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Sharing Place, Learning Together: Perspectives and Reflections on an Educational Partnership Formation With a Remote Indigenous Community School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2015

Sally Caroline Godinho ,
Marilyn Woolley ,
Jessie Webb  and
Kenneth Daniel Winkel
Sally Caroline Godinho*
Affiliation:
Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Marilyn Woolley
Affiliation:
Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Jessie Webb
Affiliation:
School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Kenneth Daniel Winkel
Affiliation:
Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Melbourne, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
*
address for correspondence: Sally Caroline Godinho, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Email: s.godinho@unimelb.edu.au
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Abstract

Sustainable partnership formation in a remote Indigenous community involves social, cultural and political considerations. This article reports on the project, ‘Sharing Place, Learning Together: Supporting Sustainable Educational Partnerships to Advance Social Equity’, funded by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute (MSEI) at the University of Melbourne (UoM). The project's aims were to document insights into working with communities and educators in a remote community school in Western Arnhem Land, and to promote and raise Aboriginal students’ aspirations for engagement in further education through knowledge exchanges. Two project deliverables focus this paper: a participatory workshop conducted at UoM by educators and students from the school, and a qualitative research study that investigated the mutual partnership capacity building between the school community and UoM. The workshop provided an environment conducive to the participants sharing their cultural knowledge and perspectives on a two-way Learning on Country program with the wider UoM community. Extensive interview data collected from school and community-based participants identified the enabling and constraining factors impacting the formation of a sustainable partnership. The findings revealed the importance of prioritising relationship-building, the valuing of resource development, and the need for humility and openness to criticism when working with remote communities.

Keywords

educational partnershipscapacity buildingremote communitiestwo-way learning
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , August 2015 , pp. 11 - 25
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2015 

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