Indigenous Education in Australia

Learning and Teaching for Deadly Futures

Marnee Shay, Rhonda Oliver, Marnee Shay, Rhonda Oliver

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000317541
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This is an essential, practical resource for pre- and in-service educators on creating contexts for success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Based on the latest research and practice, this book provides an in-depth understanding of the colonised context within which education in Australia is located, with an emphasis on effective strategies for the classroom. Throughout the text, the authors share their personal and professional experiences providing rich examples for readers to learn from.

Taking a strengths-based approach, this book will support new and experienced teachers to drive positive educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Chapter 1

Foundations of teacher knowledge in Indigenous education

Jay Phillips

Who I am

Jay Phillips

Jay Phillips is a Wakka Wakka educator and researcher who has worked across all sectors of education, predominately in the university sector.

Introduction

This chapter will focus discussion on some fundamental principles for teacher practice whether working with Indigenous learners or in relation to the design and development of Indigenous studies curriculum. These principles are framed by the findings of a large-scale empirical study of teacher knowledge and classroom practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education conducted from 2009–2012 (Luke et al., 2011, 2013). This longitudinal study was informed by over 1200 participants in or associated with over 200 primary and secondary schools from around Australia, and included Indigenous and non-Indigenous teachers and principals, Indigenous community groups, Elders, students, and parents. This research deliberately centred Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices, concerns, and perspectives as the lens through which to understand and highlight institutional barriers to achieving sustainable change to schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Foundational to improving the provision of education for Indigenous students is ensuring that an evidence base is used in understanding what has improved outcomes and where the gaps are. This study provides educators, leaders and policy makers with informed guidance on where to focus efforts to address education inequalities that Indigenous people continue to face.

Key research findings of relevance to this discussion about schools and schooling in Indigenous education show the following:

• High value placed on education by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
• Low recognition and acknowledgement by schools and teachers of the social and cultural values of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth;
• Low engagement of schools and teachers with local Indigenous peoples and communities;
• High level of broad support for the integration of Indigenous knowledges and perspectives into the curriculum, however teachers report a lack of knowledge and cultural experience to teach in this field;
• Higher rates of inclusion of Indigenous topics and knowledges in curriculum from teachers who report regular social and community engagement with Indigenous peoples;
• High level of deficit perspectives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families, and communities informing classroom practice, including classroom management; and,
• Less time spent on behaviour management and in the teaching of basic skills in the classrooms of more experienced teachers (>10 years).
  (Luke et al., 2013)

The common response from Indigenous people and educators who read these research reports is, ‘this is not new; we have always known this’. As a Wakka Wakka educator and researcher I echo this response. There is a proliferation of research on Indigenous education, echoing the above and more. A recent systematic review of 18 studies into pedagogies that support Aboriginal student engagement and outcomes in education found that the significant challenges still to be addressed were: the structural barriers inherent to schools and schooling; the lack of attention to exploring and addressing the impact of deficit discourses; and the culturally loaded assumptions in measurements and definitions of ‘success’ (Burgess et al., 2019). In view of this, the discussion that follows will highlight the significance of teacher knowledge and present a pedagogical framework to establish an alternative approach to curriculum development in schools.

Traditions of schools and schooling in Australia

Australian schools and classrooms are not culturally or historically neutral sites. They acculturate individuals by reinforcing dominant social and cultural practices, authorising particular forms of knowledge and knowledge production, and guiding students to develop a sense of their place in, and belonging to, the world around them. Schools are complex bureaucratic institutions which, alongside other powerful institutions, such as the media, churches, and government, are grounded by ideologies and practices that have been deemed critical to and for the national interest. Schools also reinforce a history and a national identity that only selectively considers Indigenous peoples’ contributions or experiences to both.

The act or art of teaching is also not free of the impact of politics or ideology although the institutionalised norms of schools are often invisible to those whose social and cultural values mostly align with the dominating cultural framework. Subsequently, mainstream education systems have distinct ways of transmitting, defining, authorising, and applying knowledge, and for the most part, this framework reflects and reproduces dominating non-Indigenous cultural values, practices, and worldviews which continue to be framed by settler-colonialism.

Settler-colonialism refers to an enduring process whereby particular knowledges and understandings about the founding of Australia are circulated through social, cultural, historical, and institutional fields. The international doctrine through which the colonisation of Australia was deemed justified was that of terra nullius – empty land – and this continues to be an invisible, but powerful regulator of contemporary thought. While January 26, 1788 was the start of an invasion on Indigenous countries that was executed with violence, contagion and targeted legislation, the persistence of terra nullius thinking continues into the 21st century. Terra nullius philosophies in curriculum and pedagogy reinforce notions of the enduring resilience and pioneering spirit of settler-colonists and their descendants, and pair it with contemporary national identity and prosperity. Once they enter the schooling system, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are also exposed to these one-dimensional representations of Australian-ness which render Indigenous peoples invisible or inconsequential, or exoticised; rarely equal and almost never sovereign.

Indigenous education policy in Australia can be seen as a reflection of the political agenda toward Indigenous peoples that has spanned Australia’s history. From the first decades under the guise of civilising, Christianising, and educating for domestic servitude and service to the colonies, to assimilating to integrating, and more recently toward reconciling, schools have been central to the attempt by the colonies to resolve “the Aboriginal problem” (Fletcher, 1989). The multiple and intersecting legacies of this history have manifested in alienation and exclusion for Indigenous peoples, and they continue to mar Indigenous participation in education today.

With notable exceptions, a large focus of Indigenous education research is oriented to the identification of issues stemming from the culture, family, and socio-economic backgrounds of Indigenous students. In their research with families in the Northern Territory, Lea et al. provided a notable exception (2011), with research that busted the tenacious myth that Indigenous peoples lac...