In the Plenary Address to the Cross Cultural Issues in Educational Linguistics Conference held at Batchelor in 1987, Mandawuy Yunupingu, Principal at Yirrkala Community School, expressed the hope that a school using ‘both-ways’ curriculum would help Aboriginal people regain control of their lives. Among other things he states,

The aim of comparative studies in education is to improve our understanding of our own problems of education at the national level. In the words of Phillip E. Jones (1973:24), “Comparative education can lead us to understanding, sympathy and tolerance”. More than that, it is hoped that it can lead to improved circumstances for Australia’s most disadvantaged minority group – the Aborigines.

The Aborigines were the first people to have a social system in Australia. That system, however, has undergone dramatic change in the last 200 years at the hands of ‘white’ migrants. Changes in educational policy in Australia have been largely a reaction to what the ruling majority has regarded as the ‘Aboriginal problem’. Schooling for Aborigines thus moved, early this century, from an era of mission schools and reserves to ‘formal’ schooling which was introduced in the 1960’s. Policies then shifted in turn from ‘assimilation’ to ‘integrationism’ to ‘self-determination’ and self-government’ for the Aborigines.

The analysis examines how the documents approach – if at all – several different aspects of Aboriginal education as expressed in particular by Aboriginal women, the traditional educators of Aboriginal children (Gale, 1983). These aspects include:-

1. – Aboriginal Learning Styles

2. – Parental and Community Involvement

3. – The Child as an Individual

4. – Teaching Staff – Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal

5. – Curriculum Content – Aboriginal History; Aboriginal Studies (general); Integration into Other Subjects: and Relevance of Content

6. – Research-based Teaching

7. – Languages

8. – Racism

9. Misinterpretation of Basic Aboriginal Philosophies

10. – Resources