Islander Students Research Articles

Measuring success: Results from a national survey of recruitment and retention initiatives in the nursing workforce

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to identify common components of diversity pipeline programs across a national sample of nursing institutions and determine what effect these programs have on increasing underrepresented minority enrollment and graduation. DesignLinked data from an electronic survey conducted November 2012 to March 2013 and American Association of Colleges of Nursing baccalaureate graduation and enrollment data (2008 and 2012). ParticipantsAcademic and administrative staff of 164 nursing schools in 26 states, including Puerto Rico in the United States. MethodsChi-square statistics were used to (1) describe organizational features of nursing diversity pipeline programs and (2) determine significant trends in underrepresented minorities' graduation and enrollment between nursing schools with and without diversity pipeline programs ResultsTwenty percent (n = 33) of surveyed nursing schools reported a structured diversity pipeline program. The most frequent program measures associated with pipeline programs included mentorship, academic, and psychosocial support. Asian, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander nursing student enrollment increased between 2008 and 2012. Hispanic/Latino graduation rates increased (7.9%–10.4%, p = .001), but they decreased among Black (6.8%–5.0%, p = .004) and Native American/Pacific Islander students (2.1 %–0.3%, p ≥ .001). ConclusionsNursing diversity pipeline programs are associated with increases in nursing school enrollment and graduation for some, although not all, minority students. Future initiatives should build on current trends while creating targeted strategies to reverse downward graduation trends among Black, Native American, and Pacific Island nursing students.

Ability Grouping in New Zealand High Schools: Are Practices Evidence-Based?

There is an extensive international research literature on the effect of ability grouping (e.g., tracking, streaming, banding, setting) on children's academic and behavioral outcomes. However, it is questionable to what extent the findings of research on this topic have influenced the practice of ability grouping in New Zealand schools. Fifteen high schools in Christchurch were surveyed regarding their policies and practices on ability grouping. Interviews focused on the types of grouping used in academic subject areas, perceived benefits and disadvantages of this grouping, and perceived consequences for average students, gifted students, students with special needs, and Māori and Pacific Island students. Reported grouping practices, and views about these, are compared with findings from the literature on ability grouping. The need for schools to adopt more evidence-based strategies for ability grouping are discussed and recommendations for practice and for further research are outlined.

Red Dirt Thinking on Remote Educational Advantage

The discourse of remote education is often characterised by a rhetoric of disadvantage. This is reflected in statistics that on the surface seem unambiguous in their demonstration of poor outcomes for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. A range of data support this view, including National Assessment Program--Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) achievement data, school attendance data, Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data and other compilations such as the Productivity Commission’s biennial Overcoming Disadvantage Report. These data, briefly summarised in this paper, paint a bleak picture of the state of education in remote Australia and are at least in part responsible for a number of government initiatives (state, territory and Commonwealth) designed to ‘close the gap’. However, for all the rhetoric about disadvantage and the emphasis in strategic policy terms about activities designed to ‘close the gap’, the results of the numerous programs seem to suggest that the progress, as measured in the data, is too slow to make any significant difference to the apparent disparity between remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schools and those in the broader community. We are left with a discourse that is replete with illustrations of poor outcomes and failures and does little to acknowledge the richness, diversity and achievement of those living in remote Australia. This paper critiques the binaries of ‘disadvantage’ and ‘advantage’ as they are articulated in policy and consequently reported in data. Its purpose is to propose alternative ways of thinking about remote educational disadvantage, based on data from a five year Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation project. It asks, how might ‘relative advantage’ be defined if the ontologies, axiologies, epistemologies and cosmologies of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families were more fully taken into account in the education system’s discourse within/of remote schooling. Based on what we have termed ‘red dirt thinking’ it goes on to propose alternative measures of success that could be applied in remote contexts where ways of knowing, being, doing, believing and valuing often differ considerably from what the educational system imposes on it.

Compositional Effects, Segregation and Test Scores: Evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress

A model of the effects of economic level and ethnicity on grade 8 mathematics scores both within and between schools found that both the economic composition and the ethnic composition of a school were directly related to the effectiveness of that school. Projection of the data suggests that if the nation's schools were completely desegregated economically (but not at all ethnically), the test-score gap between free lunch students and students paying full price for lunch would decline by 25 %. Ethnic compositional effects for black, Asian/Pacific Islander (API), and Hispanic students were reversed from their within-school effects, with positive effects for students in schools with larger proportions of black and Hispanic students and a strong negative effect for students in schools with larger proportions of Asian/Pacific Islander students.

Constructing health and physical education curriculum for indigenous girls in a remote Australian community

Background: Over the last 20 years, curriculum development in Health and Physical Education (HPE) (or Physical Education, Physical Education and Health, Sport Education as it is variously called) has repeatedly attempted to address issues of equity and social inclusion. Why then does systemic educational disadvantage persist, and why do the poorest members of society acquire less privileged and privileging forms of HPE knowledge, skills and bodily dispositions? What constitutes relevant and responsive HPE curriculum for which groups of students remains a site of considerable contestation.Purpose: At a time when significant changes are being suggested to HPE curricula with the development of the Australian (National) Curriculum (see http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/), this paper is an attempt to refocus the analysis of education for Indigenous students in Australia upon the power and control relations operating within schools, rather than external social relations, using principles of pedagogic discourse from the sociological theories of Basil. The paper contributes to the growing corpus of studies on the social relations within schooling which constitute HPE curriculum, and the possibilities for interrupting systemic social inequity through the redesign of school curriculum and pedagogy.Methods: Using critical ethnographic methodology, a single, intrinsic case study of a school in a Torres Strait Islander community in Australia was undertaken. Document collation, observation and researcher notes, and individual and focus group interviews with stakeholders, comprised the data collection methods. Stakeholders including female students (n = 13), teachers (n = 7), parents (n = 2), school administrators (n = 4), regional education staff (n = 2), community advisors in education and health (n = 2), and regional health professionals (n = 6) comprised the group of key informants and research participants.Discussion and Conclusion: Government policy initiatives have reinforced a dominant and persistently negative discourse about ‘educational disadvantage’ when representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) students and educational outcomes. This paper challenges these negative discourses and focuses attention on the social relations within schooling which constitute the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of HPE curriculum, contributing to the large corpus of Bernsteinian studies of HPE curriculum which ‘look beneath the surface appearances of progress and innovation, to how inequities endure, despite rhetorical claims to the contrary that they have been eroded or have disappeared'. It also reveals the important contribution that Indigenous communities and educators have made and continue to make to curriculum decision-making in HPE for Indigenous Australian students.

Are We Making Education Count in Remote Australian Communities or Just Counting Education?

For quite some time the achievements of students in remote Australian schools have been lamented. There is not necessarily anything new about the relative difference between the results of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in remote communities and their counterparts in urban, regional and rural schools across Australia. However, in the last decade a number of changes in the education system have led to the difference being highlighted — to such an extent that what had been an ‘othering’ of remote students (and their families) has turned into marginalisation that is described in terms of disadvantage, deficit and failure. One of the primary instruments used to reinforce this discourse has been the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) testing. This instrument has also been used as part of the justification for a policy response that sees governments attempting to close the educational gap, sometimes through punitive measures, and sometimes with incentives. At a strategic level, this is reflected in a focus on attendance, responding to the perceived disadvantage, and demanding higher standards of performance (of students, teachers and schools more generally). Accountability has resulted in lots of counting in education — counts of attendance, enrolments, dollars spent and test scores. These measures lead one to conclude that remote education is failing, that teachers need to improve their professional standards and that students need to perform better. But in the process, have we who are part of the system lost sight of the need to make education count? And if it is to count, what should it count for in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities? These are questions that the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation is attempting to find answers to as part of its Remote Education Systems project. This article questions the assumptions behind the policy responses using publicly available NAPLAN data from very remote schools. It argues that the assumptions about what works in schools generally do not work in very remote schools with high proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. It therefore questions whether we in the system are counting the right things (for example attendance, enrolments and measures of disadvantage).

Red Dirt Thinking on Educational Disadvantage

When people talk about education of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, the language used is often replete with messages of failure and deficit, of disparity and problems. This language is reflected in statistics that on the surface seem unambiguous in their demonstration of poor outcomes for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. A range of data support this view, including the National Action Plan—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) achievement data, school attendance data, Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data and other compilations such as the Productivity Commission's biennial Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report. These data, briefly summarised in this article, paint a bleak picture of the state of education in remote Australia and are at least in part responsible for a number of government initiatives (state, territory and Commonwealth) designed to ‘close the gap’. For all the programs, policies and initiatives designed to address disadvantage, the results seem to suggest that the progress, as measured in the data, is too slow to make any significant difference to the apparent difference between remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schools and those in the broader community. We are left with a discourse that is replete with illustrations of poor outcomes and failures and does little to acknowledge the richness, diversity and achievement of those living in remote Australia. The purpose of this article is to challenge the ideas of ‘disadvantage’ and ‘advantage’ as they are constructed in policy and consequently reported in data. It proposes alternative ways of thinking about remote educational disadvantage, based on a reading of relevant literature and the early observations of the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation's Remote Education Systems project. It is a formative work, designed to promote and frame a deeper discussion with remote education stakeholders. It asks how relative advantage might be defined if the ontologies, axiologies, epistemologies and cosmologies of remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families were more fully taken into account in the education system's discourse within/of remote schooling. Based on what we have termed ‘red dirt thinking’ it goes on to ask if and what alternative measures of success could be applied in remote contexts where ways of knowing, being, doing, believing and valuing often differ considerably from what the educational system imposes.

Red Dirt Thinking on Aspiration and Success

This article sets the scene for the series of five articles on ‘red dirt thinking’. It first introduces the idea behind red dirt thinking as opposed to ‘blue sky thinking’. Both accept that there are any number of creative and expansive solutions and possibilities to identified challenges — in this case, the challenge of improving education in very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island schools. However, the authors believe that creative thinking needs to be grounded in the reality of the local community context in order to be relevant. This article draws on emerging data from the Remote Education Systems project (a project within the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation — CRC-REP) and highlights further questions and challenges we wish to address across the life of the project. It is part of a collection of papers presented on the theme ‘Red Dirt Thinking’. The red dirt of remote Australia is where thinking for the CRC-REP's Remote Education Systems research project emerged. This article will examine the various public positions that exist in regard to the aspirations of young remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, and consider the wider views that are held in terms of what constitutes educational ‘success’. We explore the models of thinking and assumptions that underpin this public dialogue and contrast these ideas to the ideas that are being shared by remote Aboriginal educators and local community members through the work of the Remote Education Systems project. We will consider the implications and relevance of the aspiration and success debate for the remote Australian context and propose approaches and key questions for improved practice and innovation in relation to delivering a more ‘successful’ education for remote students. The authors begin by posing the simple question: How would, and can remote educators build aspiration and success? The wisdom of several commentators on remote education in Australia is presented in terms of a set of simple solutions to a straightforward problem. The assumptions behind these simple solutions are often unstated, and part of this article's role is to highlight the assumptions that common arguments for solutions are premised on. Further to the above question, we will also consider the question: In remote communities where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students live and learn, how is success defined? Is there language that corresponds to the western philosophical meanings of success? Having considered some possible alternatives, based on the early findings of the Remote Education Systems project research, the authors then pose the question: How would educators teach for these alternative measures of success? The answers to these questions are still forthcoming. However, as the research process reveals further insights in relation to these questions, it may be possible for all those involved in remote education to approach the ‘problem’ of remote education using a different lens. The lens may be smeared with red dirt, but it will enable people involved in the system to develop creative solutions in a challenging and rich environment.

The Impact of Race and Ethnicity on the Identification Process for Giftedness in Utah

Many gifted education experts have found that Black, Hispanic, and Native American students are less likely to be identified for gifted programs than Asian American and White students. A study was conducted to ascertain the degree of underrepresentation of these groups in gifted programs in Utah. Using state-collected data from 14,781 students in six representative school districts in Utah, it was found through multiple logistic regression analysis that there was no statistically significant difference in the likelihoods that Black, Hispanic, or Native American students and White students would be identified as gifted; Asian American and Pacific Islander students were more likely to be identified as gifted than White students. After controlling for academic achievement and SES, it was found that all diverse demographic groups of students were more likely to be identified as gifted than White students, although the differences did not reach statistical significance for multiracial or Native American students. Further research into the nature and causes of disproportionate representation in gifted programs is suggested.

Identifying gifted students in Puerto Rico

The challenge of correctly identifying gifted students is a critical issue. Gifted education in Puerto Rico is marked by insufficient support and a lack of appropriate identification methods. This study examined the reliability and validity of a Spanish translation of the Gifted Rating Scales-School Form (GRS) with a sample of 618 island-residing Puerto Rican students. Alpha values for the Spanish-translated version ranged from 0.98 to 0.99, comparable to those reported for the USA standardization sample. Scores on the Spanish-translated GRS correlated positively and significantly with classroom grades, Naglieri Non-verbal Test of Intelligence (NNAT) scores and with the island’s local norm-referenced achievement test. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the six-factor model. Overall, findings provide evidence supporting the use of a Spanish-translated GRS for Puerto Rican island students.

Does improving school level attendance lead to improved school level achievement? An empirical study of indigenous educational policy in Australia

Current federal government policy initiatives in Aboriginal education and social welfare reform are based on assumptions about the relationship between increased attendance and increased student performance on standardized tests. There are empirical assumptions underlying these policy interventions and their accompanying public debates. Our aim here is to empirically explore the relationships between patterns of student attendance and patterns of student achievement in schools with significant cohorts of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students at the school level. Based on an analysis of the publicly available data reported on the ‘MySchool’ website, we find that reforms and policies around attendance have not and are unlikely to generate patterns of improved achievement. Questions about the rationale and rhetoric of government policy focused at the school level as opposed to the need to focus on pedagogy and curriculum are discussed.

Socioeconomic Status and Asian American and Pacific Islander Students' Transition to College: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis

The purpose of this study is to examine socioeconomic differences in the interpersonal factors that influence college access among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). Data on 1,460 AAPIs from the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS: 02/06) were analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques. Findings suggest that parental expectations, parental involvement, teacher quality, and peer academic orientation were associated with more positive transitions to college among AAPIs but that the nature of those relationships was complex and varied across socioeconomic statuses. The authors discuss the limitations of national databases in studying AAPIs and offer implications for higher education research, policy, and practice.

Etto n̄an Raan Kein: A Marshall Islands History, by Julianne M Walsh et al. (review)

Reviewed by: Etto n̄an Raan Kein: A Marshall Islands History, by Julianne M Walsh et al. Nancy J Pollock Etto n̄an Raan Kein: A Marshall Islands History, by Julianne M Walsh with Hilda Heine, Carmen Milne Bigler, and Mark Stege. Honolulu: Bess Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-57306-313-5; ix + 526 pages, maps, illustrations, appendixes, study questions, notes, glossaries, references, index. Cloth, US$74.97. This impressive and weighty tome has been compiled by several contributors to provide a textbook for use in Marshall Islands schools and the College of the Marshall Islands. It provides a chronological coverage of major events in the history of the Marshall Islands beginning with an overview of archaeological accounts of the islands’ early history through to consideration of impacts of the Compact of Free [End Page 428] Association in the new millennium. Illustrations and excerpts from early accounts accompany interviews with eminent individuals together with their backgrounds. The text is presented in useful blocks for teaching purposes, interspersed with many photos, art, and time lines. The main theme is the influence over time of iroij (chiefs; also spelled irooj) on trading, external relations, and internal control over lands and land users. The historical role of iroij is balanced by attention to outside influences including German, Japanese, and US, and particularly United Nations Trust Territory administration, and latterly the role of US negotiators in compiling the terms of the two Compacts of Free Association, an ongoing exercise. The compilers draw on early whaling, missionary, and trader accounts to illustrate how views differed, for instance: “In some instances, irooj showed respect for missionaries, even though their views disagreed” (149). Students will discover some of these varying views on their history when they research the pasts of their own atolls. My personal experience of one iroij’s views of Marshallese history came from Lejolan Kabua, self-styled “King of the Marshalls,” who invited me to work on Namu, “his atoll” (Ralik chain), though I discovered three other iroij also held land there. He stressed to me the significance of many customs surrounding the place of iroij in Marshallese society; in particular I learned of the custom of “etetal in bojar,” which expressed the respect of a rijerbal (worker) for the iroij of the land. His account of Marshall Islands history came through in our discussions while he visited Namu and I visited his house on Ebeye, Kwajalein, sailing on his trading ship, the Waikiki Downtown, which he had run in the past with an all-female crew. At his house in Kwajalein he elaborated for me on a photograph of himself receiving a check from President Lyndon Johnson for $10,000—giving me a sense of his perspective of the relations between the United States and the Marshall Islands, particularly the payments to ri-Kwajalein (Kwajalein people) for US use of the atoll as a military base and for testing missile accuracy. However, as is evident in one of the more subtle dimensions of this new textbook, much of the history of the terms of agreement between states and politicians, US and local, continues to be scrutinized. The detailed terms of the agreement for US use of Kwajalein as part of all the Compacts of Free Association (past and present, including land-use agreements) will not only continue to provide interesting research topics when investigated by Marshall Islands students (387), but future students will be left with the task of making sense of all the forces that led to the establishment and institutionalization of the relationships between the United States and the Marshall Islands. Themes notable for their mention in the text include brief discussions of navigation history and migrations, including accidental voyages as well as more recent Marshallese settlements in Arkansas, Seattle, Washington, California, and elsewhere in the United States. The use of cash, initially mainly from sales of copra, is another important theme, as it has influenced lifestyles, consumption, [End Page 429] and migration. The impact of nuclear testing from a Marshallese perspective is emerging in both poetic and prose forms as enlightened commentary on issues that have remained hidden and unexplained in Marshallese terms for so long. Relations between the Marshall...

Underage Drinking Among Asian American and Pacific Islander Adolescents

This study assessed the prevalence of alcohol abuse and dependence rates among four major ethnic groups of Hawai‘i and examined the relationship among risk factors, protective factors, and demographic variables related to underage drinking. A total of 196 students were administered the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children, the American Drug and Alcohol Survey, and the Prevention Planning Survey. Drinking rates for Native Hawaiian students were significantly higher than those for Japanese and Caucasian students. Multiple logistic regression models accounted for 49% of the variance for any alcohol use. Ethnic group differences were found when data were disaggregated for Asian and Pacific Islander students.

Dietary factors are associated with coronary heart disease risk factors in college students

It is hypothesized that healthy dietary and physical activity choices will be inversely associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors. Results from a cross-sectional study of 294 first-year University of Rhode Island students were used for the analyses. The presence of CHD risk factors was defined by the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III guidelines. Diet was assessed by three 24-hour food recalls, and physical activity was assessed by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Logistic regression models adjusted for sex estimated the odds of having CHD risk factors. A higher percent of kilocalories from alcohol was associated with a 9.9% increased risk for elevated triacylglycerol (odds ratio [OR], 1.099; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.000-1.207). Sugar intake (OR, 1.015; 95% CI, 1.004-1.026), saccharin intake (OR, 1.047; 95% CI, 1.015-1.080), and body mass index (BMI; OR, 1.139; 95% CI, 1.037-1.252) were associated with an increased risk of low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol; dietary fiber intake (OR, 0.934; 95% CI, 0.873-1.000) was associated with a decreased risk of low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Participants with a higher BMI were 9.4% more likely to have elevated fasting glucose (OR, 1.094; 95% CI, 1.004-1.192) and 193.6% more likely to have a larger waist circumference (OR, 2.936; 95% CI, 1.543-5.586). Dietary factors and BMI are better indicators of CHD risk than physical activity is in this population.

Grades of the Not So Modeled: Asian American and Pacific Islander Transfer Students at Middle University

The understanding of Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students, beyond stereotypes, has been limited (Museus, 2009). Although literature on transfer students has grown, the limited research on AAPI transfer students is lacking. A more accurate portrayal of their academic progress needs to be examined. One of the ways to better understand academic progress will be to critically analyze transcripts of AAPI transfer students to better understand how they navigate through higher education. Utilizing Critical Race Theory, myth of the model minority, and transfer shock, this study will provide literature for educators to better understand the experiences and to better serve diverse students' needs. The purpose of this study was to describe the demographic and academic progress of AAPI transfer students at a large Midwest institution. Some of the results included that the graduation rates for AAPI students (native and transfer) were comparable to other students of color groups, and that AAPI transfer students experienced transfer shock.

Identification and assessment contexts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners of Standard Australian English: Challenges for the language testing community

The paper discusses the contexts of language backgrounds, language learning, policy and assessment relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) students who are learning Standard Australian English (SAE) as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) in the state of Queensland. Complexities surrounding this cohort’s language situations and their language learning are explained in order to reveal why existing processes are not reliably identifying nor assessing those Indigenous students who are indeed EAL/D learners. In particular, it is argued, EAL/D processes and assessment instruments need to acknowledge and respond to the challenges posed by the rich and varied Indigenous language ecologies generated through language contact. System-level data does not disaggregate Indigenous EAL/D learners, nor correlate their levels of second language SAE proficiency with their academic performance data. Indigenous students are, however, over-represented in Queensland’s National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) under-performance data and raising their performance is a national priority and targeted through many government initiatives. Indigenous students comprise a highly heterogeneous group in terms of their cultural, linguistic and schooling backgrounds, and Indigenous EAL/D learners, too, represent a diverse grouping which has only been included relatively recently in Australian second language assessment tools, and around which there has been little extensive discussion, despite significant complexity surrounding this cohort. This paper explores the background contextual issues involved in identifying and assessing Indigenous EAL/D learners equitably and reliably.

Research with Indigenous Children and Young People in Schools: Ethical and Methodological Considerations

The involvement of young Indigenous people in research is a key emphasis in current approaches to both sociology of childhood and Indigenous research. This article discusses how the two research methodologies, both of which emphasise participation rights, intersect in research focusing on the participation and perspectives of Indigenous children and young people in education. The article examines ethical requirements of Indigenous and childhood research and institutional ethics procedures, along with methodological considerations, potential constraints and opportunities in undertaking research that aims to facilitate children and young people's participation. Drawing on empirical data it discusses how these processes have shaped participative research studying the views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students learning Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in New South Wales schools.

Creating change: building the capacity of the medical workforce in Aboriginal health

This paper provides an overview of the long-term strategies that have been in place at the University of Western Australia, which aim to build the capacity and preparedness of the health-care workforce in Aboriginal health. In 1996, the Centre for Aboriginal Medical and Dental Health was established within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences to implement a comprehensive approach to Aboriginal health. The initial focus was on developing recruitment and retention strategies that meaningfully address the significant under-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the medical and broader health professions. At the same time, the Centre developed, implemented and evaluated a comprehensive vertically and horizontally integrated Aboriginal health curriculum initially in the Medicine course and subsequently in the Podiatry and Nursing courses within the faculty. The priority has been to ensure that all graduates will be better prepared to work effectively and safely with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. Without effective alternative entry processes access to tertiary health courses and health careers would not have been an option for the majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and graduates. This paper reflects on the partnerships, structures and approaches that have enabled the achievements to date and on the challenges that confront not only initial implementation but also sustaining the gains already made.

Three theses on urethral disease

ObjectiveTo inform about three doctorate theses on urethral stenosis, presented in the University of Paris and Montpellier by Spanish authors. Material and methodsOf the Canary Island students who studied medicine in France during the XIX century and beginning of the XX century, three stand out for having chosen the same subject for presentation of their doctorate thesis. ResultsWe briefly analyze their biographies, placing special emphasis on the content of their doctorate thesis. ConclusionsUrethral stenosis was a very mentioned disease during the period studied due to its high incidence. We distinguish the therapeutic changes contributed in the three theses studied.