Research in Indigenous Australian education is at a dead-end. Researchers are still heading out into the field to look for new knowledge to answer old questions. The same epistemology dominates how we look, and where, while the methodology provides the researcher with a forced choice, one where either the student or the teacher is blamed for the lack of outcomes in Indigenous education. Where do we look now, and can we find something that has not been found before? The unequal historical relation that persists across Australia suggests that the process of research itself could be given as much attention as the search for quantifiable outcomes. The paper proposes that this process focus on the production of relations between schools and communities as well as on the search for knowledge.

For a while now I have been researching and writing about Australian Indigenous education issues. Like you all, I have seen much good work and learnt much from what is going on across the country and internationally to improve outcomes for Indigenous learners in formal education processes. And still we go on with the struggle and with the limitations that Western sciences and practices place on us in the process. This paper draws together theoretical propositions from the work we have been progressing for the higher education sector over the past decade and to point to some foundational principles that can help establish some early beginnings with Indigenous education as a discipline in the higher education sector.

The history of remote school education in the Northern Territory can best be summarised as years of lost opportunities, pedagogies of discrimination, and diminished lives for those parents and children who trusted and responded to the government’s invitation to come to school. From late 2001 to 2005 historic educational change occurred in the remote Community Education Centre of Kalkaringi and Daguragu in the Northern Territory, the site for the delivery of the Northern Territory’s first Year 12 Indigenous graduates studying in their own community school. At the heart of the historic achievement was a radical change in thinking about education for Indigenous students. This paper discusses some of the policy parameters and educational circumstances that prevented significant change in the delivery model of education for the Community Education Centres in addition to a conceptualisation of how that school circumvented the policy parameters and instituted real change from the ground up. The paper examines, through a critical lens, the nature of the culture change that was crafted and built upon within Kalkaringi School and its communities, despite an initial and significant sense of powerlessness felt by families and to some extent the teachers and principal within the school. Through the development and embrace of a metaphor of possibility and hope - the challenge of climbing the educational mountain formed the foundation for a dedicated and committed enactment of an equitable educational entitlement for remote Indigenous students.

This paper presents an analysis of the classroom discourse and strategies of Marcia, an early childhood teacher of a class with a high percentage of Indigenous Australian students. These students have been demonstrably successful on standardised literacy tests, which is not the case for Indigenous students in general in Australia (e.g., MCEETYA, 200). It will be suggested here that Marcia’s approach and relationships with the students, as constructed in her discourse, have been a large contributing factor in this success. Marcia’s discourse can be described as both inclusive and empowering and, as such, it will be proposed that awareness of her techniques may be of benefit to teachers who are working with groups whom education systems tend to marginalise and disempower. Marcia’s lessons were observed as part of the project, “Teaching Indigenous Students with Conductive Hearing Loss in Remote and Urban Schools of Western Australia”. This project was based in Kurongkurl Katitjin, School of Indigenous Studies, at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, and was funded by an Australian Research Council Strategic Partnerships with Industry [SPIRT] Grant and the industry partners: Department of Education of Western Australia, Catholic Education Commission of Western Australia and Aboriginal Independent Community Schools, Western Australia.

Drawing on Gregory Cajete’s (1994, p. 55) explanation of “Pathway” (Path denoting structure, Way implying a process), a research framework was developed exploring Aboriginal women’s perceptions and experiences of health and health services. Developing the research methodology was like laying out the Path, as a well thought out structure or the plan for the research. It relates as an external landscape, not just in terms of the Path itself, but also the research process within the landscape of the site of the research. The Way, being the process, involved enabling a clear, thought out process for me to follow and additionally one for me within my Self. The research was informed and guided by Aboriginal women. I also travelled an internal landscape in the journey of the Self, within my own learning and coming to terms with myself as an Indigenous researcher within the Pathway.

Utilising Nakata’s (2007) description of the “cultural interface”, two Indigenous researchers and one non-Indigenous researcher examine their development of Indigenous research in and with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities conducted from within an institution of higher education. The authors reflect on their experiences in developing an Indigenous research project and use Indigenous standpoint theory as a device to explore these experiences. The framing of priorities and research questions, ethics processes, the treatment of project information or data, the managing of competing accountabilities, and the role of non-Indigenous researchers in Indigenous research are all explored in these reflections.

In this paper, we discuss and analyse the development of a resource documenting an Indigenous early childhood playgroup programme. The resource, known as the “Best Start DVD” was developed through a partnership between community and government support agencies to support engagement of parents as educators of their children. Through analysis of the development process and the product, we provide commentary on our learning regarding working successfully in partnerships with Indigenous communities. Additionally, we discuss what we learned about influences on Indigenous parents’ engagement as educators of their children.

This paper captures an ideological moment in time in which I contemplated the methodological approach I was embarking upon. In my search for a more appropriate approach for conducting research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tertiary students at the University of Queensland, I chose focus groups set within the qualitative process of grounded theory. This paper explores the meaning, usefulness and persistence of grounded theory, how it juxtaposes with focus groups, and the implications for the reciprocal integrity of the research for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and me. Within this context and the tenets of grounded theory I ask questions such as, “For how long in the process can your research texts (linking data and theory) about field texts (participants’ narratives) remain purely inductive?” And, “How does the movement between inductive theory development and deductive assumptions fit widi issues of power and authority in an Australian Indigenous context?”

I see possibility in the complementary use of grounded theory and focus groups that creates dialogic relationships between the students as both narrators and audience. Through the interaction of retelling, reliving and recreating life experiences in conversations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tertiary students conceptualise their individual subjectivities in a process of self-construction. How perceptive I am in “seeing” developing concepts within the students’ testimonies, and how I interpret those concepts in relation to existing theoretical content, may lead to new theory that influences the ongoing deconstruction of grand narratives often assigned to group identities. Co-research among the participants can provide the opportunity for monitoring the generative process.

In 1991, the Australian Parliament implemented a formal 10-year process of reconciliation. The aim of the process was to reconcile Indigenous and non-Indigenous people by the end of 2000. The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) was established to promote the process. The process had three broad goals: improving education, addressing Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage and developing a document of reconciliation. This 10-year process achieved several successful outcomes, including the “People’s Movement” and the “Walks for Reconciliation”. The outcomes were predominately linked to the broad education goal and occurred due to the involvement of the Australian community in the reconciliation process.

In this paper, I explore two inter-related programmes developed by CAR - community consultations and encouraging community involvement - that encouraged the involvement of the Australian community in reconciliation and were significantly responsible for the success obtained by the education goal. However, I also argue there were two issues involving many non-Indigenous people - their ignorance of reconciliation and Indigenous issues and their nationalist understandings of reconciliation - that ensured that overall the goals, despite some successful outcomes, were not fully achieved by the conclusion of the formal reconciliation process.

This paper describes the process of engaging the extended Indigenous community within Saskatoon and the surrounding First Nations communities in what would be a first major research project between Indigenous communities and the University of Saskatchewan. A management committee was established comprised of all the major Saskatoon/Saskatchewan Indigenous organisations, such as the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians, Saskatoon Tribal Council, First Nations University of Canada and other community-based groups to ensure that research reflected First Nations and Metis needs. The project called “Bridges and Foundations” awarded some 35 projects close to two million dollars in research funds. The money was awarded through graduate student research bursaries, and community-based projects which highlighted the needs of Indigenous women, youth, students, elders and urban populations. The three research themes included respectful protocol, knowledge creation, and policy development. The research projects, which were largely Indigenous designed and driven, created one of the most extensive research collections over a period of four years and included major data collection on community-based research, Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledge systems and protocols. The paper relates the development of the project and speaks about the need for Indigenous peoples to lead their own research as well as the benefits of collaboration. It also highlights several of the research projects including a conference on Indigenous knowledge (2004), a video project describing the community mobilisation process behind Quint Urban Housing Co-operatives,

The retention and completion rates of Indigenous students undertaking tertiary studies continue to be disappointing. The contribution of Eurocentric curricula to such an outcome has been proposed in the Australian and international literature. Remaining very conscious of my status as a white, female, social work educator teaching at a regional university, over the last six years I have attempted to pursue the development of a more Indigenous-inclusive curricula and thus contribute to increasing Indigenous graduates from our degree programmes. This article documents some of my actions to rectify gaps in my own non-Indigenous knowledge base as a reflective learner under Indigenous supervision within the academy and in the community. Action to advance the development of accurate, useful curriculum and teaching practices respectful of Indigenous knowledges is recommended.

This paper seeks to engage the cultural interface where Indigenous knowledge meets western academia, by questioning the validity of traditional research methods. Firstly, it is a response to the challenges facing Indigenous people confronted with the ethical and methodological issues arising from academic research. Secondly, it is a journey into academia, where the researcher is all too often forced to remove the “self” from the “subject”; a difficult task for an Aboriginal person involved in research concerning Aboriginal people. Distancing oneself from research is even more difficult if the research is based closer to home, in one's own community.

Therefore, a significant need exists for Indigenous people to conduct and present research in a manner respectful of Indigenous ways of understanding and reflective of the ways in which Indigenous peoples wish to be framed and understood. This need has fuelled the search for Indigenous methodologies, which challenge the imperial basis of Western knowledge and the images of the Indigenous “Other”. The search for appropriate methodologies is part of the process Linda Smith (1999) calls “decolonisation” .

The Indigenous researcher - burdened with the challenge to perform academically rigorous research and the desire to practice this research respectfully - is often overwhelmed with internal conflict. Indigenous autoethnography represents one methodological option to such researchers. Indigenous autoethnography seeks to establish itself as a legitimate and respectful means of acquiring and formulating knowledge, by combining the tradition of storytelling, with the practice of academic research.

The athlete role model has emerged as the new pastor invested with the task of leading young people classed “at-risk” from entering into self-destructive pathways. The logic invested in the athlete role model is that young people identify with their sporting heroes and in the process try to emulate them. This holds for the major sporting codes in Australia including the Australian Football League (AFL), which supports the formation of role model programmes based on the input of Indigenous athletes to target Indigenous youth living in rural outposts. Armstrong (1996) sees the push to emulate the deeds of elite athletes in terms of a mythic function, the creation of desire to be like the hero. This article explores the theoretical implications for Indigenous learning grounded in the athlete/hero as role model. It is proposed that the athlete role model in the contemporary context of capitalism can work to obscure the realities of competition in sport and in the process promulgate false opportunity through sport at the expense of education.

In order to better understand the present trends in New Zealand’s schooling contexts, there is a clarion call for educators to develop sensitivity and sensibility towards the cultural backgrounds and experiences of Maori students. This paper reports on the work of four scholars who share research that has been undertaken in educational settings with high numbers of Maori students, and discusses the importance of creating culturally-safe schools - places that allow and enable students to be who and what they are. The theoretical frameworks drawn on are based on both a life partnership analogy as well as on a socio-cultural perspective on human development and learning. The Maori worldview presented in this paper is connected to the Treaty of Waitangi, The Educultural Wheel and the Hikairo Rationale. Data were collected from two ethnographic case studies and analysed through these frameworks. Practical suggestions are then made for using restorative practices and creating reciprocal relationships in classrooms within an environment of care. The paper reports on an evidence-based approach to creating culturally-safe schools for Maori students.

Attempts to Indigenise the curriculum run the risk of implying the application of an “impoverished” version of “Aboriginal pedagogy” and the promotion of corrupted understandings of Indigenous knowledge (Nakata, 2004, p. 11). What is required, Nakata (2004, p. 14) argues, is a recognition of the complexities and tensions at cross-cultural interfaces and the need for negotiation between “Indigenous knowledge, standpoints or perspectives” and Western disciplinary knowledge systems such that meanings are reframed or reinterpreted. Attending to these cross-cultural negotiations and the pedagogical practices they imply are profoundly challenging for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators.

This paper focuses on a project at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) which seeks to embed Indigenous perspectives in Humanities and Human Services curricula. It outlines the curriculum framework which was developed to guide the curriculum redesign in its initial phases. This is followed by a discussion of current research that has been concerned to identify material that can support the renegotiations of curricula endorsed by Nakata’s work. The research findings indicate that it is possible to identify a number of pedagogical approaches that can assist that process. Such approaches recognise various levels of engagement beyond the “intellectual”; they insist on a consistent unsettling of Western authority; they acknowledge Indigenous positions/positioning; and require critical self-reflection.

In this qualitative study, over the period of one year, we assessed the appropriateness of a mainstream early childhood education intervention, the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) programme, in five on-reserve First Nations communities, by focusing on the experiences of the Aboriginal women who delivered the programme. Findings revealed a process of “taking ownership” of HIPPY. “Taking ownership” included three subprocesses: changes in the women’s views regarding (1) the strengths of the programme; (2) self-identity; and (3) the identification of the programme as Aboriginal. Through taking ownership, the women were no longer content to deliver HIPPY strictly as it was described in the programme manuals. Although the women continued to maintain that HIPPY was valuable for their communities, their actions and words clearly demonstrated that sharing cultural knowledge in the context of the programme was important to them and, they believed, important for the children and families they worked with. The process documented here points to the importance of Aboriginal culture reflected in educational provisions for Aboriginal children - whether this can be appropriately achieved through supplementing and/or adapting mainstream programmes remains a point of debate.

This paper examines the idea of embedding Indigenous perspectives drawing upon a metaphor for designing an environment that nurtures Indigenous cultural identity and relationships. This paper constitutes a teacher’s personal story of emerging understandings of Indigenous Standpoint Theory and pedagogy, which began with embedding Indigenous perspectives within a tertiary music and sound curriculum. These understandings were developed into “rules of thumb” that have had transferable implications for research that examines community music-making projects in urban Indigenous and cross-cultural communities. These ideas are explored through case studies that examine them in context. Furthermore, the idea of embedding Indigenous perspectives in my own value systems is explored and a growing awareness of the embodied understanding that stems from an open, continuous and critical discourse with Indigenous people. This reveals a relationship of belonging and welcoming interfaced with obligation and a growing knowledge of people, community and country and its effect on my “white understanding” of relationships. This proposal stems from several successful projects where participants have experienced both nurturing of Indigenous knowledge and a productive tension. This does not advocate an argument for positive discrimination but rather seeks to build the idea that interfaces which simultaneously develop embodied understanding alongside Indigenous pride can lead to compelling and unique learning experiences for students, teachers and communities.