Quality Teaching in Australian Indigenous Education: Investigating an Urban School’s Approach to Fostering the Cultural Identity of Indigenous Students

Author(s):  
Brigitte Glover ◽  
Neil Harrison
Author(s):  
Stacey Kim Coates ◽  
Michelle Trudgett ◽  
Susan Page

Abstract There is clear evidence that Indigenous education has changed considerably over time. Indigenous Australians' early experiences of ‘colonialised education’ included missionary schools, segregated and mixed public schooling, total exclusion and ‘modified curriculum’ specifically for Indigenous students which focused on teaching manual labour skills (as opposed to literacy and numeracy skills). The historical inequalities left a legacy of educational disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Following activist movements in the 1960s, the Commonwealth Government initiated a number of reviews and forged new policy directions with the aim of achieving parity of participation and outcomes in higher education between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Further reviews in the 1980s through to the new millennium produced recommendations specifically calling for Indigenous Australians to be given equality of access to higher education; for Indigenous Australians to be employed in higher education settings; and to be included in decisions regarding higher education. This paper aims to examine the evolution of Indigenous leaders in higher education from the period when we entered the space through to now. In doing so, it will examine the key documents to explore how the landscape has changed over time, eventually leading to a number of formal reviews, culminating in the Universities Australia 2017–2020 Indigenous Strategy (Universities Australia, 2017).


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-70
Author(s):  
Vanessa Van Bewer ◽  
Roberta L Woodgate ◽  
Donna Martin ◽  
Frank Deer

Learning about the historical and current context of Indigenous peoples’ lives and building campus communities that value cultural safety remains at the heart of the Canadian educational agenda and have been enacted as priorities in the Manitoba Collaborative Indigenous Education Blueprint. A participatory approach informed by forum theater and Indigenous sharing circles involving collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health care professionals ( n = 8) was employed to explore the above priorities. Through the workshop activities, vignettes were created and performed to an audience of students and educators ( n = 7). The findings emerging from the workshop illuminated that Indigenous people in nursing and higher education face challenges with negotiating their identity, lateral violence and struggle to find safe spaces and people due to tokenism and a paucity of physical spaces dedicated to Indigenous students. This study contributed to provoking a greater understanding of Indigenous experiences in higher education and advancing reconciliation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-184
Author(s):  
Lorrin Ruihi Shortland ◽  
Terry Locke

This article reports on what happened when a Rumaki pūtaiao kaiako (Science) teacher at a New Zealand high school trialled the use of creative narratives with her Year-10 students as a way of developing their understanding of the human digestive system. These students were members of the school's Māori immersion unit, and creative narratives were in part utilised as a bridge between science discourse and the cultural knowledges these students brought to their learning. In this case study, students developed ‘Tomato Pip’ narratives through four versions, which told the story of a tomato pip travelling through the human digestive system. Word-count data based on these versions and from a summative test were analysed and correlations found between test scores and three categories of word-count total (total words, total science words and total discrete science words). A discourse analysis of one student's narratives identified two distinct voices in these texts: the personal narrator and the emerging biologist. Questionnaire and focus-group data indicated that the use of creative narratives was both motivational to these students and effective as a bridge into science discourse mastery. It is argued that the findings have implications for disciplinary literacy theory, Indigenous education and science instruction.


Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Restoule ◽  
Angela Mashford-Pringle ◽  
Maya Chacaby ◽  
Christine Smillie ◽  
Candace Brunette ◽  
...  

This study examines some of the ways institutional policies and practices can support or hinder the successful transition to post-secondary education for Indigenous people. Tracing the path from Indigenous high school student to post-secondary education applicant and utilizing knowledge gained from interviews, focus groups, and online surveys as part of an institutional ethnography approach, we offer recommendations for institutions and applicants to help increase enrollment and enhance the success of Indigenous post-secondary students. We share implications for institutions and post-secondary education applicants utilizing self-identification or cultural identity tracking.


Author(s):  
Roianne West ◽  
Kim Usher ◽  
Kim Foster ◽  
Lee Stewart

An increase in the number of Indigenous health professionals is one way to help reduce the poor health outcomes of Australia’s Indigenous people. However, while Indigenous students are enrolling in Australian tertiary undergraduate nursing courses in increasing numbers, their completion rates remain lower than non-Indigenous students and many barriers hinder course completion. This critical interpretive qualitative study explores academic staff perceptions of factors enabling successful course completions by Indigenous nursing students from universities in Queensland, Australia. Content analysis of data revealed five themes: (a) Individual student characteristics; (b) Institutional structures, systems, and processes; (c) Relationships, connections, and partnerships; (d) Family and community knowledge, awareness, and understanding; and (e) Academics’ knowledge, awareness, and understanding. To increase the number of Indigenous nurses, strategies such as appointing Indigenous nursing academics; partnerships between nursing schools and Indigenous Education Support Units, and the implementation of tailored cross-cultural awareness programs for nurse academics are proposed.


Perspectiva ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 377
Author(s):  
Maria Aparecida Bergamaschi ◽  
Kátia Simone Müller Dickel

<p>http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-795X.2015v33n1p377</p><p>Este artigo decorre da pesquisa em uma escola indígena e em uma escola não indígena, realizada basicamente na perspectiva metodológica etnográfica, durante os anos de 2011 e 2012. Na escola não indígena foi observada a convivência com estudantes Kaingang que concluem o ensino fundamental, iniciado na escola da aldeia. A partir disso, foram descritas situações que mostram a educação e a escola no cotidiano Kaingang, bem como o cotidiano da escola não indígena, como ocorre a convivência e as possibilidades para a interculturalidade, as conflitualidades e as relações de reciprocidade. O olhar dedicado para conhecer e descrever essa relação abre um campo de possibilidades decorrentes de trocas – às vezes desconfianças e isolamentos –, que oferecem contribuições importantes, tanto para a educação e a escola indígena quanto para a educação e a escola não indígena.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Indigenous students in a non-indigenous school: a chance for intercultural experiences</strong></p><p> <strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>The study we present stems from a research made at an indigenous school and at a non-indigenous school. The research was basically made under the ethnographic methodology, during the years of 2011 and 2012. At the latter school, we observed the interaction with the Kaingang students that are graduating at elementary school, which they had first started at their village school. Having that ethnography as a starting point, we describe scenarios that represent education and school on the Kaingang everyday life, as well as the common day of the non-indigenous school, and how the interactions occur and what are the possibilities for intercultural and conflicting meetings and the reciprocity relations. The attentive eyes we lay upon this research in order to get to know and to describe this relation opens a world of possibilities that result from exchange situations – in which sometimes there is distrust or isolation – and they offer important contribution both to the indigenous school and education and to the non-indigenous school and education. </p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Intercultural. Indigenous Education. Kaingang School and Education.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Estudiantes indígenas en una escuela no indígena: posibilidades para vivencias interculturales </strong></p><p><strong>Resumen</strong></p><p>El estudio que presentamos resulta de la investigación en una escuela indígena y en una escuela no indígena, realizada básicamente en la perspectiva metodológica etnográfica durante los años 2011 y 2012. En esta última escuela fue observada la convivencia con estudiantes Kaingang que concluyen la educación fundamental, iniciada en la escuela de la aldea. A partir de este estudio etnográfico, describimos situaciones que muestran a la educación y a la escuela en el cotidiano Kaingang, así como el cotidiano de la escuela no indígena, como ocurre la convivencia y las posibilidades para la interculturalidad, las conflictualidades y las relaciones de reciprocidad. La mirada que dedicamos para conocer y describir esta relación abre un campo de posibilidades resultantes de intercambios – a veces desconfianzas y aislamientos – que ofrecen contribuciones importantes, tanto para la educación y la escuela indígena como para la educación y la escuela no indígena.</p><p><strong>Palabras claves:</strong> Interculturalidad. Educación Indígena. Educación y Escuela Kaingang.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stavros Georgios Stavrou

In Canadian mathematics education, dominant colonial narratives highlight an achievement disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in a way that often re-inscribes perceived deficits of Indigenous students, ignores the educational aspirations of Indigenous peoples, and sidelines Indigenous cultural and linguistic representations of knowledge in the classroom. Intentions of Indigenizing curriculum include challenging and reversing racist and colonial ideologies that hinder Indigenous education, providing meaningful alternatives within school cultures that foreground essential aspects of Indigenous education, and supporting the dynamic learning of Indigenous students. In my research described in this article, I used a narrative inquiry to describe how two Cree elementary school teachers shared promising practices of holistic assessments in school mathematics that centered their Cree language, miyō-pimōhtēwin, and kamskénow.


in education ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Carmen Leigh Gillies

Curriculum integration, or in other words, changing what students are taught within racially desegregated Canadian schools, has served as a primary but incomplete pathway to racial justice. In this paper, I present evidence from a qualitative critical race theory (CRT) methodological study with 13 Métis teachers to demonstrate how curricular integration has been framed as a key solution to inequitable outcomes concerning Indigenous students. This strategy has been instilled within the Saskatchewan K–12 education system by a wide spectrum of authorities over several decades. Although absolutely essential for multiple reasons, I argue that teaching students about Indigenous knowledge systems and experiences, as well as anti-racist content, cannot resolve the systemic racial injustices encountered by Indigenous students who attend provincial schools. In particular, three CRT analytical tools—structural determinism, anti-essentialism, and interest convergence—are utilized to examine the limitations of curricular integration as a strategy of racial justice. Keywords: Métis teachers; Indigenous education; critical race theory; integrated schools


Author(s):  
Emily Milne

The Ontario Ministry of Education has declared a commitment to Indigenous student success and has advanced a policy framework that articulates inclusion of Indigenous content in schooling curriculum (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007). What are the perceptions among educators and parents regarding the implementation of policy directives, and what is seen to encourage or limit meaningful implementation? To answer these questions, this article draws on interviews with 100 Indigenous (mainly Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Métis) and non-Indigenous parents and educators from Ontario Canada. Policy directives are seen to benefit Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Interviews also reveal challenges to implementing Indigenous curricular policy, such as unawareness and intimidation among non-Indigenous educators regarding how to teach material. Policy implications are considered.


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