Indigenous Australian Students Research Articles

Colonial dominance and Indigenous resistance in Australian national education declarations

ABSTRACT Australia first documented national goals for primary and secondary education in 1989 with the Hobart Declaration on Schooling. Since then, Australia’s goals for the education of children have been updated in three subsequent National Education Declarations. Each of the Declarations includes specific goals for Indigenous Australian students, as well as goals for students to learn about Indigenous Australian peoples and cultures. Arranged into four thematic sections covering each Declaration, this paper traces colonial representation of Indigenous Australians in these policy documents. Each section discusses the socio-political factors that influenced education policy at the time each Declaration was written, and the socio-political priorities of Indigenous peoples in the same period. We argue that the evolution of representations of Indigenous peoples in education policy is evidence of the continued resistance of Indigenous peoples to colonial dominance in education policies.

The Indigenous Digital Divide: COVID-19 and Its Impacts on Educational Delivery to First Nation University Students

The global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted that the delivery of online education inadvertently disadvantaged Indigenous Australian university students. This situation was particularly critical for Indigenous students from rural and remote locations. Australian universities increased the use of digital technologies to engage, support and teach due to students’ inability to access campuses. This presented universities with challenges in supporting Indigenous students living in and returning to non-urban settings. Due to COVID, the need for better strategies and plans for Indigenous students returning to their rural or remote community to continue their studies is often not recognized. These communities often lack suitable infrastructure to access pedagogical and learning support opportunities. This paper explores how the business decision made by Australian universities to increase reliance on teaching online during COVID impacted the education of Indigenous students. This paper will then canvas ways this ongoing dilemma can be addressed by considering risks, measuring and monitoring performance to guide transformation, including universities’ more inclusive and respectful use of digital technologies involving First Nations people and cultures.

Exploring Queensland secondary teacher induction training undertaken prior to working with remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that are considered remote to metropolitan-dwelling, non-Indigenous Australians experience challenges attracting and retaining qualified teachers. Initial teacher education (ITE) is known to inadequately prepare teachers to engage Indigenous Australian students, however, we understand little about the induction training received by postgraduate secondary teachers prior to commencing work in remote schools with high enrolments of Indigenous students. This exploratory study investigated the relevance of the information provided in pre-service induction training and how this translated into classroom practice. Thirty-four Queensland secondary teachers with experience educating remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students responded to an online questionnaire investigating four different types of pre-service induction training: cross-cultural awareness, culturally appropriate pedagogy, classroom management, and student social and emotional wellbeing. Thematic analysis of their open-text responses identified three themes: training content, application of training and applicability to Indigenous students. Findings indicated inconstancies in completion rates, content significance and conversion of material into effectual classroom practices. It is suggested that providing community-specific pre-service induction training for Queensland secondary teachers could support them to engage remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in learning and may reduce the high frequency of teacher transfers and increase attendance rates of students.

Enabling Indigenous wellbeing in higher education: Indigenous Australian youth-devised strategies and solutions

Indigenous youth comprise over half of the Indigenous Australian population; however, there is a scarcity of research that focuses on improving Indigenous Australians’ wellbeing in higher education. The purpose of this study was to identify Indigenous-devised strategies to support wellbeing of salience to Indigenous Australian higher education students. Using Indigenous methodology, Indigenous youth (N = 7; aged between 18 and 25 years) studying at three higher education institutions in Australia participated in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis identified strategies and solutions for supporting and enhancing Indigenous youth wellbeing in higher education. Participants suggested that their wellbeing would benefit from increased opportunities for them to gain role models. They also suggested culturally supportive higher education environments were critical and could be achieved by employing more Indigenous academics and Indigenous mentors to implement personalised student support, introducing mandatory cultural competency training for all staff, and employing culturally safe counselling services. Indigenous youth also suggested strategies for enhancing institutional policy such as ensuring Indigenous culture and perspectives were taught across all faculties; developing reconciliation action plans, financial support, and scholarships to require proof of Aboriginality and evidence of hardship; and an institutional wellbeing strategy designed to support Indigenous students’ wellbeing.

Reducing inequalities through strengths-based co-creation: indigenous students’ capabilities and transformative service mediator practices

PurposeService marketers are increasingly aware of inequalities triggered by service systems and the need to prioritize practical strategies for reducing inequalities. A priority area for the Australian Government is reducing university education inequities for Indigenous Australians. This paper aims to examine how Indigenous Australian university students build and leverage their capabilities and strengths, harnessing service providers’ efforts towards enhancing participation (and completion) in university education – an essential transformative outcome for reducing inequalities.Design/methodology/approachA three-stage qualitative research process explored student retention/completion and capability building among a sample of Indigenous Australian university students, typically under-represented in the higher education sector.FindingsApplying a manual thematic analysis, the findings reveal Indigenous students’ value co-creating capabilities (summarized in three dimensions) harness multi-actor processes extending beyond the service provider. Five dimensions summarize the service provider’s transformative service activities that strengthen capabilities for Indigenous Australian university students. Networks of place (a structured Indigenous Centre); processes (university systems); and people (social support), including peer-to-peer networks, are important service assemblages.Practical implicationsThe authors present implications for supporting Indigenous students in persisting with and completing higher education. More broadly, the authors provide recommendations for service marketers to resolve barriers to service equality and enhance strengths-based approaches to value co-creation.Originality/valueUnderpinned by a strengths-based approach, the authors contribute towards an agenda of sustainable transformative services. Although considerable research reviews the experiences of Indigenous students, little research has taken a transformative service research perspective. Addressing this, the authors propose a conceptual framework linking consumers’ agentic capabilities with transformative service mediator practices.

Methodologies to reveal young Australian Indigenous students’ mathematical proficiency

A 7-month mathematics proficiency program was conducted in a primary Australian Indigenous community school. This paper focuses on outlining the specific methodologies employed to explore how students’ mathematical proficiency changed throughout the implementation of the program in Years 2 to 4 (~ 7 to 9 years old). A mixed methods research design was utilised, and findings will be presented to evidence how the combination of standardised tests, diagnostic tests, and Newman interviews were useful in capturing and making visible young Indigenous student’s mathematical proficiency. Whilst standardised tests provided a useful and comparable measure of student achievement, diagnostic tests and Newman interviews gave space for Indigenous student voice and demonstrated their strengths and areas for improvement in relation to their conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and strategic competence. From these findings, recommendations concerning the adjustment of data collection procedures for young students in this setting are presented. The findings question the accuracy of standardised tests in revealing young students’ proficiency, and this has implications for the extent to which standardised tests are relied upon to inform educational reform particularly for Indigenous students. Striving for equitable educational outcomes is an important endeavour in Australia, and such undertakings must be driven by meaningful and accurate evidence of students’ proficiency in mathematics.

Self-concept a game changer for academic success for high-achieving Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous students: Reciprocal effects between self-concept and achievement

Indigenous Australians are highly disadvantaged educationally and on all socioeconomic indicators, but graduating from university largely closes this gap. However, despite clear examples of Indigenous success, little research has focused on the drivers of success of high-achieving Indigenous students to emulate their success. Thus, the explicit purpose of our study is to identify psychological drivers of Indigenous academic success for high-achieving students and compare these to those of high-achieving nonIndigenous students. To accomplish this purpose, we test the reciprocal effects model (REM) of self-concept and achievement for high-achieving Indigenous students (N = 493) and matched nonIndigenous students (N = 586) in primary and secondary schools. Academic achievement and self-concept were reciprocally related over three annual time waves, supporting the REM for high-achieving Indigenous and nonIndigenous students. Furthermore, results were invariant over two within-person facets (time and content-domain—math vs. English) and two between-person facets (Indigenous vs. nonIndigenous, and primary vs. secondary students). The results have important policy/practice implications for the drivers of success for high-achieving Indigenous students, education of high-achieving students more generally, and self-concept theory and research.

Sustainable Teaching Strategies to Teach Indigenous Students: Their Relations to Students’ Engaged Learning and Teachers’ Self-Concept

To help Indigenous Australian students engage with academic work, educators and teachers alike need to understand what teaching strategies are beneficial for Indigenous students’ learning. This study examines the predictions of the three types of Indigenous teaching strategies, namely, integrative teaching (integrating Indigenous perspectives in teaching), community linking (utilising Indigenous community input), and culture sharing (encouraging Indigenous students to share cultural values), to Indigenous students’ engaged learning and teachers’ self-concept in teaching. With 208 teachers surveyed from 52 Australian urban and rural primary schools, we found that culture sharing had positive contributions to Indigenous students’ engaged learning, whereas integrative teaching and community linking positively predicted teachers’ self-concept in Indigenous teaching. These differential patterns suggest useful strategies for enhancing student- or teacher-focused outcomes, respectively. How to successfully integrate these Indigenous teaching strategies is a key to successful teaching practice, as these strategies cannot only improve Indigenous students’ engaged learning but, at the same time, may foster teachers’ confidence in teaching Indigenous students.

Implementing Reading to Learn (R2L) Pedagogy to Help Indonesian Junior High School Students Generate News Report Text

The Reading to Learn (R2L) pedagogy, which requires preparing for reading, detailed reading, joint construction, and independent construction steps, was invented in Australia to assist Australian indigenous secondary school students in reading texts and finding useful information inside the texts. This one group pre-test and post-test design was aimed at unfolding the effectiveness of R2L pedagogy in helping the students in constructing well-structured news report texts. A total of 51 ninth-grade students from a junior high school, Bandung, Indonesia participated in the research. The students received the R2L pedagogy in four meetings within a month, excluding the pre-test and post-test.

Boarding schools: A longitudinal examination of Australian Indigenous and non‐Indigenous boarders’ and non‐boarders’ wellbeing

AbstractImproving educational outcomes for Indigenous Australian students is a key strategy to helping Indigenous people reach their full potential. This has resulted in well‐intentioned efforts by Australian educators and governments to ensure Indigenous children have positive school experiences. However, Indigenous students still lag behind their non‐Indigenous counterparts in educational outcomes. This is particularly so for Indigenous students living in rural and remote parts of Australia where educational opportunities are limited, especially in high school. One solution to this problem has been to enrol these students in boarding schools in urban and metropolitan centres. While research on the success of boarding schools for Indigenous students is scarce, what little that does exist is not encouraging. The focus of this research was to examine the effects of boarding for Indigenous (n = 11) and non‐Indigenous students’ (n = 158) wellbeing (N = 1423) in two large private boys’ schools. Participating students aged 12–18 years old completed a survey measuring wellbeing constructs on two occasions, 12 months apart. Non‐Indigenous boys were generally higher in wellbeing compared with Indigenous boys. There was also evidence of improved social wellbeing beyond that of non‐Indigenous boarders over time. Overall, while evidence of merit was weak, boarding schools may benefit their Indigenous students’ development in social wellbeing.

Is Indigeneity hidden in the shadow of Australian national school reforms?

AbstractWithin a policy regime increasingly focused on measurement, Australian Indigenous students are highly visible in school education debates as underperforming subjects for intervention. This is consistent with broader Indigenous policy discourse, which highlights disadvantage and deficit. At the same time, their Indigeneity, while acknowledged in principle, becomes less visible as the concentration on English literacy and the increasing focus on schooling as a pathway to economic participation has intensified. Recent shifts in education policy narratives of Indigeneity have the potential to counter these trends, and allow Indigeneity to emerge from the shadows of dominant policy frameworks. In this article, we argue that these shifts, while too early to translate into outcomes, deserve attention.

Reterritorialising pedagogies of listening: bringing into dialogue culturally responsive pedagogies with Reggio Emilia principles

ABSTRACT Cultural and linguistic diversity in educational settings is the new normal internationally. However, domestic research shows that Indigenous Australian students are still not benefiting from school. Despite global research on Culturally Responsive Pedagogies and Reggio Emilia being proven to work with minoritised groups in settler societies, little research exists in Australia. This paper addresses this noticeable gap in the literature, bringing into dialogue the culturally responsive pedagogy movement with Reggio Emilia principles for theoretical nuanced examination of listening pedagogies. This dialogue seeks to shift epistemological and ontological framings of the child and their schooling experience. The paper argues for a deterritorialising of Indigenous ways of being and knowing that view learning as socially and culturally mediated. A central finding is that culturally responsive Reggio Emilia inspired practice offers educational change through a decolonising frame using instructional dimensions of relational and dialogic teaching. The paper concludes that reductive pedagogy constrains Indigenous listening and learning and that explicitly connecting curriculum to students’ cultural strengths is an instructional reform opportunity for reterritorialising pedagogy.

Higher Education Completion Rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students Using A Multi-Agency Matched Population Cohort

Using the Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP), which combines health, tax, welfare and demographic data with student data, our analysis looked at the relationship between income support and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university completion rates.
 IntroductionDomestic undergraduate university completion rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are significantly lower (40%) than non-Indigenous students (66%). Few prior studies have used population level matched data from multiple agencies to analyse the determinants of Australian Indigenous completion rates.
 Objectives and ApproachWe aimed to quantify the major determinants driving the completion rates of Indigenous students in Australian undergraduate university courses compared with domestic non-Indigenous students. We used the Higher Education Information Management System (HEIMS) linked to the MADIP creating approximately 555, 000 records. A Random forest tree was constructed to determine the most important indicators for outcome of interest which were then used for matching and statistical analysis. Summary statistics and a binomial logit was used on the matched sample to confirm significance.
 ResultsWe found that Indigenous students are more likely to start university belonging to around three equity groups such as having a lower socio-economic status background, older commencement age and being the first member of their family to attend university. However, Indigenous status remains a significant contributor to lower completion rates after controlling for a wide range of equity groups. One factor that has a positive influence on Indigenous university completion rates is access to study assistance. Completion rates for Indigenous students who were not members of other equity groups on income support was 70 per cent compared to 57 per cent for similar students on no income support.
 Conclusion / ImplicationsThese linked datasets provide the opportunity to better evaluate the drivers of completion rates of Australian Indigenous students to inform and evaluate policy reforms.

School-based Indigenous cultural programs and their impact on Australian Indigenous students: a systematic review.

ABSTRACT This critical systematic review of Australian research literature provides insights into the aspirations of Indigenous communities to collaborate with schools in establishing local Indigenous language and cultural programmes. This systematic review investigates the body of Australian research into the cultural, social and educational impacts on those Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students who have had opportunities to engage with these school-based Indigenous languages and/or cultural programmes. The review found that while many Indigenous families have advocated for their children’s to have access to quality language and cultural programmes, barriers of indifference, resourcing and leadership, have worked to limit students’ ability to access to these programmes. The studies highlight the effects on students sense of identity, the strengthening connectedness to community and County and the intergenerational sharing of cultural knowledge.

Participatory design for community-based research: a study on regional student higher education pathways

Supporting higher education participation across equity groups has long been a directed effort in global higher education practice and policy. However, to date, there has been little improvement in the rates of Australian higher education participation by equity groups such as regional/remote, low socioeconomic, and Indigenous Australian students. In this study, we visited four outer-regional communities in Victoria, Australia to utilise participatory design methods as an approach to explore participants’ ideas on the optimal nature of early-stage higher education outreach interventions and how future resources or programmes can be designed. Our case study of four schools showcases how participatory design with students (Year 7 and 8), school staff, and carers (e.g. family, community leaders) (n = 101) helped to elicit participant feedback and ideas as well as support the subsequent co-design of future resources and outputs. Key findings included the need to address information gaps on the daily life of university students and the importance of context-specific advice and interventions.

Deficit metrics in Australian Indigenous education: through a media studies lens

ABSTRACT Journalistic news values and digital technology align with education policy and practice to construct a narrow world of Indigenous educational achievement and contribute to a discourse of negativity, failure and disempowerment. Digital technologies have enabled the online publication of educational performance that is a valuable source of news for journalists and editors. In this virtual world, Indigenous students are numerically ranked and publicly compared to their ‘mainstream’ peers. Despite significant criticism of the educational trend towards high-stakes testing and league tables there has been little investigation into the role of news media in the reporting of Australia’s National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). This article takes a media studies lens to examine the measurement and comparison of Indigenous school performance through the online publication of NAPLAN results and the My School website. A textual analysis of 143 news reports about Australian Indigenous students’ NAPLAN results over an eight-year period from 2010 to 2017 found that Australia’s news media told the story of Indigenous educational performance through a language of measurement and failure. This focus on deficit metrics fails to question the underlying assumptions of educational testing and comparison and perpetuates a discourse of deficit in Indigenous education.

Interschool partnerships: remote Indigenous boarding students experiencing Western education whilst keeping culturally safe

ABSTRACT Secondary education access for remote Northern Territory Indigenous Australian students is limited. Although many students attend boarding schools, few complete Year 12. Whole communities rarely engage in their children’s boarding school education and boarding schools seldom engage with Elders to support a child’s cultural journey. This article presents research findings from interviews conducted with two adults from a very remote Indigenous community and six staff from a partner Western interstate boarding school community. Using a qualitative methodology with phenomenological design, findings show how students achieve Western educational success whilst maintaining their culture and offer implications, including possible model replication, for other communities.

A STEP-UP Resilience Intervention for Supporting Indigenous Students Attending Boarding Schools Its Development and Implementation

Developing and nurturing resilience is critical to the social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) of Indigenous Australian adolescents and their continuing life trajectories. The attendance of many Indigenous adolescents from remote communities at boarding schools creates a need to prioritise and proactively create opportunities that build and nurture student resilience. This requires sustainable and multi-dimensional school-wide approaches. Despite this need, there are no documented SEWB or resilience building approaches for Australian Indigenous students who attend boarding schools. We describe the use of participatory action research to develop and implement a two-year STEP-UP intervention with boarding schools, designed to create supportive environments for improving psychosocial resilience and wellbeing of remote-living Indigenous students. The intervention consisted of three components implemented annually across eight schools: a site-specific STEP-UP action plan; staff capacity development; and an annual Schools and Communities Conference. Thematic analysis of a systematic literature review, documented action planning, conference group processes, resilience theory and survey findings from the associated broader resilience study resulted in the identification of six resilience building domains: valuing culture and identity; developing cultural leadership; nurturing strong relationships; building social and emotional skills; creating safe, supportive environments; and building staff capacity. These domains became the resulting framework for STEP-UP planning and enabled focused examination of practices and future planning. Learnings from the intervention process suggest principles to consider when designing interventions: utilising a strengths-based approach; design responsiveness; collaborative partnerships; institutional capacity; and sustainability. A resilience toolkit website was developed to enable knowledge translation and sustainability beyond the study.

Towards an Australian model of culturally nourishing schooling

ABSTRACT 2020 looms large for Indigenous education in Australia, with the ‘Refreshed’ Close the Gap strategy hanging over the collective heads of schools, Indigenous students and their families. After a decade of promises, there is now an acknowledgement within the government that programmes to improve student outcomes in literacy, numeracy and school engagement, as currently implemented, have little possibility in affecting the changes required to sustainably shift Indigenous student’s schooling success. This paper draws together the findings from eleven concurrent systematic reviews of Australian Indigenous education (AER, 2019, 29(1)) and an in-depth analysis of four key underpinning elements of a culturally nourishing education for Australian Indigenous students. It is argued that the four tenets of this model centres on the curriculum construct of Learning from Country, the authentic inclusion of cultural practices and Indigenous languages in both curriculum and school practice, establishing epistemic and pedagogic mentoring for teachers and the development of a robust professional development model to support a transformative shift in teachers’ pedagogic practices. The authors argue that a whole-school approach explicitly negotiated with and supported by Indigenous families, and that centres these key principles are required if the promise of educational success is ever to be met.

Integrating Healthcare Services for Indigenous Australian Students at Boarding Schools: A Mixed-Methods Sequential Explanatory Study.

Introduction:Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian adolescents from remote communities attend boarding schools, requiring integrated healthcare between home and schools. This study explored students’ health status, healthcare service use and satisfaction.Methodology:A two-phased mixed-methods explanatory design was implemented. 32 Indigenous primary and 188 secondary boarding school students were asked their health status, psychological distress, use of healthcare services in community and boarding school, and service satisfaction. Results were fed back to students, parents and community members, and education and healthcare staff to elicit further explanation and interpretation.Results:In the previous year, 75% of primary and 81% of secondary boarding school students had visited a doctor. More than 90% were satisfied with healthcare services used. Despite 27.1% reporting high psychological distress, students did not perceive distress as reducing their overall health, nor was distress associated with mental healthcare service use.Discussion:Despite high levels of service use and satisfaction, this study highlighted the need for improved healthcare integration for Indigenous adolescents between school-based and remote community services. Further research is needed to identify students’ expectations and models for healthcare integration.Conclusion:With resourcing, schools could play a greater role in facilitating access to healthcare.