Aboriginal Education Research Articles

Gender and aboriginality

AbstractThis paper re-examines ideas of culture that have been dominant within the field of Aboriginal education. It draws upon feminist post-structuralism and postmodernism in order to critique the practice of dichotomising differences between Australian Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultural practices. It uses this critique to examine current mismatch theories of differential educational location. Finally, it asks whether we need to sustain an interest in macrotheories in order to retain the ability to theorize about gender and Aboriginality across different sites.

Stand Up My Country, Stand Up! Aboriginal Views on Education Since Colonisation

Aboriginal artists, authors and songwriters have expressed their thoughts and experiences about Aboriginal education through plays, poems, short stories, novels and songs. Their views cover a broad spectrum of educational issues that focus on educational experiences since contact, the teaching of traditional Aboriginal knowledge as part of the school curriculum, and other issues in both ways education.

Aboriginal Studies Training and Development Does it Change Attitudes?

Since mid 1990 I have been part of the Eastern Area Aboriginal Studies team. The “team” comprises two people, myself and an Aboriginal Education Worker (AEW), Mrs. Shirley Gollan. The role of the Aboriginal Studies team is to provide training and development in Aboriginal Studies for school communities across the Education Department Eastern Area.

Aboriginal Students Perceptions of the ‘World of Work’ and Implications for the Teaching of Work/Career Education

As part of my work this year I was required to undertake an evaluation project. I decided to combine some of my concerns about the appropriateness for Aboriginal students of some of the ways in which state education curriculum priorities are implemented with one of my focus curriculum areas, namely Work Education.In South Australia the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy ( AEP ) is seen as the overarching Aboriginal Education Policy. However, most Aboriginal students in South Australia and all state schools are required to address mandatory curriculum are as set out in the “Educating for the 21st Century” (1990), the curriculum policy document.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Urban Classrooms

AbstractMuch of the literature on Aboriginal education tends, and rightfully so, to emphasise the disadvantages Aboriginal children face when they enter into Western schooling. Cultural discontinuity theory proposes that cultural mismatch between the home and school cultures is an important factor in the alienation and school failure for minority (e.g. Aboriginal) children. Research certainly supports the view that Aboriginal students differ from their Western counterparts in terms of world view, learning styles and sociolinguistic etiquette. Current cultural ecology theory proposes that some minority group students (i.e. from ‘involuntary’ or ‘colonized’ minorities) rectify these differences in opposition and in resistance to the majority culture and thus play an active role in perpetuating school failure (Ogbu, 1987). In some urban schools, it appears that the inability of teachers to understand and cater for the cultural differences of their Aboriginal students is compounded by an active resistance to the school culture by those students. This paper investigates the teaching styles and practices of two teachers in urban schools who not only recognise and cater for the unique differences and abilities of their Aboriginal students but who have actively created learning environments in which student resistance is either directed towards group enhancing goats or rendered inappropriate. Pseudonyms are used throughout this paper.

Yellow Brick Roads in Aboriginal Education

The idea of two-way education has great appeal because it holds out the promise that schools can achieve something that historically they have found extremely difficult; encompassing Aboriginal cultural maintenance while providing needed white knowledge. However, it will be argued here that while two-way theories are part of the current widely adopted rhetoric of educational change they are not practical curriculum alternatives for Aboriginalising Central Australian schools because they do not make sense in terms of real interaction between the cultures. For this reason, attractive as these two-way theories are, they are also hazardous. Their danger lies both in that they build up expectations for outcomes of Aboriginal schools and they associate these outcomes with Aboriginalisation, a process which will not be assisted by unworkable theories.

Aboriginal Children Want to Learn ‘Good School Work’

The study sets out to find out urban Aboriginal children's views of schools and teachers, particularly the things they enjoy and find valuable in their schooling experience and their ideas on what changes they would like to see. Literature indicates that whilst, on the one hand, Aboriginal parents and communities increasingly “want to help my children do better at school” (de Lacy, 1985, p..282), on the other hand very few succeed, especially once they have entered high school. A study by Goodnow and Burns (1985) has shown that primary school children are very discriminating judges of what helps them learn. Thus finding out what Aboriginal children actually say about their school experience may help educators to interpret their behaviour in the school setting more accurately and consequently to communicate with them more effectively. In the fairly extensive literature on Aboriginal children's education a number of relevant themes recur. One is the importance of personal relationships in Aboriginal children's learning. Affiliation is the basis of traditional Aboriginal relationships with individuality of the person secondary to the close knit family group. This is expressed as concern with affectionate relations in Aboriginal children's interactions with teachers and peers. It relates to what Honeyman (1986) calls traditional Aboriginal society's “humane teaching”, where education was through guidance rather than direct instruction. Another theme is the unpredictability of educational outcomes for Aboriginal students, particularly the nature of the acquisition of English literacy. “It is the most puzzling yet most debilitating characteristic of Aboriginal education to be recognised in recent times.” (Willmot, 1989, p.10) There are contradictory findings on Aboriginal adolescents' attitudes to school. Jordan (1984) in her South Australian study found that Aboriginal students had a “positive view of schooling and school personnel” (p.289).

J.J. Fletcher. Clean, Clad and Courteous: A History of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales. Sydney: J.J. Fletcher, 1989. Pp. 375, 24 illus., map, index. J.J. Fletcher. Documents in the History of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales. Sydney: J.J. Fletcher, 1989. Pp. 272, index.

J.J. Fletcher. Clean, Clad and Courteous: A History of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales. Sydney: J.J. Fletcher, 1989. Pp. 375, 24 illus., map, index. J.J. Fletcher. Documents in the History of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales. Sydney: J.J. Fletcher, 1989. Pp. 272, index.

Aboriginal learning styles: A critical review

Abstract This article reviews critically the reviews and studies carried out under the broad rubric of aboriginal learning styles with the intent of assessing the utility of this approach for the study and practice of aboriginal education. It concludes that interactive learning style approaches have more to offer than cognitive based perspectives, particularly those that assume that aboriginal students have more‐or‐less fixed mental learning capacities. The former approach can be particularly useful when combined with classroom methods that are specifically geared to equip aboriginal students with the analytic and verbal skills which they need to get along in school and in the contemporary world.

Curriculum, Classroom Management and Discipline for the Aboriginal Student

The Director-General of Education in 1982, Mr. D.Swan, stated that Aboriginal education had two purposes: to enhance the development and learning of Aboriginal students and to enable all students to have some knowledge, understanding and appreciation of Aborigines and their cultural heritage (Aboriginal Education Unit, 1982, p.5). Unfortunately, today Aboriginal students still do not enjoy compatible success and participation rates to those of non-Aboriginal students. They are predominantly taught irrelvant curriculums and faced with inappropriate teacher classroom management and discipline styles. Subsequently, many Aboriginal students view schools as alien and hostile places. Schools do not meet Aboriginal students’ needs and problems of low self-esteem, motivation, academic achievement and a sense of safety and belonging often occur. Aboriginal students often do not behave in the same manner as non-Aboriginal students and teachers should be aware of the purposes of Aboriginal students’ behaviour and of the family and cultural influences which shape Aboriginals’ feelings, attitudes and values. There is a need in our schools for the inclusion of more Aboriginal perspectives in curriculums and for teachers to become aware of the need to change the way they teach and interact with Aboriginal students.

Aboriginal World View in the Educational Context

The literature on Aboriginal education holds few references to the presence and effect of Aboriginal world view. This brief paper examines some of the literature that does address this critical element and makes a plea for all educators working in bicultural environments to gain the appropriate understandings. Where schools and educators indicate the presence of such understanding the levels of attendance and thus the effectiveness of the programs provided will probably be enhanced. Without the understanding, and even with the best will in the world, much effort will be wasted.

Western institutional impediments to Australian Aboriginal education

(1991). Western institutional impediments to Australian Aboriginal education. Journal of Curriculum Studies: Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 297-325.

Why Are So Many Aboriginal Children Not Achieving At School ?

In 1988 the Aboriginal Education Policy Task Force called for broad equity between Aboriginal people and other Australians in access, participation, and outcomes at all stages of education. Aboriginals are not achieving a comparative level of success at school compared to non-Aboriginals. Symptomatic of problems in our schools are, the over representation of Aboriginals in lower classes, the high drop-out rate of Aboriginal children and their low participation rates in the senior years of high school. Some 17% of Aboriginal youth continue their schooling to year 12 compared to 49% of all students (Department of Employment, Education and Training, 1988, p.7). The failure of Aboriginal children to achieve at school has been widely interpreted as an individual failure on the part of Aboriginal children. Poor attainment has been attributed to lower I.Q. and ability, inadequate home environments, and poor parenting and not to the inadequacies of the education provided, to prejudices Aboriginal children face or to the active resistance by Aboriginal people to the cultural destruction implicit in many educational programs (McConnochie, 1982, p.20). An examination of the determinants of school success shows that Aboriginal children’s cultural values, beliefs and practices and Australian schools are often in conflict. To improve the outcomes for Aboriginal children schools are required to assess whether or not they are catering for the inherent needs and talents of individual Aboriginal children.

Clean, Clad, and Courteous: A History of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales

Clean, Clad, and Courteous: A History of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales

Alive and Well: Aboriginal Education in South Australia

During a four-week period in March and April, 1990, I had the opportunity to visit several Aboriginal and mainstream public schools in South Australia as part of a Fellowship sponsored by the New South Wales Department of School Education.The selection of South Australia as a location to visit was recommended to the author by various colleagues in Aboriginal education who considered that “many fine things were happening” in South Australia in the area of Aboriginal education. My impressions confirmed what I had been told by others.

An Annotated Aboriginal Science Bibliography

Science is one area within Aboriginal Education which appears to receive comparatively little attention.The author experienced this in practice when he was lecturing in science education to trainee teachers on the topic of teaching science to Aboriginal students in secondary schools. As a newcomer to the Northern Territory the author does not have direct personal experience in this area and so he decided to search the literature. No previous bibliography of this topic was found. Initially searching revealed very little, but slowly the collection of interesting articles has increased, and whilst it is realised that the selection included in this bibliography is far from complete, it is offered to the reader as a starting point.

The Impact of Aboriginal Education Assistants (AEAS) in New South Wales Public Schools

A considerable amount of research attests to the difficulties experienced by Aboriginal students in the school system of New South Wales. Coker (1981) states that Aboriginal students more than any other identificable group in Australia score consistently lower in basic skills tests involving reading, writing and mathematics. McConnochie (1973) suggests that the failure of Aboriginal students at school is primarily the fault of the school system and not the student. Institutions tend to debase the student’s self-concept and the group with whom they identify. This process contributed to the students’ low self-esteem and further contributed to low vocational aspirations and academic achievement.

Aboriginal education, program evaluation and public accountability

Aboriginal education, program evaluation and public accountability

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE Special courses in Aboriginal Higher Education

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE Special courses in Aboriginal Higher Education

Equality or Equity? : Education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Futures

The Hon. John Dawkins (then) Minister for Employment, Education and Training, launched the Aboriginal Education Policy at a grand event in the Committee Room at Parliament House on 26th October 1989. The Prime Minister blessed the occasion with his presence and a short speech. Three of the former Chairs of the the National Aboriginal Education Committee were there, as were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educationists from most Australian states. Only New South Wales, which decided to boycott the launch, wasn’t officially represented.There are two reasons for calling the policy that the Minister launched the Aboriginal Education Policy. Firstly, because it is the first policy formally endorsed by any National government; and secondly, because it responds to the call made in the 1988 Report of the Aboriginal Education Policy Task Force, for a concerted national effort – to achieve broad equity between Aboriginal people and other Australians in access, participation and outcomes at all stages of education. (National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy, 1989: 1.2.6 – Draft).