Indigenous Education and Indigenous Studies in the Australian Academy: Assimilationism, Critical Pedagogy, Dominant Culture Learners and Indigenous Knowledges (original) (raw)

Unsettling Australian settler supremacy: combating resistance in university Aboriginal studies

Higher education courses designed to equip students to work effectively with Indigenous peoples by teaching about racism and inequality often encounter resistance to these concepts. In particular, students argue that individual and structural racisms, and their own white privilege, are ‘not their fault’. This article examines different forms of student resistance expressed within a number of Aboriginal Studies courses taught in a regional Australian university. This article reflects on data collected from various research initiatives with students, and personal teaching experiences over decades, and argues that although the notion of white supremacy can explicitly identify white privilege it also actively promotes even greater student resistance to learning. As such, this article argues for a consistent sequence of anti-racism approaches and suggests a number of key pedagogical strategies for anti-racism education. Keywords: Aboriginal studies; student resistance; denial; white privilege; white supremacy; critical pedagogy

Rocking the foundations the struggle for effective Indigenous Studies in Australian higher education

Foundation courses that provide knowledge and understanding about the social, cultural and historical factors shaping Indigenous Australians' lives since colonial settlement and their effects are endorsed in Australian higher education policy. Literature highlights the complexity of changing student views and the need for sustained, comprehensive approaches to teaching foundation content. This paper analyses one such course in its capacity to increase knowledge and understanding, and promote positive attitudes, particularly amongst non-Indigenous students. It finds significant shifts in views and knowledge gained from studying the foundation course, and a change in commitment to social justice and reconciliation for Indigenous Australians. Students also significantly changed their view as to whether all Australians should understand this material. Despite these gains, our experiences indicate that foundational courses can be eroded through institutional processes. We argue this suggests the persistence of pervasive and subtle institutional racisms, in the context of global commodification of higher education.

Aboriginal Worlds in the Western Academy

In recent years, the issue of how best to support Indigenous students enrolled in undergraduate academic programs has been increasingly directed by practices which promote a ‘success-oriented’ approach (Devlin, 2009; Devlin & McKay, 2017). This paper outlines a critical reflection of two lecturers involved in the delivery of a mainstream Charles Darwin University Academic literacy unit to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) students enrolled at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. This is a preliminary examination of a later deeper reflective study. In this study we use Brookfield’s (1995, 2009) critical reflection process to examine the curriculum and pedagogical transformations to a standard academic discourse unit in order to make it more conducive to ATSI learning and academic success. Both lecturers have been teaching Indigenous students in the Northern Territory in a variety of contexts over the past three decades and co-teaching this unit provided an opportunity to examine our pedagogical practices that led to ATSI student achievements. This paper firstly presents the context by examining the teaching program. It then explores the student cohort and reflects on specific changes we made in our teaching and learning program to enhance student achievement.

Difficult Knowledge and Uncomfortable Pedagogies: student perceptions and experiences of teaching and learning in Critical Indigenous Australian Studies

This research presents a grounded interrogation of students’ perceptions and experiences of teaching and learning in two mandatory stand-alone Critical Indigenous Australian Studies subjects at an Australian university. The study proffers rare empirical insight into the student experience of teaching and learning about colonialism, racism, whiteness and privilege. It contributes to building a better understanding of the complexities, opportunities, challenges and risks of four specific pedagogical approaches: critical anticolonialism, critical race theory, critical whiteness and intersectional privilege studies. The research was conducted by way of a critical ethnographic process involving in-depth interviews with students and teachers, focus group discussions with students and classroom observations. The research design was built on critical social constructionist foundations informed by poststructural and critical hermeneutical theoretical perspectives. The study produced two key findings. The first is that learning in Critical Indigenous Australian Studies is inherently affective. Affectivity plays a determinant role in the opportunities, challenges and risks of teaching about colonialism, racism, whiteness and privilege. This finding signposts the need to take into serious consideration the emotionally onerous task of teaching and learning in Critical Indigenous Australian Studies and the need for compassionate pedagogical approaches and strategies that can productively navigate and manage affectivity. The second key finding is that if Critical Indigenous Australian Studies is to inspire and motivate students to act for social justice and social change, teaching and learning must focus equally on both the ‘know-what’ and the ‘know-how’. Knowing what the urgent matters are without the cultivation of practical skills to engage in social change action falls short of meeting teaching and learning objectives. A dedicated and substantive focus on cultivating practical social change skills such as discursive counter-narrative skills is a pedagogical pathway toward empowering, inspiring and motivating students to act for social change.

The legacy of racism and Indigenous Australian identity within education

Race Ethnicity and Education, 2014

It may be argued that the emerging discourses focusing on the social, emotional, educational, and economic disadvantages identified for Australia’s First Peoples (when compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts) are becoming increasingly dissociated with an understanding of the interplay between historical and current trends in racism. Additionally, and if not somewhat related to this critique, it can be suggested that the very construction of research from a Western perspective of Indigenous identity (as opposed to identities) and ways of being are deeply entwined within the undertones of epistemological racism still prevalent today. It is the purpose of this article to move beyond the overreliance of outside-based understanding Western epistemologies, and to explore not only the complex nature of both racism and identity from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, but to also explore the role of education and research in perpetuating varying levels of racism and resistance to Indigenous identity(ies) from a contemporary insider-based standpoint. It is hoped this article will shed some light on the pervasive nature of racism directed at Indigenous Australians, and highlight the need for the continual acceptance, respect, and promotion of Indigenous voices and identities within the educational environment and beyond.

Embedding indigenous perspectives in university teaching and learning: lessons learnt and possibilities of reforming/decolonising curriculum

2007

Embedding Indigenous knowledge in the curriculum continues to challenge traditional western perspectives on Indigenous epistemologies and cultures. This paper will initially discuss experiences of embedding Indigenous perspectives in the curriculum at an Australian university. The project was inspired by the Reconciliation Statement which ensured funding through Teaching and Learning Large Grants. Its successful outcomes included the creation of identified positions for Indigenous academics within faculties, creation of a resource hub of relevant teaching materials and consistent documentation and awareness of Indigenous perspectives through interviews and staff development workshops.

Identity matters: Aboriginal educational sovereignty and futurity pushing back on the logic of elimination

The Australian Educational Researcher

This paper situates the context of the Aboriginal Voices: The state of Aboriginal student experiences in Australian secondary school project special issue of The Australian Educational Researcher in the wider context of First Nations educational research. It outlines the contribution to scholarship that each of the papers within the special issue makes towards developing a more nuanced, research-informed, and deeper understanding about the current state of Aboriginal education in Australia from the voices of those at the coalface. In doing so, this editorial overview highlights that while racism is still rampant across the education sector, and Aboriginal Peoples continue to face deficit discourses about their being and academic capabilities, a new era of sovereign activism is being mobilised by Aboriginal Peoples, and their allies, to drive educational change.

Education for Assimilation: A Brief History of Aboriginal Education in Western Australia

2019

In this chapter we provide an analysis of the tensions in Aboriginal education in Australia, with a particular focus on Western Australia, where the authors live and work. These tensions have arisen from the government policies enacted on Aboriginal Peoples since colonisation. These policies have left a legacy of marginalisation within the current education system nationally. We provide this discussion in order to answer the question: How have past government policies impacted contemporary Australian schooling for Aboriginal students? Commencing with pre colonisation we acknowledge Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing that have existed in Australia for over 60,000 years. We provide a timeline of significant government policies and practices that have shaped the current status of Aboriginal education in Australia. We argue that there is a deeply entrenched racist undertone in curriculum policy and pedagogies that non Aboriginal Australia is yet to address.