Beyond Niceness: Indigenous and Queer Perspectives on Disrupting Colonial Norms in Education

Presented by Kathleen Wilson and Kim Cao

In education, we are often encouraged to be collegial, professional, positive, and respectful. But what happens when these expectations make it harder to name harm, challenge inequity, or have the difficult conversations needed for meaningful change? Drawing from our paper Two Conversations: Indigenous and Queer Responses to Colonial Niceness, this presentation explores how “niceness” can operate as a subtle but powerful colonial tool within educational spaces.

Bringing together Indigenous and Queer perspectives, we explore three ways colonial niceness shows up in our work: through deflection, erasure, and imbalance. We consider what happens when institutions focus on how far they have come rather than the harms that remain, when difficult emotions or perspectives are treated as unprofessional, and when Indigenous, Queer, and other marginalized people are welcomed into spaces only when their contributions remain comfortable or palatable.

As educators working across K–12 and post-secondary contexts, we will share examples from our own workplaces and consider how these dynamics appear in classrooms, meetings, leadership, research, policy, and everyday relationships. Just as importantly, we will share ways we have seen educators interrupt them.

This session invites participants to think beyond “niceness” toward something more meaningful: relationships grounded in honesty, vulnerability, accountability, reciprocity, and care. Together, we ask what our educational spaces might look like if discomfort and disagreement were not always problems to solve, but sometimes necessary parts of learning, relationship, and transformation.