We are very proud to present this timely and significant Special Issue of The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, guest edited by Katelyn Barney (The University of Queensland), Cindy Shannon (The University of Queensland) and Martin Nakata (The University of New South Wales). This collection of articles focuses on the activities of the Australian Indigenous Studies Learning and Teaching Network, an initiative funded by the Office for Teaching and Learning. The Australian Indigenous Studies Learning and Teaching Network was formed to bring leaders and early career academics in the field together to build relationships, debate and discuss central issues, and explore and share teaching and learning strategies in the discipline at tertiary level. These discussions at once untangle and re-entangle the processes, pedagogies and politics at play when Indigenous Studies becomes defined as a discipline.

The quest to improve Indigenous people's access, participation and outcomes in education wherever we live in the world involves a concerted effort from all, and across all levels of education from the pre-school to the postgraduate sector. Improvements in these areas, as we have seen in past issues of The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, are closely tied to improving other social and economic indicators in Indigenous lives, such as health, employment, governance and housing. The importance of research in the field of Indigenous education is a fundamental part of understanding the complexity of the issues, the level of constraints, as well as the many possibilities as we move forward in time. And, as practitioners of Indigenous education continue to keep looking for new ideas or examples of teaching and learning practice, AJIE continues to invite descriptions of educational practice and articulations of Indigenous experience from our readership. As educational research and practice have progressively become global, we have sought experiences beyond our Aeotorea/New Zealand and North American colleagues to countries and contexts that are less familiar to us. We are pleased to report that for our efforts in this regard, AJIE is now listed with SCOPUS, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature.

The Australian Indigenous Studies Learning and Teaching Network was established in 2011 to develop a focused national network of scholars to engage in key discussions about teaching Indigenous Studies at tertiary level. Funded by the Office for Learning and Teaching (2011–14), the Network combines leaders and early career academics and builds relationships between scholars in the discipline, identifies key issues and explores effective teaching and learning approaches. This introductory essay places this Special Issue of The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education (AJIE) in context by exploring the aims and outcomes of the Network along with the positioning of the Network team. It also examines key challenges for the Network and possible future directions.

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.

The challenges of finding more productive ways of teaching and learning in Australian Indigenous Studies have been a key focal point for the Australian Indigenous Studies Learning and Teaching Network. This article contributes to this discussion by drawing attention to new possibilities for teaching and learning practices amid the priority being given to the more practice-oriented educational approaches for future professionals and the cultural competencies of all students and staff. We explore courses sequenced as Indigenous Studies Majors and discuss two different conceptualisations for framing teaching and learning in Indigenous Studies courses — decolonising theory and cultural interface theory — and the implications for some of the teaching and learning practices they facilitate, including the positioning of students and the development of dispositions for future professional practice. We suggest that those academic teams who structure course sequences in Indigenous Studies have a role to play in experimenting with shifts in teaching and learning frameworks and the design of course sequences to encourage approaches that are more focused on developing students’ breadth and depth of knowledge of the field, as well as their capacities for deeper engagements with Indigenous thought and the scholarly disciplines.

This article reports on the findings of an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research project, ‘Building the future for Indigenous students’, an investigation of the hopes and dreams for the future of over 1,000 secondary students, 733 of whom were Indigenous, living in very remote, remote, and urban locations in the Northern Territory. Using both quantitative and qualitative research tools, researchers sought to understand what motivated the students at school and how they studied — critical elements in successful school achievement. In this article, the analysis of Indigenous student responses to a series of questions in the qualitative component of the study is presented. The analysis concludes that urban and remote Indigenous school children provide similar responses to questions that probe: (1) the value of education/school/self, (2) learner future goals, (3) learner motivation, and (4) learning preferences. The study also finds that very remote Indigenous school children, while similar in some question responses to both groups, also show some important differences that raise questions for more research.

This research explored gender and cross-cultural similarities and differences in the motivational profiles of Indigenous Papua New Guinean (PNG) and Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Secondary students (N = 1,792) completed self-report motivational measures. Invariance testing demonstrated that the Inventory of School Motivation (McInerney, Yeung, & McInerney, 2001) measure was invariant across both gender and Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups. Structural equation modelling (SEM) results explicated that males were significantly more performance orientated than females in all three groups examined; however, the disparity between genders was most apparent in non-Indigenous Australians. Diverging from previous findings with non-Indigenous students, the current study found that PNG and Australian Indigenous males endorsed mastery goals more strongly than Indigenous females. In contrast, non-Indigenous females were more mastery orientated than non-Indigenous males. Finally, the two Indigenous groups endorsed social goals more strongly than the non-Indigenous Australians. The current findings highlight the importance of assessing gender and group differences, as broad statements relating to student motivation do not appear to be applicable in all cultural contexts.

Indigenous Studies can be both exciting and challenging for teachers and students. This article will examine how an existing learning theory can be harnessed to help teachers better understand these challenges and manage some frequently seen student behaviours. Much of the discussion in Indigenous Studies pedagogy to date has focused on the curriculum and what we should be teaching, with a growing body of literature, for example, related to the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledges. However, there is less written about how students learn in Indigenous Studies. Drawing on the notion of the Cultural Interface and the ‘zone of proximal development’ to highlight the complexity of Indigenous Studies classrooms as a site of necessary struggle for students, the article considers possibilities for reconceptualising and reorienting teaching. The paper explores using the threshold concepts framework to gather evidence about how students learn or indeed don't learn, in Indigenous Studies. Threshold concepts are key ideas, critical to mastering discipline specific knowledge, which facilitate students’ ability to think like a discipline experts.

Working with beginning teachers to assist them to begin to ‘think what we do’ (Arendt, 1998) in both mainstream and Indigenous education is problematic. This is particularly so because the majority of our teacher candidates, and indeed most of their university lecturers, are positioned close to the racial, social and cultural centre of Australian education. That is, teachers and teacher educators tend to be white, middle class, educationally successful, and accepting of the main premises and assumptions, purposes and values of formal schooling in Australia. This proximity to the centre can lead to an inability to question ideas and practices that, while everyday and seemingly innocuous, are frequently dangerous and destructive for those at the margins. In this article, we illustrate the normative power of hegemonic ideas by using aspects of the teen fiction The Hunger Games as an analogy for ‘thoughtless’ and unquestioning acceptance of authority. We then describe and discuss a pedagogic practice used within the Master of Teaching program at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. The practice is designed to challenge normative understandings about Australian history, teaching Indigenous Australian students, and to encourage engagement with the German-American Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt's provocative question ‘What are we doing?’ (Arendt, 1998, p. 5). We conclude the article with a challenge to re-think current policies and practices in the education of Indigenous Australians.

This article explores the implementation of PEARL (Political, Embodied, Active, and Reflective Learning) in two courses at The University of Queensland: a first-year introductory Indigenous Studies course and a second year Indigenous Education course. We draw on findings from a 2-year (2010–2011) Office for Learning and Teaching (then ALTC) funded curriculum renewal project and findings from a pilot project (2013) implementing PEARL in a compulsory Indigenous Education course for all pre-service teacher educators in primary and secondary teacher training at The University of Queensland. Drawing transformative education theory into conversation with critical pedagogy and anti-colonial/racist education, we share student data from focus groups, questionnaires and reflective journals to examine the shift in students’ understanding of Indigenous issues, histories and peoples. Finally, we reflect on the ways the results hold great potential for the further implementation of PEARL into other university level courses, specifically in relation to a ‘pedagogy of solidarity’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

As undergraduate curriculum is increasingly required to meet a range of intellectual, professional practice and personal learning outcomes, what purpose does Australian Aboriginal Studies have in curriculum? Most Australian universities are currently in the process of developing institution-wide approaches to Indigenous Australian content in undergraduate curricula. One Australian university began this task by mapping how, where and why Indigenous perspectives, issues and content are included in undergraduate curriculum. This article reports on the findings of the mapping of Indigenous content and approaches to teaching at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and thereby contributes to a strengths-based approach to understanding the purpose of Indigenous perspectives and issues in undergraduate curricula.

For more than 3 decades governments and education systems have struggled to address the gaps in educational outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Over the past 10 years it has become increasingly apparent that central to redressing these gaps is the development of teachers who are able to effectively engage with Indigenous students, their families and communities. The introduction of National Professional Standards has increased the focus on the development of pre-service teachers’ capacity to effectively teach Indigenous students. In 2008, the New South Wales Department of Education (DET) and four universities implemented an enhanced teacher training program (ETTP) that was delivered to final-year primary pre-service teachers. The success and continuing expansion of this program, coupled with the current national focus on building pre-service teachers’ capacity to teach Indigenous students, suggests it is timely to detail the critical design features of, and rationale for, this program to inform and support development of similar programs within pre-service teacher education. The article reports on four critical elements of the program: knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal history and culture; effective cross-cultural communication skills; holistic understanding of Aboriginal education and strategies required for improving Aboriginal student outcomes; and appropriate pedagogy and classroom management strategies.

This article describes how five pre-service teachers at similar stages of completion in their course at an Australian university responded to case studies on Indigenous education topics such as government policies, developing relationships, and teacher attitudes in the final assessment of a core unit of study. With the intent of encouraging student–teacher understandings to move beyond prior knowledge through dynamic scholarship, a case-study methodology was embedded across the pedagogical approach in an intensively taught Indigenous education core unit. The data consisted of an in-depth examination of five pre-service teachers’ assignments for levels of reflective language, and degree of orientation towards discourses in Indigenous education as associated with the assessment criteria. The findings support prior research in asserting core units in Indigenous education for pre-service teachers as paramount for developing teacher competencies, and argues careful consideration when deeming a graduate ready to teach according to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.

This article takes the form of an interview with Sandy O’Sullivan, who is a partner on the Australian Indigenous Studies Learning and Teaching Network, about key issues that have arisen through Network discussions. She is a Wiradjuri woman and a Senior Aboriginal researcher at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. O’Sullivan emphasises the strengths of the Network and difficulties the Network participants have had in defining ‘Indigenous Studies’. She also discusses the important work for the Network to do into the future, to continue to strengthen relationships between educators and improve teaching and learning of Indigenous Studies at tertiary level.

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.

Universities in Australia are expanding their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies programs to include Indigenous populations from around the globe. This is also the case for the Indigenous Studies Unit at the University of Wollongong (UOW). Although systems of nomenclature in Indigenous Studies seek to be respectful of difference, the politics of naming in the global context raises some complexities worthy of discussion. In this article, four scholars discuss the politics of naming in relation to teaching a joint Indigenous Studies subject at the UOW and Northern Arizona University.

This article details reflections of an interdisciplinary team of educators working with groups of health sciences students in preparing them for working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The first-year common core unit discussed here is one attempt to equip future health practitioners with skills and knowledges to work adequately in this complex area. Processes of engagement, central to critical reflection and learning that is iterative and cyclical, are emphasised here using the authors’/educators’ experiences of teaching in the unit. Within this first-year unit, the content delivered — its underlying processes and principles, and assessment design using reflective journalling — coalesces into what is a valued unit of study in preparing students for practising in this field. While the content of the unit is political, provocative and powerful, which presents challenges for students and teaching staff alike, we maintain here that processes of critical reflection and action learning are central to its success and significantly contribute to enhancing students’ learning and to changing students’ perspectives.

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.