The teacher sits on her low stool with the children around her. They are seated comfortably on a piece of carpet. Eyes and faces show intense interest in the story being read. Then -- “Teacher Pam, show me that word ‘wallaby’.”

The teacher is delighted at this interruption from little ------ as it is the first indicator after many weeks that she is making the connection between marks on the page and MEANING - a very necessary step for any child who is going to learn to read successfully and effectively.

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.

“The Minister directs that you take up duties at X school.” Ye gods and little fishes! What does a teacher new to a school like this do?

The school concerned in this paper is in a small, isolated, North Queensland town with a population of about 200. The racial mix is about 75% Aboriginal descent. The “best” jobs are mainly confined to the European sector, with the high profile occupations being held by itinerants, (teachers, nurses, and police). The local council is the main employer in the town, but there is still a high level of unemployment. Low socio-economic and educational standards and high alcohol consumption are prevalent throughout the community.

Cultures of poverty represent a worldwide phenomenon of considerable topical interest. The term designates a social grouping with low socioeconomic and cultural levels (viewed from the dominant culture's perspective), and scant social and economic status. Consequently families in disadvantaged environments are subjected to adverse factors such as poverty, cultural and geograpical isolation, membership of a non-technological cultural group, physical deficiencies, and the high mobility and uprooting of families caused by migrant labour and rapid industrialisation and resultant urbanisation. Although the various social groups in cultures of poverty may differ worldwide in certain respects, they do share some of the following common indicators: low economic and social status, a low level of education, poor housing, limited privacy, insufficient or unsuitable food, inferior occupations or unemployment, limited community involvement, and a limited potential for upward social mobility. These characteristics are indicative of social groups that are caught up in a spiral or syndrome of poverty, deprivation and cultural destitution because of their disadvantaged milieu and psychosocial impediments. For this reason they are seriously handicapped in their efforts to achieve optimal self-actualisation, to improve their chances in life, and to make an invaluable, meaningful and constructive contribution to a dynamic technocratic society.

Mr. Widders was born and raised in a total Aboriginal family-society. Leaving Armidale High School at 15, he spent several years in various jobs before becoming a student at Armidale Teachers College. This paper was presented to the Fourteenth Annual Conference of The Australian College of Education, at the University of Sydney in May, 1973 and is reproduced here with kind permission of the author and The Australian College of Education.

This paper examines a proposal that there is a need for a reappraisal of community education as the term is understood and applied in schools on relatively remote, tribally oriented Aboriginal communities.

A fairly detailed examination is made of the current realities involved in teaching in such localities in order to develop an alternative approach to this concept. Implicit in this alternative is a rejection of the stratagem whereby an Aboriginal council or board acts as a rubber stamp in an a priori decision making process. The principles involved in compensatory education are also rejected as being singularly inappropriate to the needs of Aboriginal communities.

A number of ‘radical’ overseas educationalists, whose comments and ideals seem appropriate to developing cross cultural perspectives, provide much of the material used in support of this plea for a new alternative in Aboriginal education.

All of us concerned with the education of Aboriginal children must be concerned also with the attitudes held by non-Aboriginal Australians towards Aboriginals. All of us who teach in schools teach about Aboriginals. Our own attitudes will be revealed in what we teach and how we teach. Do we in the schools help to perpetuate the ancient and modern myths discussed below by Mr. Spalding?

Central Schools in New South Wales administratively combine primary and secondary schools on a single site. They are normally located in small, relatively isolated, rural communities. In the Western Region of the NSW Department of Education there are 19 Central Schools varying in size from 88 to 557 students. At the time of this study eight of the Central Schools catered for students from kindergarten to Year 12, the remaining eleven catered for kindergarten to Year 10.

In 1987/88 Mitchell CAE, in collaboration with the Department of Education in the Western Region, undertook a major research study into the perceptions of Central Schools held by those most closely involved (Sinclair 1988). Prior to the study much of the knowledge of how Central Schools were perceived was anecdotal and impressionistic. This study aimed at gathering comparative data from all Western Region Central Schools about how those who taught, studied, or sent their children there perceived the quality of education provided by Central Schools.

“How do you use them?” is a question I have heard often. It is asked by teachers with reference to their classroom assistants in schools on Aboriginal communities. A seemingly simple question yet it points to a whole complex of issues, all relatively minor in themselves but which in sum are apparently a cause for concern for many in these schools.

In this brief article I intend to look only at those issues which directly affect the place of the indigenous classroom assistants in education. I am concerned that although the potential value of such resource personnel in our schools could be limitless, we appear not, in fact, to be scratching even the surface of such potential in many of these schools. Ultimate opportunity and responsibility to ensure that the role of these auxiliaries is a viable and effective one is ours as teachers.

The analysis examines how the documents approach – if at all – several different aspects of Aboriginal education as expressed in particular by Aboriginal women, the traditional educators of Aboriginal children (Gale, 1983). These aspects include:-

1. – Aboriginal Learning Styles

2. – Parental and Community Involvement

3. – The Child as an Individual

4. – Teaching Staff – Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal

5. – Curriculum Content – Aboriginal History; Aboriginal Studies (general); Integration into Other Subjects: and Relevance of Content

6. – Research-based Teaching

7. – Languages

8. – Racism

9. Misinterpretation of Basic Aboriginal Philosophies

10. – Resources

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners (Practitioners) have a broad scope of practice and play a pivotal role in addressing health disparities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Practitioners are required to maintain knowledge and skill levels to provide ongoing quality care. However, continuing education (CE) opportunities for Practitioners in regional areas are limited and little is known about the types of CE best suited to Practitioners. This study aimed to identify the CE needs of Practitioners working in a South-East Queensland region in Australia. Participatory action research and appreciative inquiry were combined in this multi-staged study. A local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory group provided cultural guidance for the study design and implementation. Supervisors and Practitioners from two Aboriginal Medical Services consented to participate. In stage one of this study, the supervisors were interviewed and the Practitioners contributed to focus groups. The Practitioners prioritised their CE needs in the second study stage using a questionnaire. The participants identified Practitioner CE needs and group 2 listed their career aspirations and the best practitioners were described as ‘Deadly’. The Deadly practitioner had diverse practice knowledge, skills and attributes. The Practitioners had career aspirations beyond their role and a desire to learn. However, their career advancement was stifled by a lack of CE opportunities. CE in regional areas is limited. Practitioners are disadvantaged by exclusion. Enhancing CE opportunities for Practitioners will positively impact the health of regional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities by building social capital. Therefore, future research on Practitioner roles and CE is needed.

This special issue of the Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, titled ‘South-South Dialogues: Global Approaches to Decolonial Pedagogies’, aims to contribute to the field of Australian Indigenous Studies and Education by further diversifying the perspectives, conversations and conceptual tools to engage with Indigenous pedagogies. Through a south-south conversational and conceptual approach, this special issue expands the conversation of Indigenous pedagogies internationally and conceptually from a global south location. At the same time, this special issue means to be a re-iteration of the first ‘South-South Dialogues: Situated Perspectives in Decolonial Epistemologies’ conference held in November 2015 at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, which displayed a south-south conversation lead by local and global Indigenous perspectives. This special issue further theorises what many local and global scholars view as implied in Indigenous education: that the mainstream field of education can be re-examined using a decolonial viewpoint, one that is led by the views of Indigenous peoples and people of colour from the ‘global south’. This issue also responds to a re-awakening of decolonial theories that have been embodied in ‘Southern Theory’ (Connell, 2007), Indigenous Standpoint Theory (Nakata, 2007), coloniality/decoloniality (see, for instance, Maldonado-Torres, 2007), among others that continue to re-examine the conditions in which colonisation continues to be epistemologically exerted and continue to propose ways to contest it. This re-invigorated conversation is one that can be addressed by a genuinely horizontal intercultural dialogue lead by the southern perspectives. This was, one way or another, what was observed and lived in the ‘South-South Dialogues’ conference that felt like the starting point of a newer form of knowledge production and pedagogy.

What were the influences on the Inuit of Northern Labrador preceding the creation of the self-governing territory of Nunatsiavut? What are the preterritorial influences of the Inuit on the territory’s five schools? To answer these questions and to share the success of one Indigenous people, the Nunatsiavut Inuit (the Inuit of Northern Labrador, Canada), this paper traces their survival, recovery, and development as they reclaim their right to self-determination (Smith, 1999). As part of this process, the paper reports such influences as: the bicultural and assimilationist forces (Moravian missionaries and the governments of Newfoundland), the rise and successful influence of the Labrador Inuit Association as a precursor to the Nunatsiavut Assembly, and the Inuit influence on schools in the region. This paper concludes with a discussion of the nature of northern isolation as a source of economic and cultural strength, which may have enabled the Nunatsiavut Inuit to resist complete assimilation, a factor in Nunatsiavut Inuit survival and increased potential for successful self-determination.

In recent issues of the Journal Mr. Spalding has stimulated us to think about the ways in which we teach about Aboriginals. In this article Mrs. Lippmann offers concrete suggestions which will help teachers in their attempts to promote better race relations through education.

Te reo Māori, the Indigenous language of Aotearoa (New Zealand), remains ‘endangered’ despite concentrated ongoing efforts to reverse declining numbers of speakers. Most of these efforts have focused on te reo Māori immersion education settings as these were considered the most effective means to ensure the survival of the language (May & Hill, 2008). More recently, the home has been identified as an important setting for language regeneration (Te Puni Kokiri, 2011). Despite the fact that the vast majority of secondary school-aged students (both Māori and non-Māori) attend English-medium schools, these settings are seldom considered as having potential to increase numbers of te reo Māori speakers. This article reports findings from a case study of one English-medium secondary school where factors surrounding the uptake of te reo Māori as a subject were investigated. Using Spolsky and Shohamy's (2000) language policy framework as an explanatory lens, it was revealed that even when students’ language ideologies orient them towards learning te reo Māori, language management and practice decisions can discourage rather than encourage this choice.

Australia is rich in biological diversity and Indigenous Australians hold substantial knowledge about how to care for and utilise a diverse range of plants and other biological elements which occur here. Australia has a specific set of legal and policy obligations arising from its ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1993. This paper looks at some of the ethical, strategic, and practical issues for Indigenous peoples.