This article explores the Sami philosophy of the gift as a basis for a transformative pedagogical framework. Grounded on the Sami land-based worldview, this philosophy calls for the recognition and reciprocation of gifts, whether gifts of the land, interpersonal gifts or giftedness of an individual. In particular, the article considers two Sami concepts, that of láhi and attáldat and explains how they can serve as a framework for a Sami pedagogy that takes into account the central role of the Sami worldview in contemporary education while simultaneously critically analysing the colonial structures that continue to impact Sami society and education.

This research examined different ways in which tutors of mathematics approach their tutoring among Indigenous students enrolled in the Tertiary Entry Program (TEP) at Central Queensland University's Indigenous Learning, Spirituality and Research Centre. The study sought to establish whether or not there were any differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous tutors' approaches to tutoring and, document challenges and opportunities in tutoring mathematics to Indigenous students. Using qualitative data obtained from interviews, the study raised more questions than answers. The results reflect tutors' own teaching orientations. This is particularly clear when all of the tutors who participated in this study were NOT mathematics trained teachers but had either taken interest in the subject as a result of doing a mathematics-related subject such as engineering and science. Overall, there was consensus that establishing rapport between the students and Learning Advisers was crucial. Knowing who the students are and, vice versa, was also considered fundamental. For some, it was an acknowledgment that both the tutor and the student were on a discovery journey. The majority of the tutors prefer a process where a mathematical concept was explained first, followed by an application of real life situations.

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia emphasises that children's own identity is constructed within their given context of family and community. This article presents the findings of a multiple case study project undertaken within five remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, Australia. Community Elders were concerned that while their children had a positive sense of self during their prior-to-school years, on entry into formal schooling they experienced a disjuncture between those experiences and the expectations of a Western curriculum. The project involved partnering one university academic to work with each community, exploring ways of improving 4-year-old children's pre-reading and numeracy skills to enhance their capacity to engage with expectations on entry into formal schooling. Elders were determined to have the children be successful at school and saw success there as inextricably interwoven with their sense of efficacy to explore and to learn. Outcomes included positives such as children demonstrating increased pre-reading and numeracy skills and, importantly, the engagement of the whole community in the project. Foundational to the success was making Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing key components of learning opportunities provided to the children, supporting awareness of their social and cultural heritage.

This article critically examines the possibility of using Problem-Based Learning as an approach to teaching and learning and curriculum design in Indigenous studies. This approach emphasises the potential for Experience-Based Learning or Problem-Based Learning as a model that frames the curriculum and pedagogical activities to encourage student engagement with key issues in ways they find meaningful. It takes the form of an interview with Professor David Boud, a well-known scholar in this area.

Would you like a hot dog? The Aboriginal man, who was on his first visit to a city and to whom the question was addressed, looked amazed and then responded, “Can I come and have a look?”. He soon discovered that ‘hot dogs’ were not what his grasp of English and the mental picture it had conjured up – of a cooked canine – had led him to believe. A rather relieved young man enjoyed his first ‘hot dog’. An amusing incident at the time, but how often do the words used in Aboriginal schools – particularly in maths lessons – evoke mental pictures or concepts that differ markedly from those of children who grow up speaking English and with a conceptual view of the world related to the western system of knowledge? What is perhaps even more alarming is that teachers are often unaware that this is happening, and when the child fails to act intelligently in certain situations the teacher often despairs and then gives up trying to teach maths effectively and concentrates on teaching ‘sums’, at which Aboriginal children, with their strong aural and visual memories, gain some measure of success. But such an approach, though measurable in school, fails to equip a child to operate mathematically in the real world where, for example, we meet our subtraction operations not clothed in the language of ‘take away’ and certainly never ‘minus’ but in comments like: “Red Cravats scored 32 and Waratahs finished 6 goals behind them,” or “Nhulunbuy are at the top of the ladder with 34 points and Yirrkala are second with 29”.

Sustainable partnership formation in a remote Indigenous community involves social, cultural and political considerations. This article reports on the project, ‘Sharing Place, Learning Together: Supporting Sustainable Educational Partnerships to Advance Social Equity’, funded by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute (MSEI) at the University of Melbourne (UoM). The project's aims were to document insights into working with communities and educators in a remote community school in Western Arnhem Land, and to promote and raise Aboriginal students’ aspirations for engagement in further education through knowledge exchanges. Two project deliverables focus this paper: a participatory workshop conducted at UoM by educators and students from the school, and a qualitative research study that investigated the mutual partnership capacity building between the school community and UoM. The workshop provided an environment conducive to the participants sharing their cultural knowledge and perspectives on a two-way Learning on Country program with the wider UoM community. Extensive interview data collected from school and community-based participants identified the enabling and constraining factors impacting the formation of a sustainable partnership. The findings revealed the importance of prioritising relationship-building, the valuing of resource development, and the need for humility and openness to criticism when working with remote communities.

The uptake of small screen technology by adolescents is widespread, particularly in industrial nations. Whether the same is true for Australian Aboriginal youth is less clear as there is a dearth of research in this regard. Therefore, in this exploratory study the use of small screen technology by Indigenous students was examined. Twenty-four Indigenous adolescents (mean age 16.4 years) attending a boarding school in a remote region of Western Australia participated in individual and in-depth structured interviews that queried their use of: (1) television, (2) video games, (3) computers, (4) the internet, and (5) mobile phones. The results showed that mobile phones were the most frequently used and the most popular (i.e., they were nominated as first choice in a hypothetical scenario), followed by the internet, whereas television, video games and computers were used less often. It did appear that mobile phones were used by participating Aboriginal adolescents in ways similar to non-Indigenous adolescents (e.g., not only to make phone calls, but also to send text messages and access the internet). However, their mobile phone use did reflect differences based on their cultural values and identity, and also reflected their physical distance from their family (i.e., because of their enrolment at a boarding school). This study supports anecdotal evidence of a rapid uptake of mobile phones by Indigenous adolescents. It also suggests that as the small screen technology of choice, they have the potential to be utilised for educational opportunities.

Among San communities in Botswana, the rate of student disengagement from both primary and junior secondary school is an ongoing concern for educators. San learners leave school at all levels of primary and junior secondary education. Students who leave school have tended not to provide reasons as to why they are dropping out. This study investigated some of the reasons why San learners decided to drop out at primary and junior secondary school levels in the Central District in Botswana. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 20 former students living in five cattle-posts where the participants worked as cattle herders. The results indicate that some San drop out of school for reasons of survival, both within and outside school. The findings of the study offer insights into some of the issues that impede students within San communities in achieving their educational goals. Further, the findings could assist educational authorities in their review of current educational practices in Botswana so that that all citizens can be appropriately accommodated within the education system.

This study takes a retrospective look at the educational experiences of Indigenous health professionals who graduated from The University of Queensland's Indigenous Health Program between 1994 and 2005, to understand the enablers for growing an Indigenous health workforce capable of advancing the health of Indigenous peoples. Drawing on the qualitative accounts of 31 students and 9 staff members, this paper examines the enablers to educational success at this time, juxtaposed against current Indigenising agendas in higher education, of aspiration and capacity building alongside the task of embedding Indigenous knowledges within curricula. We look back not as a call to return to Indigenous-specific cohort courses but rather reconsider both the measures of and strategies for success in Indigenous higher education, within health and beyond, interrogating the ideological assumptions that inform them.

Cherbourg State School is some 300 kilometres northwest of Brisbane. It is situated in an Aboriginal community at Cherbourg with approximately 250 students, all of whom are Indigenous Australian children. Cherbourg State School aims to generate good academic outcomes for its students from kindergarten to Year 7 and nurture a strong and positive sense of what it means to be Aboriginal in today's society. In a context where the community continues to grapple with many social issues born of the historical processes of dispossession and disempowerment, Cherbourg State School is determined that its children can and will learn to become “Strong and Smart”. It is a journey that has been charted by Chris Sarra, the school's first Aboriginal principal, in his paper Young and Black and Deadly: Strategies for Improving Outcomes for Indigenous Students (2003), which describes how pride and expectations were engendered in the school over a four-year period from 1998. In this paper I will discuss the historical context of the school and its impact on the Indigenous people of Cherbourg. My aim here has been to consider the historical, political, social and cultural context around the creation of Cherbourg State School. I critically examine the historical records of the role of the State Government and the white settlers in the setting up and creation of the Aboriginal Reserve and later the primary school. Throughout I address an absence – a voice missing from history – the voice of the Aboriginal people. This exercise in collective memory was designed to provide an opportunity for those who have seldom been given the opportunity to tell their story. Instead of the official view of Cherbourg School it provides a narrative which restores the victims of history to a place of dignity and indeed humanity.

This paper examines some challenges we confront working with preservice teachers prior to serving in remote Indigenous communities. Some challenges include what preservice teachers bring to their studies - subjectivities, experiential understandings of teaching and notions of childhood/adolescence, culture and social justice, all of which involve minds, emotions and our notions of our places in society. Some challenges involve linking new notions of teaching to what they already know which may entail unlearning before relearning. Some challenges involve making sense of the theory/action dialectic - teasing out links between strongly held but unarticulated values, beliefs and actions that derive from them. Some challenges involve anticipating what it might be like to live and teach in a remote setting and preparing to work effectively across cultures. I then discuss how we might tackle them in the light of productive pedagogy and culturally relevant pedagogy (Osborne, 2001a, 2001b).

Educational outcomes for Aboriginal students in British Columbia, and Canada in general, are a cause for considerable concern. High dropout rates, low participation, completion and success rates at educational institutions have challenged educators for decades. Solutions have included lowering admission requirements for Aboriginal candidates and establishing alternative programmes that improve attendance and remedy learning problems. However, most of these policies have not offered a lasting solution to challenges facing Aboriginal students. This study presents findings from interviews conducted with 20 Aboriginal undergraduate students, seven professors, and five non-academic staff at four universities in British Columbia, namely: Malaspina University College, University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, and Simon Fraser University. It presents their definitions of student success and how this could be improved. Four policy options are proposed. These are then tested against six criteria to determine the potential consequences of their implementation. Recommendations are made to British Columbia’s universities based on the multicriteria analysis.

This report looked at the important, but contentious issue of alternative assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people studying at the tertiary level. Presented below, its findings give expression to the views of 47 respondents, chosen from Indigenous communities, Commonwealth and State Government departments, the tertiary education sector and business.

This article presents a discussion on a study undertaken by academics within the Griffith School of Environment, Brisbane, Australia that sought to explore the potential of an Indigenised curriculum to attract and retain Indigenous students, and thereby facilitate greater participation of Indigenous students in science. The article highlights the need for staff to be both reflective and reflexive about the limitations their particular knowledge systems may impose on Indigenous ways of knowing and knowledge systems. The article also acknowledges the need for professional development opportunities for staff prior to any attempts towards Indigenisation of the curriculum.

This a report on a study of the early childhood service needs of six South Australian Aboriginal communities, commissioned by the South Australian Children's Services Office and funded by the SA Aboriginal Education and Training Advisory Committee.

This paper speaks from a poetic voice and briefly discusses the untamed nature of metaphor and narrative. Then the story is shared. The tale relates to how healing of identity, after eons of racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of social isolation and internalised sorrow, requires deep abiding patience. Situated in transpersonal or spiritual space, the story suggests how Indigenous narrative crosses thresholds between reality and fiction. These are united in an “ontopoetics” of soul, a uniquely postmodern Indigenous sensibility that is also nothing terribly new. The story of Shieldwolf and the Shadow is a contemporary Indigenous tale of the place where transformation is undertaken, without fear, and with every intention that life itself will change beyond our reckoning. It may be possible that past bloodlines can be cleansed and our future restored to justice and peace – at least in some personal and contingent way. What we see in contemporary story is a potential for transformation that has eluded us for generations, and this is an echo of the wisdom of our elders.

A friend, whom I had not seen for some time, recently asked me what I had been doing overthe last several months. I replied, ‘I have just spent the past year in the most incredible headspace.’ This elicited an excited curiosity from my friend to hear more and I began to explain. At fifty-six years of age I had made the decision to return to academic life as a student and pursue a degree in Australian Indigenous Studies. This had been suggested and encouraged by my Aboriginal sister, Jackie Huggins, and so, with herguidance I applied and was accepted to attend the University of Queensland within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (ATSIS) Unit of the Arts Faculty. It was a major step for me, for although I had been presenting lectures and workshops on aspects of traditional and contemporary Native American culture in the educational and public arenas for a decade, I had not been on the student side of the lectern for 40 years. In the first few weeks of semester one the impact of my decision was almost overwhelming. I had completed secondary school in Canada, being the first person in my family to achieve that and now here I was going to university, another first in my family.

Aboriginal teacher education is a distinctive educational activity. How distinctive Aboriginal teacher education needs to be and the forms it might take are a matter for action research (McTaggart and Garbutcheon-Singh, 1986) by Aboriginal teachers, their communities, and teacher educators working in Aboriginal schools, and from teacher education instititions. But there is experience available from which it is reasonable to propose some general principles which should guide immediate efforts in Aboriginal teacher education.

The pedagogical principles outlined below come from an action research project in Aboriginal teacher education conducted in the Northern Territory over the last two years. The project is known as D-Bate, the Deakin-Batchelor Aboriginal Teacher Education Program, a joint project of Batchelor College in the Northern Territory and the School of Education of Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria.

The Indigenous Australian population is not only considerably younger than the non-Indigenous population but is also on the rise. The challenge for many is to provide the kind of education that equips young Indigenous Australians with the necessary skills for managing their money. This challenge is further compounded, as the adult Indigenous population is not well versed in money management. This paper examines some of the strategies that are needed to improve Indigenous financial literacy in schools.