Indigenous Studies: A Matter of Social Justice; A Matter of Urgency

Abstract

It has long been a matter of concern that Indigenous students, as a group, do less well educationally than their non-Indigenous counterparts. Despite the evidence to support the fact that if students and their cultures are not acknowledged, they tend to be less engaged in schooling than those students whose cultures are presented as the norm. Indigenous studies are apt to be at the margins of the curriculum. In this article, therefore, a case is made for teaching Indigenous studies through a comparison of the author's home state of Western Australia with Montana—one of the few states in the United States to have mandated the teaching of Indian culture and history and to tease out lessons that could be learned because the teaching of Indigenous studies is a matter of social justice; indeed, it is a matter of urgency.