these in-class conversations can sustain students.

Rethreading Plotlines

Adair (2003) writes, “I am, and will probably always be, marked as a poor woman” (p. 29); Steedman (1987) writes of growing up in poverty: “The baggage will never lighten for me or my sister” (p. 19); in a newspaper opinion piece, I was described as “a person marked by generational poverty” (Turpin, 2015).

I draw from my thesis introduction: “I scrub my skin raw, but I can’t wash away the stain of poverty. It’s deeply embedded in my self-identity. The shame was bearable until university—a place I believed was never meant for people like me. Now, I live in fear of being outed and ousted.” As Adair (2003) writes, our identities and lived experiences of systemic childhood poverty “cannot be forgotten or erased” (p. 30); however, belief in makes visible, as Caine et al. (2013) explain, “Embedded in the retellings of … experiences is a notion that each story is always partial and contextual and offers new possibilities as the stories are retold (p. 577). Together with this, we see how experientially understanding the echoes of childhood poverty for this inquiry, does not silence lived experiences—and, the “extraordinary potential of living, telling, retelling, and reliving stories of experience” comes alive (Huber, Caine, Huber, & Stevens 2013, p. 212) as poverty-class students travel “to and within unfamiliar [higher education] landscapes” (Caine 2010, p. 1304).

In situating this analysis in relation to Elbow’s (2008) believing game theory, rather than looking for confirmation of deficit-based narratives about poverty-class students, I explored how systemic childhood poverty shapes an entire life (p. 1). This informs the understanding that childhood poverty shapes undergraduate students’ experiences in ways that transcend the material.

The instructor who first connected margaret rose with the TYP, the coordinator of the TYP, and the Cree professor; the high school teachers, and Gerry whose interactions with Mildred supported her to believe in herself; and the woman in the women’s shelter who planted a story of education as shaping new possible intergenerational reverberations in Sarah’s mother’s life, margaret rose, Mildred, and Sarah each lived and told stories of belief in experiences as nurturing in each of them desires to share and work forward from these as a way to be actively involved in shaping a higher education landscape that was ready for (open to, embracing of) the diverse lives of the students coming behind them.    

Greene (1995) writes that shifting understandings opens a “number of vantage points a person is able or enabled to take” (p. 19). This is significant when considering how childhood poverty shapes undergraduate students’ experiences as they compose lives on the higher education landscape. That is, as Greene suggests, belief in students allows us to “tap into imagination” so we can imagine ways in which to challenge the inherent structural inequalities of higher education to create EDI policies and pedagogies (p. 19). Thus, we can then “see beyond what the imaginer” (all those who shape students’ lives and education policies and pedagogies), and are able to break with what is “called normal or ‘common-sensible’ and to carve out new orders in experience” (Greene 1995, p. 19). Finally, this resonant thread makes visible how belief in poverty-class students may bring them out of the shadows and margins of higher education landscapes so their lived experiences and knowledge are honoured.

This resonant thread also draws attention to the diverse lives of margaret rose, Mildred, and Sarah. Attending to their experiences shows that while post secondary education is commonly shaped by plotlines that hold in mind students who completed high school and enter the landscape at 18 years of age this was not their experience. Interactions with diverse people who came into their lives in differing ways, sometimes in teaching-learning relationships but, too, people who taught as they shared with Sarah, Mildred, and margaret rose their experiences and insights, created openings for seeing themselves, their dreams, as plausible and possible. There is a sense that each of these believing in experiences interrupts their more common experiences with being doubted; the cumulative effect of these interruptions in the ongoing making of a life has been crucial. In essence, this is a type of moment-by-moment sustainability where larger social, cultural, familial, and institutional narratives of deficit are interrupted. Throughout the resonant threads, I was attentive that I am asking the reader to try to believe an alien idea [that] can make us fear being changed or polluted” (Elbow 2008, p. 7); as Lugones (1987) would say, “‘world’-travel” to the lives of the participants to begin to understand how childhood poverty shapes their undergraduate experiences (Lugones, 1987).

Participants and myself need to be the guiders and deciders of our own stories. Individually, and collectively, we work towards interrupting dominant narratives that silence our lived experiences and keep us in the higher education landscape margins. The late sociologist C. Wright Mills is credited with saying, “Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.” By making visible how systemic childhood poverty shaped their undergraduate experiences, participants demonstrated the importance of the individual in relation to higher education structures that perpetuate privilege and reinforce damaging and silencing narratives that position poverty-class students as Other.

Epilogue: “World”-Travelling through Belief In

Crow and Weasel. In order to further demonstrate how childhood poverty shapes an entire life, I draw on Lopez’s (1991) Crow and Weasel. Lopez’s story that honours intergenerational knowledge and experience. He shows that participants’ experiences, too, carry important knowledge:

The horses shivered off the night. Pintos and buckskins, sorrels and blue roans. They stood watering in the creek or continued to graze, their breath rising in the steam. A few watched two young men walking out towards them from the village. As the men drew near, the horses that were dozing began to stir.

The men walked softly among them, reassuring them with quiet words, slowly separating two horses out. They eased buffalo-hair bridles over their necks and started them back to the village. The one named Weasel led, trailing a pale mare with dark brown ears. The one called Crow followed behind with deliberate calmness, walking a bald-faced pinto colt. Crow’s eyes were fixed on the dark, silent doorways of the tipis ahead. Weasel stopped once, to finger blades of grass that had been cropped by an animal other than a horse in the night.

When the men had saddled their horses, they tied buckskin bags and parfleches to the saddle frames and small medicine bundles in the horses’ tails and manes. They threw elkskin robes over their frames and then went to their separate lodges to say goodbye to their families. Each young man’s family had opposed this trip. With the counsel of Mountain Lion, an Elder who had had a powerful dream about the two men, both families had relented. But the partings, now, were not warm. What these young men proposed, their fathers still felt, was dangerous.

Crow and Weasel went alone to Mountain Lion’s lodge.

“You two young men must not forget,” he said, “that you are runners. You are carrying our way of life with you, for everyone to see. Listen. Be strong. When you are tempted to give up, think of your relatives.” He looked over at Weasel, sitting on his horse, and back at Crow. “Watch out for each other,” he said.

Mountain Lion then gave Crow a pipe bag.

“You are not old enough, either of you,” he said, “to be pipe carriers. But my dream tells me to send this with you to share with those you meet.”

“Way-hey!” said Mountain Lion, standing back. “Travel like men. Remember your people” (pp. 7-8).

Crow and Weasel set off hesitantly—without the blessing of their family and community. But, they started out—and, remained together for the entire journey.

Along the way, they found themselves on landscapes they had never seen before. They did not recognize the plants; they could not see food they were accustomed to. At times they thought they would perish from hunger. They met people who terrified them; they thought the people called Inuit might kill them. Instead, there was a communal sharing of knowledge, experiences, and wisdom of both their people. Crow and Weasel honoured their people by sharing their way of life with the Inuit. They did not have to erase their identities; they celebrated intergenerational knowledge that was situated in the centre rather than the margins.

Many times, Crow and Weasel talked of turning back; many times they kept these thoughts to themselves. They did not story turning back as failure; what they learned, at any point in their journey, was new knowledge they could take back to their community. They had a community to go back to. Without each other’s support, they would have died.

Throughout the journey they did think of their relatives—and, the footsteps that would follow theirs. They became part of communities they met along the way.

They returned home to share new knowledge with those who would not be able to make such a journey. Their experiences echoed throughout the land.

Notes

1.     Elbow (2008) equates the doubting game to critical thinking: it is the “kind of thinking most widely honoured and taught in our culture” (p. 1). It is a “disciplined practice” of using our intellectual might to doubt—not reject—accepted theories, ideologies, and methodologies—to find limitations (pp. 1-2). In this way, we can “advance knowledge,” without disrupting what has been normalized.

As Elbow states, the challenge with the doubting game is that unless we are actively taught to critically think, we tend “to believe what looks obvious or what [we] hear from people in authority or from the culture” (p. 3). Alternatively, we become jaded and embrace an epistemological stance where we discount all other ways of knowing—and, those we may feel threatenknowledge and ideas that we have a vested interest in holding close  (p. 3). Further, Elbow explains that the “success of science,” has developed “systematic doubt,” which has led to “systematic skepticism” (i.e., doubting game or “methodological doubting”) (p. 3). Consequently, “we want to know which view is most worthy of trust” or what is academically and socially deemed as “true” (p. 4; italics added). To illustrate, the “critical” in critical theory is a “word that still actively signals … a critique of what is more generally accepted as ‘theory’.” (p. 2).

The doubting game has generated researchers, academics, and intellects who “can only doubt ideas they don’t like”—within the safe confines of dominant ideas that are often situated in the centre (p. 5). Elbow writes, “we are trying to find flaws we couldn’t see before and to see which ideas look best after this scrutiny of doubt” (p. 5).

Conversely, “the believing game is the disciplined practice of trying to be as welcoming and accepting as possible of every idea we encounter” (p. 1). That is, we are not only trying to be open-minded; Elbow writes of the believing game: “instead of scrutinizing fashionable or widely accepted ideas for hidden flaws … [we] scrutinize unfashionable or even repellent ideas for hidden virtues” (p. 1). Underpinning the believing game is the belief that “when an idea goes against current assumptions and beliefs—or, if it seems alien, dangerous, or poorly formulated—we often cannot see any merit in it” (p. 1). Rather than doubting ideas that contemporary forms of critical-thinking demands (Elbow, 2008), practicing the believing game opens us up to Greene’s (1995) “imaginative capacity” (p. 19). The power of the believing game is that we “try to believe things we don’t believe—especially things we don’t want to believe” in order to advance knowledge without losing methodological or intellectual rigour, position, authority, or credibility (p. 4). Elbow is not suggesting we adopt a “Pollyanna”-type view of the world; he suggests that with the believing game, “we’re trying to find virtues we couldn’t see before and to see which ideas look best after this scrutiny of believing” (p. 5).

Elbow proposes that we use the “methodological or systematic believing as our tool” rather than the accepted-as-norm “methodological or systematic doubting” (p. 4). In this, Elbow advocates that we assume that believing and critical thinking cannot co-exist—and, are polar opposites (p. 4). That is, “we learned to separate the process of doubting from the decision to reject” (p. 4). This results in “the process of believing” being “tainted” by disbelief (p. 4); belief, as a consequence, carries the connotation of “commitment” (p. 4). As we cannot suggest certainties in research, the believing game may be disassociated with intellectual, theoretical, and methodological rigour (pp. 2-4). From a philosophical position, Elbow states, “neither tool can demonstrate that anything [in research] is actually true” (p. 5). Elbow lays out three arguments for the believing game: 

• Elbow’s theory asks: “Let me enter into” your experiences and understandings so I can “get a better perspective on my thinking—and see if there’s something important that you can see that I can’t see” (p. 6). The believing game “helps us find flaws in our thinking” that are most often based on “assumptions that are part of the very structure of our thinking” (p. 5). Thus, what is invisible in our thinking becomes visible both in terms of larger social, cultural, familial, and institutional narratives and beliefs (p. 5; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).
• The believing game is underpinned by the belief that we “cannot validly reject an idea till we’ve succeeded in dwelling in it—in effect to believe it” (p. 6). This helps us, as Elbow says, to “choose among competing positions” rather than differing or competing ideologies.
• The believing game “develops a different kind of thinking … and also a different way of interacting with others” (p. 7). Elbow states that with the believing game, we are “trying to believe an alien idea [that] can make us fear being changed or polluted” (p. 7). Where the doubting game uses “the rhetoric of proposition…, the believing game is the rhetoric of experience” (p. 8). It asks, “Help me see what you see because I can’t see it” (p. 8); the believing game asks us to get close to different ways of understanding through lived experiences.

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[1] Discerning resonant threads is undertaken with the support of community so that patterns became visible that I may not have been able to see. This was important in this inquiry as my higher education experiences are also shaped by experiencing systemic childhood poverty. Community (i.e., supervisory committee members, works-in-progress partner), were instrumental in ensuring that my own experiences did not silence participants’ experiences.

[2] Dr. Vera Caine (nursing) and Dr. Janice Huber (education) from the University of Alberta brought forth Elbow’s (2008) theory as the theoretical framework to unpack the narrative threads.

[3] This understanding is shaped from a conversation with Dr. Susan Strega (Professor), School of Social Work, University of Victoria. I am deeply grateful for her support in helping me to understand the tensions I was experiencing.

[4] Mary Lee Bird is not a pseudonym; I use her actual name with her permission.

[5] While I am aware of institutional issues (e.g., pressures to increase “bums in seats” while maintaining the same level of academic advisors; the reduction of tenure-track professors and corresponding increases in sessional instructors), I have wonders about this as a mitigating factor for practicing a lack of belief in students who are not identified by universities as “top students.”