The Australian National Program Standards for Teacher Education prioritises knowledge of culturally inclusive practices and challenges the educational community to present research on well-structured, inclusive, cross-curricula education partnerships. This article meets this challenge as it explores a core unit of work for undergraduate teachers with Indigenous education as its foundation. Most importantly, the paper presented here provides an overview of how to develop culturally appropriate pedagogical practice through culturally inclusive curriculum. Both the unit of work and the paper are built on the principles of Constructive Alignment. In engaging with the article, the reader will use the 4Rs of reflection, as used by the pre-service teachers within the unit of work, to personally engage with curriculum conversations. This engagement demonstrates excellence in education design and offers clear alignment with the Australian Curriculum Studies Association's (ACSA’s) principles for Australian curriculum.

In this paper we report the findings of research that has examined, from first-hand accounts, the career pathways of Indigenous Australians who have studied to become teachers. We focus on one key aspect of the larger study: the nature and experience of initial teacher education for Indigenous student teachers. Elsewhere we have reported on aspects of their subsequent working lives in teaching or related fields. We focus here on participants' talk about teacher education, particularly with reference to the factors that have impacted positively and negatively on their identity formation as “Indigenous” students and teachers. As a research collective that comprises Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal teacher educators, and in the context of increased emphasis on university access following the Federal Review of Higher Education, we argue that it is time for government, universities and schools to listen and learn from this talk. In particular, we highlight in our participants' accounts the persistence of three longstanding and interrelated factors that continue to impact on the success or inadequacy of teacher education for Aboriginal people i.e., the presence and nature of financial, emotional and academic support in university and school settings.

The issue of low graduation rates among Indigenous learners transcends borders. Some argue that racism and discrimination in schools and in wider society impede the success of Indigenous learners. Although teachers may not intend to make discriminatory decisions based on a learner's ascribed characteristics, research has demonstrated that teachers are capable of making biased decisions that deny opportunities to Indigenous learners. After reflecting upon current debates regarding effective educational strategies for diversity and Indigenous learners, the author contends that courses directed towards best practices for Indigenous learners in the classroom may be less beneficial than developing teachers' overall critical consciousness-raising and self-awareness abilities. The author presents what the literature reveals regarding various educational methods, practices, and epistemologies that have been successfully shared across disciplines in order to create more effective teachers and more responsive learners.

This paper is a report on a recent study of urban Aboriginal children at home and at school, in Adelaide It will mostly describe the situation for just three of the students in one reception/Year one classroom, as they are representative of many Aboriginal students in the other classroom which was closely studied, and in classroom whose teachers I interviewed, or who were observed by me. In other words, the situation that I am describing for Naomi, Jason and Terry is, I believe, similar to the situation for many young Aboriginal students in urban classrooms in South Australia. Naomi, Jason and Terry were three physically attractive, energetic, bright and curious five year olds. Outside the classroom they were articulate and confident but inside the classroom, by the end of the year, they were in the lowest academic group for their age, considered troublesome by their teacher, and were largely ostracised by their non-Aboriginal peers.

Whites see us as crows, sitting in the nest with mouths open, waiting for the mother and father crow to come along. Those government fellas pretend to ask, but really tell us. They've had their minds made up all the time (Yanni Lester, cited by H. Penny, 1982).

This article describes the objectives and methodology of a doctoral research project (Manning, 2008). It then draws upon the key findings of that project to briefly describe how an envisioned critical pedagogy of place partnership model, involving nominated members of the Te Ātiawa iwi (tribe) and local history teachers, might enhance the quality of history teaching in the Port Nicholson Block area. This area is located in the Wellington district (south-western corner) of New Zealand's North Island. The discussion then explains, in more detail, why obstacles are likely to be encountered by any attempt by Te Ātiawa and/or the teacher participants to develop such a partnership model. Two related place-based metaphors help draw brief conclusions about how these obstacles relate to the New Zealand government's own (1989) principles for action on the Treaty of Waitangi and recount its obligations to uphold the Articles of the United Nations' (2007) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This paper re-evaluates Fanshawe’s (1976) description of effective teachers of adolescent Aborigines in the light of more recent literature and research pertaining to the effective teaching of children from a variety of cultural backgrounds. While particular attention is paid to the two-dimensional warmth-demandingness model of teacher effectiveness which informed the work of Kleinfeld (1972, 1975) and Fanshawe (1976, 1978, 1989), consideration is also given to other teacher characteristics besides warmth and demandingness, as well as teaching strategies and learning environments which are likely to be associated with positive educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island children. The discussion concludes with the identification of important possibilities for future cross-cultural research into teacher effectiveness.

In this paper, I discuss several key issues – governance, employment, research, culture, anti-racism policies, curriculum, student support and student success – that are critically important in enabling universities to meet the educational needs of Indigenous peoples. I also analyse a representative sample of Australian universities and argue that Australian universities have generally failed to adequately address these key issues. Further, I compare this study to a similar study that I conducted in 2000 and analyse any similarities and differences between the two studies.

This article presents the developmental stages of a nationwide whole-school strengths-based behavioural intervention by Māori and centring on Māori interests; an initiative that has the potential to transform educational success and opportunities. The initial phase involved a cycle of data collection. This was conducted via a series of focus groups held with Māori specialists, practitioners, families and students, to support the development of a kaupapa Māori approach to school-wide positive behaviour. The evidence that was gathered indicated that a systems framework needed to emanate out of a Māori worldview, be inclusive of family and community, and support the notion that Māori children are able to learn as Māori — to enjoy positive cultural and identity development throughout their schooling. The findings in this article describe the core features that underscore how behaviour should be shaped and supported within schools, from a Māori perspective.

In meeting the social and emotional learning (SEL) needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, the capacities of school staff are critical. There is very limited evidence for relevant capacity development initiatives. This evaluation reports a multicomponent SEL training intervention delivered to staff of an Australian education service that operates independently of any particular school to assist with the transitions of students from remote communities to boarding schools. A participatory action research (PAR) approach was implemented over 13-months with 21 staff participants. Results from a pre-, mid- and six months post-training survey and staff interviews were analysed and fed back through reflective group discussions. The training was associated with improved staff attitudes to mental health and skills to support student wellbeing. Sixteen participants received a tertiary qualification. Despite ‘working in challenging environments’, staff were ‘dedicated to help’ students, and ‘acknowledged the need for change’ to better support student wellbeing. However, given the service's brokering role between families and schools, fewer staff members reported feeling empowered to influence issues in their workplace. The evaluation demonstrated the value of SEL training for education staff and potential utility for school teachers and boarding staff who have direct duty of care for Indigenous students. The multicomponent training described in this study would need to be condensed for school settings.

This article reflects on issues of Indigenous creativity in Māori arts education, along with what we see as problematic tensions of the assessment of intangible elements. Our writing is motivated by a desire to start a global dialogue on Indigenous/Māori epistemologies, pedagogies and ontologies, and the contradictions and tensions that threaten these through global assessment drives within schools. We argue that current student assessment regimes are being increasingly influenced by international neoliberal agendas, which focus on universal, measurable outcomes. By critically exploring the assessment of creativity in the arts from a Māori perspective, we reflect on several contradictions and tensions in current assessment drives within schools. In particular, the intangible dimensions of being and flow and their connection to creativity are examined, and we conclude with recommendations for further work in this area.

In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people score poorly on national mainstream indicators of wellbeing, with the lowest outcomes recorded in remote communities. As part of a ‘shared space’ collaboration between remote Aboriginal communities, government and scientists, the holistic Interplay Wellbeing Framework and accompanying survey were designed bringing together Aboriginal priorities of culture, empowerment and community with government priorities of education, employment and health. Quantitative survey data were collected from a cohort of 841 Aboriginal people aged 15–34 years, from four different Aboriginal communities. Aboriginal community researchers designed and administered the survey. Structural equation modelling was used to identify the strongest interrelating pathways within the framework. Optimal pathways from education to employment were explored with the concept of empowerment playing a key role. Here, education was defined by self-reported English literacy and numeracy and empowerment was defined as identity, self-efficacy and resilience. Empowerment had a strong positive impact on education (β = 0.38, p < .001) and strong correlation with employment (β = 0.19, p < .001). Education has a strong direct effect on employment (β = 0.40, p < .001). This suggests that education and employment strategies that foster and build on a sense of empowerment are mostly likely to succeed, providing guidance for policy and programs.

Many teachers involved in school education of Aboriginal children have, for a variety of complex reasons, found it difficult to design programs that begin with the things children know and move to those things that children have to learn. All too frequently school education offered to Aboriginal children has been conceived in Western terms and delivered in our language. Programs designed for children from mainstream Australia have simply been transposed with minimal adaptation into Aboriginal schools. In many curriculum areas the results have not been exciting. In the area of mathematics they have been dismal if not disastrous (see Williams, 1979). The introduction of bilingual education into many of the remote traditionally oriented communities of the Northern Territory has made it possible for educators to re-examine the assumptions on which many of our mathematics offerings have been based. This paper outlines some of the initiatives that have been taken in the Northern Territory to enable children to formally organise and classify local Aboriginal mathematical knowledge as well as begin to acquire some ideas related to the Western view of the world and so provide more meaningful introductory mathematics programs for Aboriginal children.

Whilst some improvements to Indigenous education outcomes have occurred in recent years, there remains considerable inequity in the educational experiences and long-term engagement of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. One of the factors contributing to the challenging environment for Indigenous students is dissonance of social norms, as a result of ethnic and socioeconomic differences between teacher and student. Many hegemonic culture teachers are unaware of Standpoint Theory and the way in which normative beliefs impact on classroom interactions and student outcomes at the cultural interface. This paper draws on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TBP) to illustrate ways in which schools can identify areas of ethnic and socioeconomic prejudice impacting classroom interactions, and create shared social norms so that Indigenous students are most likely to experience positive educational engagement. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is then applied to discuss the type of classroom environment that best enables students to internalise positive educational behaviours in an autonomous manner. Such internalisation is necessary to improve long-term outcomes and postschool educational engagement for Indigenous Australians. The theories explored indicate that motivation for behavioural change relies on the individual's self-perceptions of competence, autonomy and normative beliefs regarding the value of education, and that integration of new behaviours requires an emotionally supportive environment and provision of a meaningful rationale. This paper argues that good practice in Indigenous schooling will address these areas specifically.

Shame is a ‘slippery’ concept in educational contexts but by listening to Aboriginal philosophy and Country, we can rethink its slipperiness. This article contemplates how multiple understandings of shame are derived from and coexist within colonised educational contexts. We focus on one positive example of Indigenous education to consider how these understandings can be challenged and transformed for the benefit of Indigenous learners. We discuss a mentoring program run by and for Indigenous young people that is successfully impacting school retention and completion rates: The Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME). AIME has a rule, ‘No Shame at AIME’, with the view to minimising shame as a barrier to engaging with Western education. But is this as beneficial as might first appear? Might this erode important cultural understandings of shame necessary in Indigenous education? Instead, could shame be repositioned to better align with original cultural meanings and purposes? We philosophise about the AIME rule with Yuin Country and stories from Country along with our observational and interview data. We argue AIME does not so much ‘remove’ shame as reposition it to better align with Aboriginal cultural educational practice, which positively impacts mentees.

The Wollotuka Institute, University of Newcastle, New South Wales, is the first university or organisation to enter into the accreditation process with the World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC). Part of that process includes identifying the local cultural standards and protocols that drive and shape our work as a cultural entity. As a result of successfully completing these processes, the course ‘Working with Aboriginal Communities’, consciously underwent a process of affirmation recognising and embedding where missing, these cultural protocols within our pedagogy and curriculum. Each intake sees students from all disciplines enrol and all benefit greatly from their cultural learning experiences. In this paper, we discuss how these cultural protocols shaped the course material that both online and face-to-face tertiary students experienced, as well, noting the outcomes of this process. Both authors are long-term educators in higher education and have had our teaching invigorated by this experience of critique and reflection. This paper serves to both be a reflective and documentary process for ourselves as well as an opportunity to share our experiences with our colleagues involved in higher education.

The English-based Creoles, which are spoken by a very large number of Aboriginal Australians, are so named because it is obvious that a large proportion of their lexicon is derived from English. This fact alone, however, does not indicate that they are merely regional varieties of English. They are distinct languages. Together with other world Creoles, they are at the frontier of linguistic research and the subject of considerable controversy. One critical forum of debate centres on the validity of Creoles as languages of education. It is the intention of the authors that this paper should achieve two things. Firstly, it is intended to contribute constructively to that debate. Secondly, it is intended to provide an overview of the present use of some creole languages in Australian schools.

This paper outlines PhD research which suggests mobile learning fits the cultural philosophies and roles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who are preservice teachers in the very remote Australian communities where the research was conducted. The problem which the research addresses is the low completion rates for two community-based Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs in South Australia (SA) and Queensland (Qld). Over the past decade, the national completion rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in teacher training was 36 per cent, and in these two community-based programs it was less than 15 per cent. This paper identifies the perceptions of the benefits of using mobile devices by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women who are preservice teachers in very remote communities. They report ways in which mobile learning supports their complex roles and provides pragmatic positive outcomes for their tertiary study in remote locations. The paper describes the apparent alignment between mobile learning and cosmology, ontology, epistemology and axiology, which may underpin both the popularity of mobile devices and the affordances of mobile learning.

The focus of this paper is adult literacy, and the impact this has on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individual and community health. It directs attention to those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people and adults who have not benefited from the formal school education system, and who, as a consequence, have very low levels of basic English language literacy. Analysing data from a range of sources, I suggest that these people comprise as much as 35% of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult population nationally, and a much bigger proportion in some communities and regions. Moreover, they are key to improving overall health outcomes in the population as a whole, because they are among the people most at risk. Drawing on research in countries of the global South over recent decades, the paper then suggests that one of the most effective ways to improve health outcomes and foster health development is through a popular mass adult literacy campaign. Popular education is not formal education, of the kind provided by schools, TAFEs and universities. It is “non-formal” education, provided on a mass scale, to people in marginalised and disadvantaged communities, as part of wider social and political movements for equality. The paper concludes that this is the most appropriate form of education to deal with the massive social and economic inequality at the heart of the social determinants of Indigenous health.

Our work as educators is entangled in questions of how colonisation privileges particular epistemologies and ontologies, ethical responsibilities and the reproduction of privilege or exclusion through education. Working with preservice teachers as they shape their social and ethical responsibilities allows the opportunity to effect social change on a larger scale as they move into their own classrooms. Students often begin the course seeking some form of knowledge about Indigenous peoples, yet this knowledge can be seen to represent a form of epistemic violence.

In this research project, I use a decolonial lens to consider the reflective writing journals of preservice teachers as they consider their relationships and responsibilities in the field of Indigenous education. The purpose is to explore how preservice teachers position themselves in this field and whether their engagement with these stories, theories, voices and knowledges leaves them with an inability to remain indifferent to their ethical responsibilities. In this paper, I invite you to walk with me through a landscape where we consider preservice teachers’ writings, Moreton–Robinson's possessive logic, transformative education and the concept of diffraction.