In a large urban centre in North Queensland, a young five year old Aboriginal boy enters the classroom, wide-eyed and silent. Behind him come his mother and grandmother, seemingly reluctant to enter the classroom. The school year commenced two weeks earlier, so the other children have developed some routine. Having not been to pre-school, Joseph takes his place at the desk assigned by the teacher and silently watches the other children talk, laugh and skilfully use the available equipment.

Many talking activities lead to writing and reading and to activities in other curriculum areas.

In this paper I offer an explanation for teacher-held beliefs that contribute to perceptions of school failure by indigenous children and discuss the ends served by these perceptions. Although the validity of using retention rates as an indicator of actual educational outcomes is questioned (Luke, A. et al, 1993:144), there are few other indicators presently available. The figures on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student participation rates-indicate that few children of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent complete secondary school. The following figures, based on data collected in the 1991 Australian Census, show the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school children of a particular sex and age expressed as a proportion of the population of children of the same sex and age, in Queensland.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to visit an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander preschool/kindergarten as part of a course I did called “Children with special needs.”

I had been telling a group of Aboriginal mothers about some of the things that we had learned about how their children talk. The discussion had become quite animated as they recognised elements of their own speech in the examples I was giving. It was obvious that they were pleased that I regarded their way of talking as worthy of study and as something to be valued.

Education is a vital political concern to Aboriginal and Islander women. Despite common assumptions that Aboriginal and Islander families do not hold high expectations for their children's education, Aboriginal and Islander families do value education for their children and hold high educational aspirations for them. This general perception of Aboriginal and Islander parents' disinterest has to do with the mismatch between the education provided and the culture of their children. Palm Island women as community other - Mothers, for instance, show a deep concern about their own and their children's education. It is only by gaining a political vocabulary by which to speak that Palm Island women can begin to articulate the educational needs for their children. This voice emanates from their standpoint and speaks in their interests, and contests Anglo-Australian paternalistic models of education. This article will give voice to Palm Island women as they speak about their children's education and their own educational aspirations.

In our society success in science is important for students as a means to full participation, empowerment, and access to career/further study options. Science in schools is an area of concern for Aboriginal education because of the low number of Aboriginal students who experience this success. Goal 3 of the Common And Agreed National Goals For Schooling In Australia (May, 1989) speaks of “equality of educational opportunities” and providing for “groups with special learning requirements”. For Aboriginal students, academic success and cultural identity are twin priorities: achievement and success need to go hand in hand with a strengthening and deepening of cultural identity. Students' Aboriginality must not be denied by learning programs which define science purely in terms of the dominant Western culture.

This paper attempts to explore current issues in Aboriginal education within the urban sector of Australian society. Identifying specifically both the current positive and negative trends within the urban Aboriginal education scene.

Aboriginal Studies has now been a part of the South Australian curriculum for many years and most of the writing about teaching Aboriginal Studies has focused on appropriate content and pedagogues with little critical appraisal of the actual implementation of Aboriginal Studies curricula. A research project carried out in an inner city Adelaide secondary school suggests that it is crucial for those of us engaged in the teaching of Aboriginal Studies and Aboriginal students, to turn attention to the taken-for-granted presuppositions and ideologies that inform teacher understandings and practices in Aboriginal Studies.

Every curriculum area requires careful and particular thought when being taught to Aboriginal students: it is teaching one cultural context to another culture which is not familiar with it. This paper will deal with a remote Aboriginal community, as familiarity with the mainstream culture is less and the disparity between the cultures is greater. The specific programme will apply to a combined year five and six. The curriculum area to be examined will be science as it has been comparatively neglected in the past (Palmer 1990;34). It must be made explicit that the following is ‘western’ science and that it is no better or worse a system of looking at the world than any other - just a different one.

This paper outlines the history of education in Maningrida homeland centres. It is an extract from a larger report titled The Maningrida Homeland Centre Education Program (Pugh, 1993).

Within the multi-cultural society of Australia, Aboriginal people have a special place because of the part they have played in the history of Australia, and because they are the indigenous people of this country.

The Pitjantjatjara people in the north west of South Australia and the Yalata Community in the far west of the state identify as Anangu (the people) Anangu culture is very different in many ways from the mainstream culture largely associated with urban centres but some of the aspects in common include a desire to maintain their culture and lifestyle, wanting a favourable future for their children and their communities, and a desire to be self managing.

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

The Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) launched its plan at a ceremony at Parliament House on 26 May.

It was nearly two years ago that I heard about Alois Letipila, an early childhood Masai teacher-trainer who had suffered severe spinal injuries in a car crash in February 1989. As Co-ordinator of the New South Wales “Contact” project for isolated families (funded by DCS & H) I am also responsible for the Contact Children's Mobile sponsored by the Bernard Van Leer Foundation, which also funds Letipila's early childhood education program. Our suggestion to bring Letipila to the spinal unit of the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney was generously taken up and financed by the Foundation.