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Upholding heightened expectations of Indigenous children? Parents do, teachers do not

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2020

Huw Peacock ,
Jacob Prehn ,
Michael A. Guerzoni ,
Wendy Aitken  and
Clair Andersen
Huw Peacock*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania, Private Bag 22, Sandy Bay7005, Australia
Jacob Prehn
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania, Private Bag 22, Sandy Bay7005, Australia
Michael A. Guerzoni
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania, Private Bag 22, Sandy Bay7005, Australia
Wendy Aitken
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania, Private Bag 22, Sandy Bay7005, Australia
Clair Andersen
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania, Private Bag 22, Sandy Bay7005, Australia
*
Author for correspondence: Huw Peacock, E-mail: Huw.Peacock@utas.edu.au
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Abstract

This paper argues that a component of increasing the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youths completing their secondary education is having parents and teachers maintain heightened expectations of these children in achieving this goal. To understand this phenomenon, we investigate the importance of, and discrepancies between, primary caregiver and teacher outlooks regarding Indigenous youths completing year 12. For the purpose of this paper, we adopt the term ‘primary caregiver’ in place of parent. This is because the majority (87.7%) of P1s analysed are the biological mothers with the remainder being close female relatives. P2s analysed are all male, 93.3% are biological fathers; remainder are step-fathers or adoptive fathers. This paper uses quantitative data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children to measure expectations from parents and teachers of Indigenous children. Results suggest that parents maintain exceptionally high expectations of their children, while teacher's expectations significantly decline over the course of Indigenous children's primary and secondary schooling years. We suggest that relationships and communication between parents and teachers, regarding expectations of students, are important to establishing an equilibrium in expectations of children, and that teachers may benefit from further training to address any underlying biases towards Indigenous children.

Keywords

Educational achievementIndigenous educationprimary and secondary schoolingquantitativeschooling completion
Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , December 2021 , pp. 331 - 339
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) includes children that identify as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. The usage of the term Indigenous in this paper is inclusive, and refers to both Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people.

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