We are very pleased to bring you Volume 50 Issue 2 of The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education.
The first suite of articles in this volume focuses on higher education. Coates et al. provide us with insight into the growth of Indigenous leaders in higher education and examine key documents to explore how the landscape has changed over time. The design and implementation of weaving Indigenous knowledge and perspectives throughout a service-learning course is explored by Synot et al. Also focusing on pedagogy and Indigenous studies, Anderson and Riley outline an approach to creating safer spaces within the classroom, discussing a case study of strategies for teaching and learning about race, racism and intersectionality. Hearn and Kenna explore a multi-layered determinants model as a useful way to conceptualise the many factors that may impact on Indigenous student success, while the development of a Student Success Strategy at University of Adelaide, which aims to respond to individual student needs in a more effective and efficient manner, is discussed by Hearn and Funnell. Benton et al. explore the significant role Indigenous centres/units play in supporting Indigenous university student experiences. Indigenous student engagement and success in Kimberley tertiary education is explored by Guenther et al. They suggest that tertiary education providers must tailor provision to ensure that engagement with Aboriginal students is relational and culturally safe. Gray et al. explore whether the implementation of an Indigenous cultural safety education workshop increased cultural safety knowledge and attitudes of allied health students while Hansen et al. discuss the design and delivery of a program aimed at developing student cultural capabilities called the Reaching Across the Divide: Aboriginal Elders and Academics working together project (RAD).
The next suite of papers focuses on high school and primary school contexts. Howard et al. explore the aspirations of Aboriginal high school students in a South Australian regional centre. Drawing on student perspectives, they demonstrate how rurality influences a complex system of intrinsic attributes, relationship networks and contextual factors. Stern and Burgess examine key issues, strategies and themes relating to how non-Aboriginal teachers of Aboriginal Studies negotiate their roles and responsibilities and their capacity to enact change within and beyond the Aboriginal Studies classroom, while D'Aietti et al. focus on a classroom teacher's efforts to navigate and respond to the prominent teaching model of explicit instruction and culturally responsive teaching, both of which inform policy statements in Far North Queensland. Martyn and Woolcock identify the continuing education needs of Indigenous health practitioners in regional Queensland. The paper by Peacock et al. draws on 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. Bishop and Vass consider the possibilities of culturally responsive approaches to schooling (CRS) in Australia and discuss how CRS might become embedded in teaching and learning so as to move away from deficit discourses. Baxter and Meyers focus on 45 Indigenous students who attended most often at an Australian urban primary school to identify factors that facilitate high attendance. They found that friendships, relationships, family stability and resilience were important contributors for high attendance. Gower et al. examine the implementation of initiatives to build strong school-community relationships in rural and remote Indigenous school settings in Western Australia.
The third suite of papers focuses on international contexts. Sulelino et al. draw on the perspectives of Papuan medical students studying in Indonesia, while Sanga et al. explore an approach to school leadership education in the Solomon Islands. Iddy develops the use of nine ethical protocols for conducting culturally, respectful and safe research with the Sukuma people in Tanzania and discusses how he used those protocols within a research project on girls and secondary education in rural Tanzania. Horning and Baumbrough consider two different Indigenous-led initiatives, the Neeginan initiative (Winnipeg, Canada) and the Kaupapa Māori movement (New Zealand), examining the role, or contributions of, each towards the realisation of Indigenous self-determination.
The final two papers focus on a critical dialogue about a paper published by Guenther and Osborne in AJIE in 2020 titled ‘Did Direct Instruction (DI) do it? The impact of a programme designed to improve literacy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in remote schools'. Pearson argues that Guenther and Osborne’s focus on comparing achievement across schools rather than measuring growth within schools obscures is misleading, while Guenther and Osborne respond to this critique of their work.
We hope you enjoy reading the papers in this volume. AJIE is shifting to an exciting new open-source platform with Open Journal Systems (OJS) in 2022. In some ways this is a journey ‘home’ for the journal as it will return to be published by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit in the Indigenous Engagement Division at the University of Queensland, and we look forward to continuing to bring AJIE to readers across Australia and internationally in an even more accessible format.
