Building on ‘Red Dirt’ Perspectives: What Counts as Important for Remote Education?

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guenther ◽  
Samantha Disbray ◽  
Sam Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Cooperative Research ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Community Expectations ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Indicators Of Success

The Remote Education Systems (RES) project within the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP) has, over the last four years, gathered and analysed qualitative data directly from over 230 remote education stakeholders and from more than 700 others through surveys. The research was designed to answer four questions: (1) What is education for in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities?; (2) What defines ‘successful’ educational outcomes from the remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander standpoint?; (3) How does teaching need to change in order to achieve ‘success’ as defined by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander standpoint?; and (4) What would an effective education system in remote Australia look like? Based on this data, the paper reveals how perceptions differ for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from remote communities compared with people who come from elsewhere. The analysis points to the need for some alternative indicators of ‘success’ to match the aspirations of local people living in remote communities. It also points to the need for school and system responses that resonate with community expectations of education, and to develop narratives of aspiration and success alongside community views.

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

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Relative Difference ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Cooperative Research ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
National Assessment ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right

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).

Analysis of National Test Scores in Very Remote Australian Schools

2015 ◽  
pp. 125-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Test Scores ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Cooperative Research ◽  
National Assessment ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Assessment Program ◽  
Data Support ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
National Test

Based on the current research of the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, this chapter presents an analysis of the 2012 Australian National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy data from very remote schools across Australia. The data support perceptions of apparent failure in remote education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The reasons for this failure are often attributed to disadvantage. In this chapter, the author proposes that the perceptions of failure are built on philosophical, sociological, economic, and psychological assumptions that may not be shared by those who are subjected to tests. It is therefore possible to critique remote education, not as a failure, but as a reflection of the values it embodies. That critique allows for different ways of understanding difference framed around the perspectives that come from the context of very remote schools.

Red Dirt Thinking on Aspiration and Success

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 88-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Osborne ◽  
John Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Community Context ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Cooperative Research ◽  
Education Systems ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Red Dirt

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.

Red Dirt Education Leaders ‘Caught in the Middle’: Priorities for Local and Nonlocal Leaders in Remote Schools

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guenther ◽  
Samuel Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
University Graduates ◽  
Cooperative Research ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Research Education ◽  
Education Leaders ◽  
Red Dirt

Schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in remote or ‘Red Dirt’ communities has been cast as ‘problematic’, and ‘failing’. The solutions to deficit understandings of remote schooling are often presented as simple. But for those who work in Red Dirt schools, the solutions are not simple, and for education leaders positioned between the local Red Dirt school and upward accountability to departments of education, they are complex. Between 2011 and 2016, the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation's (CRC-REP) Remote Education Systems project explored how education could better meet the needs of those living in remote communities. More than 1000 people with interests in remote education contributed to the research. Education leaders were identified as one stakeholder group. These leaders included school-based leaders, bureaucrats, community-based leaders and teacher educators preparing university graduates for Red Dirt schools. This paper focusses on what Red Dirt education leaders think is important for schooling. The findings show school leaders as ‘caught in the middle’ (Gonzalez & Firestone, 2013) between expectations from communities, and of system stakeholders who drive policy, funding and accountability measures. The paper concludes with some implications for policy and practice that follow on from the findings.

scholarly journals Editorial

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. iv-iv ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Project Team ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Cooperative Research ◽  
Education Systems ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Red Dirt

In 2013, the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation's (CRC-REP) Remote Education Systems (RES) project team brought together a collection of papers built around a central theme of ‘red dirt thinking’. This theme reflected a view the authors had, that education and schooling in remote communities should be relevant to the context (that is, the ‘red dirt’) in which it is provided. We proposed this as a conceptual framework in which to challenge conventional wisdom about success, disadvantage and aspiration in remote schools.

Towards a Good Education in Very Remote Australia: Is it Just a Case of Moving the Desks Around?

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guenther ◽  
Melodie Bat
Keyword(s):  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Education System ◽  
South Australia ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Cooperative Research ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Remote Sites ◽  
Local Solutions

The education system, as it relates to very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, faces challenges. While considerable resources have been applied to very remote schools, results in terms of enrolments, attendance and learning outcomes have changed little, despite the effort applied. The Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP) in its Remote Education Systems (RES) project is trying to understand why this might be the case, and also attempting to identify local solutions to the ‘problem’ of very remote education. The RES project is in the process of building its research program across five remote sites in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. As the project begins, the researchers involved have begun to consider what are the assumptions behind the ‘system’ in its current form(s). The article begins with an outline of the context of remote education in Australia within a rapidly changing global environment. However, the purpose of the article is to outline many of the assumptions built into remote education and to ask what the alternatives to these assumptions might be. The authors go on to ask questions about how a remote education system would approach some of the assumptions presented. The assumptions presented are based on a reading of the philosophical bases of education. The questions are designed to prompt a deeper discussion about how the values and worldviews of those living in very remote communities might be taken into consideration and acted upon.

Red Dirt Thinking on Educational Disadvantage

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guenther ◽  
Melodie Bat ◽  
Sam Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Relative Advantage ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Apparent Difference ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Achievement Data ◽  
Educational Disadvantage ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Poor Outcomes ◽  
Red Dirt

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 Power, Pedagogy and Paradigms: Reframing the Dialogue in Remote Education

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Osborne ◽  
John Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Cooperative Research ◽  
Remote Education ◽  
Academic Level ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Indigenous Educators ◽  
Red Dirt

Recent debates in Australia, largely led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island academics over the past 5 or so years, have focused on the need for non-Indigenous educators to understand how their practices not only demonstrate lack of understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, but even deny their presence. This debate has serious implications for the non-Indigenous remote educator who wishes to support remote students to achieve ‘success’ through their education. The debates on the one hand advocate the decolonising of knowledge, pedagogy and research methods in order to promote more just or equal approaches to research and education, while other voices continue to advocate the pursuit of mainstream dominant Western ‘outcomes’ as the preferred goal for Indigenous students across Australia. This dilemma frames the context for this study. The Remote Education Systems Project, in the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, seeks to explore these and other questions as part of the broader research agenda being undertaken. This project is particularly focused on large-scale questions such as: ‘What is a remote education for and what would ‘success’ look like in the remote education context?’ We are approaching these research questions from community standpoints and perspectives as a critical starting point for these types of debates and discussions. In doing so, our findings indicate that remote Aboriginal community members have a strong sense of western education and its power to equip young people with critical skills, knowledge and understandings for the future, but also a strong sense of retaining of their ‘own’ knowledge, skills and understanding. This presents a complex challenge for educators who are new to this knowledge interface. Here, we offer the concept of ‘Red Dirt Thinking’ as a new way to position ourselves and engage in situated dialogue about what remote schooling might be if it took into account power issues around Indigenous knowledges in the current policy context. This article questions whether remote communities, schools and systems have, in fact, taken account of the knowledge/power debates that have taken place at an academic level and considers how remote education might consider the implications of stepping outside the ‘Western–Indigenous binary’. It seeks to propose new paradigms that non-Indigenous educators may need to engage in order to de-limit the repositioning of power-laden knowledge and pedagogies offered in remote classrooms.

Gonorrhoea testing and positivity in non-remote Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services

Sexual Health ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ellen Harrod ◽  
Sophia Couzos ◽  
James Ward ◽  
Mark Saunders ◽  
Basil Donovan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Services ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Clinical Encounter ◽  
Current Approach ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Torres Strait Islander People ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
Aboriginal Community ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Concurrent Testing

Background Gonorrhoea occurs at high levels in young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote communities, but there are limited data on urban and regional settings. An analysis was undertaken of gonorrhoea testing and positivity at four non-remote Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services participating in a collaborative research network. Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of clinical encounter data derived from electronic medical records at participating services. Data were extracted using the GRHANITE program for all patients aged 15–54 years from 2009 to 2013. Demographic characteristics and testing and positivity for gonorrhoea were calculated for each year. Results: A total of 2971 patients (2571 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander) were tested for gonorrhoea during the study period. Among Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients, 40 (1.6%) tested positive. Gonorrhoea positivity was associated with clinic location (higher in the regional clinic) and having had a positive chlamydia test. By year, the proportion of patients aged 15–29 years tested for gonorrhoea increased in both men (7.4% in 2009 to 15.9% in 2013) and women (14.8% in 2009 to 25.3% in 2013). Concurrent testing for chlamydia was performed on 86.3% of testing occasions, increasing from 75% in 2009 to 92% in 2013. Factors related to concurrent testing were sex and year of test. Conclusions: The prevalence of gonorrhoea among young Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people in non-remote settings suggests that the current approach of duplex testing for chlamydia and gonorrhoea simultaneously is justified, particularly for women.

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