In our society education is a key factor in determining social and economic status (work opportunities derived from recognised training and accredited qualifications). The educational system appears to alienate many Aborigines. This is attributed to the interplay of poverty, communication or cultural differences, low expectations of school children, attitudes of teachers and parents (and the community in general), large unemployment and the limited scope of school curricula covering Aboriginal history or culture. This had led to an upsurge of pride (in recent years) in Aboriginal traditions and a promotion of the cultural inheritance stemming from the past. The notion of ‘cultural pride’, clearly influences the black community and the wider society wherein non-Aborigines are increasingly being exposed to ‘Aboriginality’ in a social and educational environment.

The factors that influence the learning and processing of information in any "normal" teaching environment are many but in comparison to the environment where cultural variables are added the "normal" teaching environment appears to lack complexity. Added to cultural variables an environment where the language being used in learning experiences is, if not a totally different language to the first language learnt by the child, certainly a differing form of their first language; then you have a truly complex environment in which to guide the learning and processing of information. Such a description fits the Aboriginal Community schools in the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York regions of Queensland. In particular, I intend to focus on Doomadgee State School, arguably the most isolated of community schools, where in my position as Curriculum Master I have seen the conflict of culture, language and curriculum first hand. It is the intention of this paper to examine how and why this conflict affects student performance and to focus on methods by which this conflict can be minimised.

Yintarri is a West Australian government community school situated at Coonana: 180Km due east of Kalgoorlie. It has about sixty children who enter school speaking Wangkatja, a Western Desert language. There is no formal bi-lingual program; the language of instruction being English. The Yintarri Project is an International Literacy Year (ILY) funded program which uses touch-sensitive boards with microcomputers to assist in the development of literacy in both Wangkatja and English. This is accomplished, at Yintarri, with Concept Keyboards and Acorn BBC microcomputers though the same facilities could be provided with all other major types of computer. The project won a major ILY Literacy Achievement Award for its ‘Outstanding Contribution to Literacy‘.

By the end of 1990, at least three hundred Aboriginal and Islander people had graduated in South Australian tertiary institutions, from associate diploma level and above. In 1990, the annual graduation rate surpassed forty, the great majority at three-year level or above, including at least one Honours, one doctorate and graduates in architecture and law. The eight-fold increase in graduate numbers over the total up to 1980 reflects the active presence on campuses of Aboriginal/Islander-oriented support services and, even more so, of preparation programs: some three-quarters of all graduates had participated in some form of supplementary preparation.

My purpose in this paper is to describe the interaction among 3-5 year old children at two child care centres. The centres become ‘windows’ through which to observe the children and the child rearing strategies of the adults who direct and carry out the work of the two centres (Lubeck, 1985, 1). The two centres reflect the values of two different cultures which are here described as Koori culture and mainstream culture.

The literature on Aboriginal education holds few references to the presence and effect of Aboriginal world view. This brief paper examines some of the literature that does address this critical element and makes a plea for all educators working in bicultural environments to gain the appropriate understandings. Where schools and educators indicate the presence of such understanding the levels of attendance and thus the effectiveness of the programs provided will probably be enhanced. Without the understanding, and even with the best will in the world, much effort will be wasted.

Just as the test of the pudding is in the eating, the test of a piece of writing is how well it accomplishes the purpose for which it was written. If a story is written to entertain, then it is well written just to the extent it does this. On the other hand, we wouldn’t expect a dictionary to be entertaining: it’s purpose is to let us look up information about words. There are a wide variety of purposes writing can serve, and these give rise to different genres of writing.

During 1990 the Disadvantaged Schools Program (D.S.P.) funded an Urban Literacies Project in New South Wales. There were two strands; one was investigating English as used by children from Multicultural backgrounds; the second was researching the incidence and use of Aboriginal English in the classroom. Redfern Primary School was invited to participate as part of the Aboriginal English strand. The following is a reflection on the processes by Carol Reid and Helen Velissaris. There are some findings that may be useful to teachers regardless of the childrens’ backgrounds but we found them especially relevant for the Aboriginal children we teach in an urban school.

As a child I lived at a place called Angatja. My father, mother, grandmother, older brothers, aunts, and uncles taught me there and I learned from them. My mother taught me about her bush foods. She collected the plant foods and prepared them and I learned by watching her. I learned also from my father. He taught about meat foods, cooking the meat, making spears, joining parts of the spears tightly with sinew and going out hunting for meat. My mother would take me out with her. We two went out together to collect small animals and plant foods, hitting sand goannas, and sometimes collecting bush honey. I watched her and gathered some foods and when we all came together in camp we ate the meat and plant foods. My mother gathered various plant foods, native millet seeds, pigweed, roots which grew in the rocks and other seeds. These foods were available in autumn. Other foods were found on trees in spring. These fruits included mistletoe berries, mulga apples, native plums and quandongs. Also the native fig trees grew on small rocky hills.