A growing awareness of the value of Aboriginal teachers in Australian schools has motivated the development of the 'On Country' Teacher Education (OCTE) program through collaboration between the ...Western Australian Department of
Education and Curtin University. The OCTE builds on previous initiatives to increase the number of Aboriginal teachers in Australian classrooms and has also developed new features. It enables Aboriginal and Islander Education Officers
(AIEOs) to obtain a teaching degree while studying 'on Country' and working in their (often remote) schools. An evaluation of the first year of this course through the interviews/yarns with the AIEOs, principals, and program staff is
outlined, highlighting the value of support afforded by the program, course flexibility, and face-to-face workshops. We also describe how feedback provided through this evaluation has been considered and incorporated into the ongoing
development of the course. Author abstract
The benefits of school and community partnerships are well documented in government reports and the academic literature. A number of government initiatives have been introduced to actively involve ...parents and the community in school matters. In addition, various agencies have produced resource kits and guidelines to assist schools and communities to develop and foster partnerships, and partnership agreements. Much of this study has focused on working with Aboriginal peoples. The use of the term, ‘Aboriginal’ in this paper refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Initiatives such as ‘What Works’ have had some success in building strong Aboriginal community and school partnerships, however, the literature also reveals that despite such initiatives, the levels of success vary from school to school, with some partnerships unable to develop or be sustained. In responding to a gap in the current knowledge, the authors examine the value of school–community partnerships in a rural and remote school where the percentage of Aboriginal Australian students is high. A brief summary of the outcomes of some of the major initiatives with aims to build effective school and community partnerships is provided. This is followed by the findings from a small pilot research study on the implementation of initiatives to build strong school–community relationships in rural and remote Indigenous school settings in Western Australia. The challenges that may inhibit the establishment of successful school–community relationships/collaboration are discussed and suggestions provided on how these challenges can be addressed.
The work of Aboriginal Education Workers (AEWs) in Australian schools is complex and multifaceted, and yet it is often misunderstood, or worse, devalued. Added to this, the conditions of employment ...for many AEWs is often insecure, with minimal pay, few opportunities for career progression or meaningful professional development. Despite this there continues to be, as there have been for decades, research findings, policies and reports attesting to the invaluable role of AEWs in schools and communities. The theoretical standpoint of Nakata's (2007) ‘cultural interface’ is used in this paper to critically (re) examine the role of AEWs in Australian schools. Drawing from relevant past and contemporary literature, this paper draws attention to past and contemporary theorising and policy concerning the roles of AEWs. It asserts that if the work of AEWs is to be better understood and valued then it must be reconsidered in a more transformative way that benefits both the students and schools which they support.
The education of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander students in Australian universities has received considerable attention in both the literature and government policy in the 21st century. The ...participation and graduation rates for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs have remained low and are becoming a particular focus in universities across Australia. This paper reflects on the life and contribution of David Unaipon, the enrolment data from a small sample of universities across Australia and the literature to discuss potential strategies for improving the access to, participation in and graduation from higher education STEM courses.
Over the past decade Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies and perspectives have been mandated across the Australian national curriculum and all teachers are now required to demonstrate ...strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and have a broad knowledge of Aboriginal histories, cultures and languages. This paper describes a project focused on enabling Aboriginal Education Workers (AEWs) to play a critical role in transforming these initiatives into real and sustainable change through authentic, technology- based pedagogy. Indigenous research methodologies and design-based research (DBR) were used to investigate the potential educational roles for AEWs enabled by elearning and new technologies. The project, called Skilling Up: Improving educational opportunities for AEWs through technology based pedagogy was funded by the Office of Learning and Teaching. This paper reports on the findings of the study conducted in Western Australia, including pre-study survey results, together with a description of a unit of study to provide opportunities for AEWs to use technologies in their work, and to create authentic digital stories for use in teacher education. The development of design principles for the design of such environments is also discussed. Author abstract
In this article, we argue that current assessment practices in higher education require urgent examination and should be re-imagined in culturally responsive ways to ensure fairness for all. From ...sociocultural and social justice perspectives, we highlight examples of cultural and linguistic bias in assessment that disadvantages many First Nations students. Incorporating a constructivist viewpoint, we argue that assessment practices must keep pace with culturally responsive pedagogical practices to improve assessment validity for First Nations students and to maintain constructive alignment between learning, teaching, and assessment. Based on qualitative interviews with stakeholders in the On Country Teacher Education program, we describe how university lecturers changed their approaches to assessment and modified their assessment tasks to enact and create culturally responsive assessments. These practices, whilst beneficial for First Nations students, are viewed as being ‘responsive’ rather than ‘proactive’. Recommendations include shifting to a ‘proactive’ stance by evaluating the validity of student learning outcomes and assessment design from the onset.
Aboriginal children experience social and educational disadvantage and many are not engaged with schooling or learning, which results in significantly lower levels of educational attainment. The ...Aboriginal Education Program delivered by Scitech to remote Western Australian schools has been shown to significantly increase student ratings of their enjoyment of science, curiosity about science phenomena and their rating of science as a favourite subject. Teachers reported that student focus and engagement was very high during the Scitech activities and that student attendance and behaviour was better than usual. This study investigated the practices used by the Scitech presenters that generated high levels of student engagement. Analysis of classroom observations and transcripts of classroom dialogue from lessons that generated high levels of engagement showed that a set of 11 pedagogies underpinned this engaging practice. The pedagogical practices addressed: relationship-building, facilitation of effective hands-on activity work, participation in classroom discourse and connecting the science activities to the student's experiences and local context. The findings of this study elaborate the Primary Connections Indigenous perspectives framework, and provide a model to underpin approaches to teaching Aboriginal children, and possibly other children, who are not engaged with learning science. Author abstract
The Anthropocene epoch is known as the time when the actions of humans began to impact the planet in unprecedented ways. There is consensus that the “golden spike” coincided with the advent of ...colonialism and especially settler colonialism. Indigenous Peoples have been impacted by what has been called contemporary colonialism or new colonialism. This has had implications, not only for their local environment, but also for their cultures, languages, health, economies, and political self-determination. Our study is framed by theories of contemporary and new colonialism as well as cultural colonialism and how this is manifested in the discourses of mining companies as they trivialise or ignore community and fuse Indigenous futures with extractive industries, also failing to recognise the non-human rights of the land and post-humanist/new materialist perspectives. The auto-ethnographic yarn (knowledge sharing) told in this article is the voice of an Indigenous Aboriginal Yawuru man living in Western Australia. Through thematic analysis of his, and other Aboriginal people’s yarns, we reveal Indigenous values and beliefs of permanence, community care, and the ensoulment of nature. Thematic analysis of the scripted narratives of the value statements of two mining companies operating in Western Australia uncovers a notion of community care discordant with that of Aboriginal people as well as a focus on courage and curiosity. The occlusion of any traditional, bottom-up understandings of human/non-human relationships in the values statements of the mining companies contrast with the way that Indigenous People’s narratives point towards ecological, social and economic sustainability in an Anthropocene dystopian future.
Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) are characterised by their special relationships with their traditional lands and the natural world, which are essential to their physical and ...cultural survival, identity, knowledge, and spirituality. They are custodians of the land; however, often made invisible and voiceless in the face of irreversible destruction caused by human-induced planetary change. This Special Issue (SI) is inspired by the stories, worldviews, knowledge systems, and lived experiences of IPLCs worldwide. Based on the compounded impacts of global climate change and other human-induced crises on IPLCs’ ancestral lands, contributors to this SI recognise that the world has entered the Anthropocene – the epoch of human-induced planetary change. While human activities are considered geologically recent, they have profoundly impacted the planet. The contributors challenge the discourse of the Anthropocene, not only because it takes humanity as the prime reference point in understanding the world but also because of its reproduction of the onto-epistemological foundations of Eurocentric philosophy, which underpins colonialism and racial capitalism. This SI opens up space for historically marginalised IPLCs’ cosmologies, which embody their holistic, spiritually and physically interconnected, interdependent, and reciprocal relationships with land, the natural world, and non-human beings. It expands and pluralises the discourse of the Anthropocene through the concept of posthumanism to recognise alternative knowledge systems that decentre humanity’s dominant position in understanding the world. IPLCs’ onto-epistemologies align with posthuman or more-than-human ways of knowing, being, and doing, which embody their reciprocal relationships with land, non-human beings, and the natural world that are all deemed as living entities with agency. IPLCs’ voices urge us to relearn our ancestral ways of understanding and interacting with the world and reconnect to our holistic relationships with the planet Earth and its beings to ensure the continuity of nature and culture.
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