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.

The preparation of this paper has been stimulated by the table appended to the article “Parental involvement: endeavours to improve communications between Meningie Area school and the Pt. McLeay community in the period 1973–4” (A.M. Nankivell, The Aboriginal Child at School, Vol. 3 No. 1, 1975 pp. 48–55). The table, headed “Summary of Main Points Arising from Group Discussion of the Eight Major Problems at Meningie”, is a report of some conclusions derived from a seminar conducted with “Aboriginal and white parents and representatives of the various administrative and ancillary bodies concerned to discuss mutual problems”.

The article and table describe a number of ‘facts’ and make deductions, based on the unchallenged wisdom of psychologists, which purport to ‘explain’ problems in Aboriginal education. Indeed, the table is a succinct statement of the kind of explanatory system which has been used in Aboriginal education; an explanatory system which deserves close examination in the light of the failure of Aboriginal education over the last 130 years. The comments which follow, then, are not directed exclusively at the paper under discussion; they refer to general problems of explanation in Aboriginal education.

To traditional Aborigines their whole concept of life, whether it is physical or spiritual survival, is centred on their belief in the Dreamtime. The Dreamtime was the period of creation when the Aborigines’ life-style was planned and the Aborigines’ entire life centred on the need to live in the style prescribed by the mythical Dreamtime ancestors.

An understanding of the Dreamtime is essential to an understanding of traditional Aboriginal culture. Stanner (1979, 23–40) describes the Dreaming as pervading every aspect of life from social organization to food gathering. Not only is it the period of creation when the mythical ancestors roamed the earth, but it is also the life spirit which ties man, society and nature, both past and present, to the living now.

R.M. Berndt (1980) describes the dreaming thus:

The Dreaming therefore constituted a particular view of life, of the place of human beings within a preordained scheme or patterning symbolising a three-sided relationship between mythic beings, nature and people. Each was dependent on the others. People were part of nature, part of particular mythic beings, in social and personal terms.

(Berndt, 1980, 14–15)

Not only did traditional Aborigines believe in the Dreaming, they lived it. It is the Dreaming which provides the blueprint for life.

Central to the belief in the Dreaming is the belief in the mythical beings. These beings were part human and part animal. They roamed the earth in the Dreamtime using super-human powers to create all natural features.

This paper will provide a detailed plan of how the Aboriginal community of Geraldton could plausibly go about correcting its educational problems. Such a correction could foreseeably result in the easing of much poverty and the associated ramifications. The success of this plan is entirely based on the cooperation of not only the schools and the parents, but will require the support of students (both Aboriginal and non Aboriginal), the Education Department (National, State and local levels), Non Government Organisations in Geraldton, school staff and the wider community.

During the past 18 months, one of the most obvious differences recognized between two groups of students of the same age – those I have taught in Victorian secondary schools and those I now teach at the Yirrkala Post Primary School in the Northern Territory – is a huge difference in the degree of commitment to the function of the school.

This does not express itself in an obvious antagonism of the students for the school or its teachers. Rather, while the European students would attempt to force the school to meet their needs, as they recognized them, our students place few demands. If, in the past, I adopted inappropriate methods or irrelevant subject matter, the students would quickly and obviously let me know and in a constructive way, if I cared to listen. If the school was promoting values which clashed with the family or particular social group values of a student, then often the student and the family would engage in conflict with the school.

My present students apply themselves with almost equally stolid rigourousness, seemingly irrespective of the task. Can you imagine a class which is so docile that it will sometimes allow a new teacher to teach exactly the same subject matter as that already taught by a previous teacher? On appearances, is this a model class? Are the students and the parents so satisfied with the efforts of the school that they need never express antagonism or attempt to change what it is doing? I do not believe that this is so.

In early 1989 a proposal was submitted for the purchase of three Macintosh computers and software for the purpose of assisting lower streamed students in their reading difficulties. A condition of the purchase was that some form of evaluation would be implemented in order to gauge the worth of the program.

The computers were installed in the schools and a program of instruction was written for the commencement of Term IV, which ran for 10 weeks.

Traeger Park Primary School is situated in a community composed of white and Aboriginal cultures and sub-cultures. The enrolment is approximately three hundred and eighty and of this more than half the children are of Aboriginal descent. Approximately sixty of these Aboriginal children live in cottage homes because they come from cattle stations or they are state wards. The various sub-cultures would include –

1. Stable middle-class part-Aboriginal group.

2. Lower socio-economic group of part-Aboriginal people living in town.

3. Full blood Aboriginal people in fringe-dwelling situations

4. A transient white group who live at caravan parks.

5. People employed by railways.

6. A small group of middle-class whites.

Within the white cultures, there are many disadvantaged children from broken or disturbed homes. All these sub-cultures within the school have tended to make the middle-class white group disadvantaged. We are faced with the problem of keeping these children up to the academic standard expected by parents. In the fringe-dwelling group there are twenty-five children from one particular camp and thirty-five from other camp situations all around the town. Many of these people see this school as theirs even though they live much closer to other primary schools. The principal aim of the school is to develop in the children an awareness of themselves and their place in the community, and a self-concept that enables them to live a full and satisfying existence in the environment of their own choice.

Ear disease and hearing problems are alarmingly widespread in Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory. School hearing screening results indicate that between 25% and 50% of Aboriginal children may suffer from middle ear disease and associated hearing loss. This means that up to half the children in any classroom cannot hear their teacher properly.

In the International Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples, it is appropriate to celebrate the successes of Anangu empowerment in the Anangu schools.

Certainly in the past, and arguably continuing into the present, music education in schools has been and is often perceived as the exclusive domain of the so-called ‘talented and able’ with a distinct bias towards middle class West-centric society. Yet we are constantly reminded that education ought to address issues of inclusivity, access and equity for students, no matter what their background or history (Smith, 1995). In fact effective music education experiences often provide another means of access to learning areas such as language or maths for children excluded by their apparent lack of literacy or numeracy skills (Campbell, 2000).

Much has been said and written by the reading specialists about the way children learn to read and how teachers should be facilitators in this natural process. Frank Smith says that phonics need not be taught in the classroom; in fact he says it makes the learning to read process more difficult for children (Smith 1973, p.185).

Phonics or grapho-phonics tells a reader and writer how spelling patterns relate to sound sequences (Reed 1977, p.393). Whether phonics is taught incidentally on a one-to-one basis or whether it is taught more formally, I believe phonics does have a place in the classroom today, particularly in the bilingual Aboriginal classroom. Teachers of Aboriginal children should feel free to teach phonics, despite what the specialists say.

Much that has been written relates to native English-speaking children, brought up in a literate society where newspapers and bedtime stories are the norm. In this paper I am concerned with non-English speaking tribal Aboriginal children, in a pre-literate society. They attend bilingual schools where they learn to read and write first in the vernacular and then in English. I will point out that what the reading specialists advocate in learning to read naturally, is not always sound advice for tribal Aboriginal children learning to read and write in the vernacular.

Issues of finances and resources continue to be critical in determining future directions for Aboriginal Support Programs in higher education. Full accountability for expenditure of public funds has been the ‘hidden agenda’ behind the rhetoric of ‘self management’ and ‘self-sufficiency’ of both the labour and coalition parties in regard to Aboriginal affairs (Sharing the Country). Yet, it is becoming increasingly evident that these political terms have economic links with ‘amalgamation’ and ‘program rationalization’; that is, they are packaged in ‘micro economic reform’.

This article begins by considering the general nature of capability, from some dictionary meanings, then extends to theoretical perspectives related to the capability approach. As a consequence, we arrive at an operational definition that emphasises the ability to solve problems in a systematic way that brings transformation. In these terms, capability is seen as an inherent feature of the life process. The second part of this article presents a model of knowledge generation and illustrates how the development of capability is also an inherent feature of the research process in the fundamental goal of transforming both theory and practice. In the final section, we review and update the activities, initiatives and outcomes of the Capability Building program of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, from its beginning in late 2002 to the present, and show that this multi-level and networked program continues to be successful in building research capability. We end by listing some key objectives that are necessary for continuing to strengthen our research culture and capabilities for the future.

This paper discusses the PhD research process from my perspective as an Aboriginal man. The paper illuminates how I navigated my way through a Western academic system using an Aboriginal framework. I give insights into the dynamics at play in both academic and traditional ways of knowing, being and doing. As an Aboriginal researcher, I was intent, as many Aboriginal scholars are, on doing research that was inclusive, respectful, culturally appropriate and satisfactory to both partners. The paper is not designed as a ‘one size fits all’, but may be used as a signpost for those who choose to do research with Aboriginal people or for insights into the experiences of an Aboriginal Higher Degree by Research student and researcher.

This paper argues that a component of increasing the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youths completing their secondary education is having parents and teachers maintain heightened expectations of these children in achieving this goal. To understand this phenomenon, we investigate the importance of, and discrepancies between, primary caregiver and teacher outlooks regarding Indigenous youths completing year 12. For the purpose of this paper, we adopt the term ‘primary caregiver’ in place of parent. This is because the majority (87.7%) of P1s analysed are the biological mothers with the remainder being close female relatives. P2s analysed are all male, 93.3% are biological fathers; remainder are step-fathers or adoptive fathers. This paper uses quantitative data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children to measure expectations from parents and teachers of Indigenous children. Results suggest that parents maintain exceptionally high expectations of their children, while teacher's expectations significantly decline over the course of Indigenous children's primary and secondary schooling years. We suggest that relationships and communication between parents and teachers, regarding expectations of students, are important to establishing an equilibrium in expectations of children, and that teachers may benefit from further training to address any underlying biases towards Indigenous children.

In 2013, the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation's (CRC-REP) Remote Education Systems (RES) project team brought together a collection of papers built around a central theme of ‘red dirt thinking’. This theme reflected a view the authors had, that education and schooling in remote communities should be relevant to the context (that is, the ‘red dirt’) in which it is provided. We proposed this as a conceptual framework in which to challenge conventional wisdom about success, disadvantage and aspiration in remote schools.

In 2008, Ecuador reformed its Constitution after a prolonged period of economic, social and political crises. The momentary rupturing of power structures, that had limited political participation to small clusters of elites, opened participatory spaces for historically marginalised social groups to engage in the process of constitutional drafting. As a result of this unprecedented political shift in participation and inclusiveness, alternative notions of cultural, social and economic rights surfaced. This progressive constitutionalism is thus a novel attempt at overcoming legal formalism in favour of a Living Law, a law that embraces the contextual settings where it will be applied by scrutinising the historic power structures that have moulded it. Good Living as a legal principle underlines the enactment of a Living Law.