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Indigenous Secondary Education in the Northern Territory: Building for the Future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2014

Jeannie Herbert ,
Dennis M. McInerney ,
Lyn Fasoli ,
Peter Stephenson  and
Lysbeth Ford
Jeannie Herbert
Affiliation:
Centre for Indigenous Studies, Charles Sturt University, Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia
Dennis M. McInerney
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Institute of Education, New Territories, Hong Kong
Lyn Fasoli*
Affiliation:
Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Batchelor, Northern Territory, Australia
Peter Stephenson
Affiliation:
Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Batchelor, Northern Territory, Australia
Lysbeth Ford
Affiliation:
Linguistics Department, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*
address for correspondence: Lyn Fasoli, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Batchelor NT 0845, Australia. Email: lyn.fasoli@batchelor.edu.au
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Abstract

This article reports on the findings of an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research project, ‘Building the future for Indigenous students’, an investigation of the hopes and dreams for the future of over 1,000 secondary students, 733 of whom were Indigenous, living in very remote, remote, and urban locations in the Northern Territory. Using both quantitative and qualitative research tools, researchers sought to understand what motivated the students at school and how they studied — critical elements in successful school achievement. In this article, the analysis of Indigenous student responses to a series of questions in the qualitative component of the study is presented. The analysis concludes that urban and remote Indigenous school children provide similar responses to questions that probe: (1) the value of education/school/self, (2) learner future goals, (3) learner motivation, and (4) learning preferences. The study also finds that very remote Indigenous school children, while similar in some question responses to both groups, also show some important differences that raise questions for more research.

Keywords

Indigenous educationhigh schoolmotivation
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , December 2014 , pp. 85 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014 

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