New collaborations in old institutional spaces: setting a new research agenda to transform Indigenous-settler relations (original) (raw)
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Indigenous Research and Broader Issues in the Academy
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The Rudd Labour Government rode to power in Australia on the education promise of 'an education revolution'. The term 'education revolution' carries all the obligatory marketing metaphors that an aspirant government might want recognised by the general public on the eve government came to power however in revolutionary terms it fades into insignificance in comparison to the real revolution in Australian education. This revolution simply put is to elevate Indigenous Knowledge Systems, in Australian Universities. In the forty three years since the nation setting Referendum of 1967 a generation has made a beach head on the educational landscape. Now a further generation who having made it into the field of higher degrees yearn for the ways and means to authentically marshal Indigenous knowledge? The Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin has for over twenty years not only witnessed the transition but is also a leader in the field. With the appointment of two Chairs of ...
Current policies that guide Indigenous higher education in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia focus on the importance of achieving 'outcomes'. These policies include the Universities Australia (UA) Indigenous Strategy 2017-2020, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Strategy 2015 and the NT Department of Education's A Share in the Future Indigenous Education Strategy 2015-2024. Looking back at various Indigenous higher education policies over the past fifty years, however, it appears that achieving 'outcomes' was not always the goal. To understand why approaches to Indigenous higher education policy in the NT and at the national level exist as they do today, and to understand what has and has not worked in the context of historical change, it is important to reflect on how policy has evolved. Changing governments, shifting socio-political discourses, and various Indigenous advocates have all had considerable and cumulative effects on Indigenous higher education policy. In this paper, we use a discursive narrative approach to chronologically outline the evolution of Indigenous higher education policy in the NT.
The Australian Universities' review, 2018
The number of Indigenous people enrolling in and completing higher education courses in the Northern Territory slowly continues to climb. Since the first policies supporting the Australian Government's self-determination policy that encompassed training of Indigenous teachers in the Northern Territory, Charles Darwin University and Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education have played vital roles in increasing opportunities for Indigenous people to participate and succeed in higher education across all industries. From a policy perspective, these institutions are responsible for implementing Indigenous higher education policies at the local level in order to ensure that practice is guided by policy. Yet, there are other factors at play when considering policy implementation. This paper will provide a historical narrative around the institutional responses to national Indigenous higher education policies and summarise how implementation has often been constrained by pa...
A historical overview of responses to Indigenous higher education policy in the NT.
The number of Indigenous people enrolling in and completing higher education courses in the Northern Territory slowly continues to climb. Since the first policies supporting the Australian Government’s self-determination policy that encompassed training of Indigenous teachers in the Northern Territory, Charles Darwin University and Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education have played vital roles in increasing opportunities for Indigenous people to participate and succeed in higher education across all industries. From a policy perspective, these institutions are responsible for implementing Indigenous higher education policies at the local level in order to ensure that practice is guided by policy. Yet, there are other factors at play when considering policy implementation. This paper will provide a historical narrative around the institutional responses to national Indigenous higher education policies and summarise how implementation has often been constrained by parallel economic and socio-political forces.
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.
Indigenous Rights and Tertiary Education in Australia
1998
This paper examines the discourse on Aboriginal higher education in Australia from the 1960s through the 1990s through an analysis of educational reports and government policy documents on tertiary education. Early in this period, the focus was on education as "welfare," but the emphasis shifted towards equity in higher education policy during the late 1980s and early 1990s. During this latter period, Aboriginal people were considered educationally disadvantaged, and education was seen as a means of providing equal opportunity for all and diminishing indicators of social inequalities. Another competing viewpoint represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians as an Indigenous population with Indigenous rights to self-determination and control of its own education. The way in which Indigenous Australians are represented shapes the discussion and funding of Indigenous education. For example, when Indigenous Australians were represented as disadvantaged, improvement in tertiary education was evaluated in terms of the number of Aboriginal students enrolled and the number of "successful" graduates. There was an increase in Aboriginal participation in tertiary education between 1985 and 1996, but assimilationist and ethnocentric institutional structures did not change to increase Aboriginal participation in curriculum development, research, and teaching. Since 1998, a renewed emphasis on a welfare approach to Aboriginal education has been accompanied by a reallocation of resources away from tertiary education and greater emphasis on basic literacy. The recognition and inclusion of Indigenous rights in educational policy depends upon a new phase of politics. (Contains 60 references.) (TD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Where Do We Look Now? The Future of Research in Indigenous Australian Education
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 2007
Research in Indigenous Australian education is at a dead-end. Researchers are still heading out into the field to look for new knowledge to answer old questions. The same epistemology dominates how we look, and where, while the methodology provides the researcher with a forced choice, one where either the student or the teacher is blamed for the lack of outcomes in Indigenous education. Where do we look now, and can we find something that has not been found before? The unequal historical relation that persists across Australia suggests that the process of research itself could be given as much attention as the search for quantifiable outcomes. The paper proposes that this process focus on the production of relations between schools and communities as well as on the search for knowledge.