Research in Indigenous Australian education is at a dead-end. Researchers are still heading out into the field to look for new knowledge to answer old questions. The same epistemology dominates how we look, and where, while the methodology provides the researcher with a forced choice, one where either the student or the teacher is blamed for the lack of outcomes in Indigenous education. Where do we look now, and can we find something that has not been found before? The unequal historical relation that persists across Australia suggests that the process of research itself could be given as much attention as the search for quantifiable outcomes. The paper proposes that this process focus on the production of relations between schools and communities as well as on the search for knowledge.

The history of remote school education in the Northern Territory can best be summarised as years of lost opportunities, pedagogies of discrimination, and diminished lives for those parents and children who trusted and responded to the government’s invitation to come to school. From late 2001 to 2005 historic educational change occurred in the remote Community Education Centre of Kalkaringi and Daguragu in the Northern Territory, the site for the delivery of the Northern Territory’s first Year 12 Indigenous graduates studying in their own community school. At the heart of the historic achievement was a radical change in thinking about education for Indigenous students. This paper discusses some of the policy parameters and educational circumstances that prevented significant change in the delivery model of education for the Community Education Centres in addition to a conceptualisation of how that school circumvented the policy parameters and instituted real change from the ground up. The paper examines, through a critical lens, the nature of the culture change that was crafted and built upon within Kalkaringi School and its communities, despite an initial and significant sense of powerlessness felt by families and to some extent the teachers and principal within the school. Through the development and embrace of a metaphor of possibility and hope - the challenge of climbing the educational mountain formed the foundation for a dedicated and committed enactment of an equitable educational entitlement for remote Indigenous students.

This paper presents an analysis of the classroom discourse and strategies of Marcia, an early childhood teacher of a class with a high percentage of Indigenous Australian students. These students have been demonstrably successful on standardised literacy tests, which is not the case for Indigenous students in general in Australia (e.g., MCEETYA, 200). It will be suggested here that Marcia’s approach and relationships with the students, as constructed in her discourse, have been a large contributing factor in this success. Marcia’s discourse can be described as both inclusive and empowering and, as such, it will be proposed that awareness of her techniques may be of benefit to teachers who are working with groups whom education systems tend to marginalise and disempower. Marcia’s lessons were observed as part of the project, “Teaching Indigenous Students with Conductive Hearing Loss in Remote and Urban Schools of Western Australia”. This project was based in Kurongkurl Katitjin, School of Indigenous Studies, at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, and was funded by an Australian Research Council Strategic Partnerships with Industry [SPIRT] Grant and the industry partners: Department of Education of Western Australia, Catholic Education Commission of Western Australia and Aboriginal Independent Community Schools, Western Australia.

In this paper, we discuss and analyse the development of a resource documenting an Indigenous early childhood playgroup programme. The resource, known as the “Best Start DVD” was developed through a partnership between community and government support agencies to support engagement of parents as educators of their children. Through analysis of the development process and the product, we provide commentary on our learning regarding working successfully in partnerships with Indigenous communities. Additionally, we discuss what we learned about influences on Indigenous parents’ engagement as educators of their children.

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 retention and completion rates of Indigenous students undertaking tertiary studies continue to be disappointing. The contribution of Eurocentric curricula to such an outcome has been proposed in the Australian and international literature. Remaining very conscious of my status as a white, female, social work educator teaching at a regional university, over the last six years I have attempted to pursue the development of a more Indigenous-inclusive curricula and thus contribute to increasing Indigenous graduates from our degree programmes. This article documents some of my actions to rectify gaps in my own non-Indigenous knowledge base as a reflective learner under Indigenous supervision within the academy and in the community. Action to advance the development of accurate, useful curriculum and teaching practices respectful of Indigenous knowledges is recommended.

The athlete role model has emerged as the new pastor invested with the task of leading young people classed “at-risk” from entering into self-destructive pathways. The logic invested in the athlete role model is that young people identify with their sporting heroes and in the process try to emulate them. This holds for the major sporting codes in Australia including the Australian Football League (AFL), which supports the formation of role model programmes based on the input of Indigenous athletes to target Indigenous youth living in rural outposts. Armstrong (1996) sees the push to emulate the deeds of elite athletes in terms of a mythic function, the creation of desire to be like the hero. This article explores the theoretical implications for Indigenous learning grounded in the athlete/hero as role model. It is proposed that the athlete role model in the contemporary context of capitalism can work to obscure the realities of competition in sport and in the process promulgate false opportunity through sport at the expense of education.

In order to better understand the present trends in New Zealand’s schooling contexts, there is a clarion call for educators to develop sensitivity and sensibility towards the cultural backgrounds and experiences of Maori students. This paper reports on the work of four scholars who share research that has been undertaken in educational settings with high numbers of Maori students, and discusses the importance of creating culturally-safe schools - places that allow and enable students to be who and what they are. The theoretical frameworks drawn on are based on both a life partnership analogy as well as on a socio-cultural perspective on human development and learning. The Maori worldview presented in this paper is connected to the Treaty of Waitangi, The Educultural Wheel and the Hikairo Rationale. Data were collected from two ethnographic case studies and analysed through these frameworks. Practical suggestions are then made for using restorative practices and creating reciprocal relationships in classrooms within an environment of care. The paper reports on an evidence-based approach to creating culturally-safe schools for Maori students.

In this qualitative study, over the period of one year, we assessed the appropriateness of a mainstream early childhood education intervention, the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) programme, in five on-reserve First Nations communities, by focusing on the experiences of the Aboriginal women who delivered the programme. Findings revealed a process of “taking ownership” of HIPPY. “Taking ownership” included three subprocesses: changes in the women’s views regarding (1) the strengths of the programme; (2) self-identity; and (3) the identification of the programme as Aboriginal. Through taking ownership, the women were no longer content to deliver HIPPY strictly as it was described in the programme manuals. Although the women continued to maintain that HIPPY was valuable for their communities, their actions and words clearly demonstrated that sharing cultural knowledge in the context of the programme was important to them and, they believed, important for the children and families they worked with. The process documented here points to the importance of Aboriginal culture reflected in educational provisions for Aboriginal children - whether this can be appropriately achieved through supplementing and/or adapting mainstream programmes remains a point of debate.

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.

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.