This is an essential, practical resource for pre- and in-service educators on creating contexts for success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Based on the latest research and practice, this book provides an in-depth understanding of the colonised context within which education in Australia is located, with an emphasis on effective strategies for the classroom. Throughout the text, the authors share their personal and professional experiences providing rich examples for readers to learn from. Taking a strengths-based approach, this book will support new and experienced teachers to drive positive educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

This book explores the impact of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Japan and Australia, where it has heralded change in the rights of Indigenous Peoples to have their histories, cultures, and lifeways taught in culturally appropriate and respectful ways in mainstream education systems. The book examines the impact of imposed education on Indigenous Peoples’ pre-existing education values and systems, considers emergent approaches towards Indigenous education in the post-imperial context of migration, and critiques certain professional development, assessment, pedagogical approaches and curriculum developments. This book will be of great interest to researchers and lecturers of education specialising in Indigenous Education, as well as postgraduate students of education and teachers specialising in Indigenous Education.

This edited volume brings together diverse perspectives on Australian literacy education for Indigenous peoples, highlighting numerous educational approaches, ideologies and aspirations. The Australian Indigenous context presents unique challenges for educators working across the continent in settings ranging from urban to remote, and with various social and language groups. Accordingly, one of the book’s main goals is to foster dialogue between researchers and practitioners working in these contexts, and who have vastly different theoretical and ideological perspectives. It offers a valuable resource for academics and teachers of Indigenous students who are interested in literacy-focused research, and complements scholarship on literacy education in comparable Indigenous settings internationally.

Education is an essential pathway to bridging the divide in educational attainment between Indigenous and non- Indigenous students. In the Australian policy contexts, Indigenous Education has been informed by a large number of reviews, reports and an extensive list of projects aimed at improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Central to each has been the investigation of the inequity of access to educational resources, the legacy of historical policies of exclusion and the lack of culturally responsive pedagogical practices that impact on Indigenous student achievement at school. Research on best practice models for teaching Indigenous students points to the level of teachers’ commitment being a crucial link to student engagement in the classroom, improvement of student self concept and student retention rates. Most recently, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) has recognized in the National Professional Standards for Teachers, that practising teachers must attain skills in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and their communities. Clearly it is time for new pedagogical practices in Indigenous education that are implemented in partnerships with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. This book reports on a three-year research based study of action learning in schools that sought to enhance engagement with local Aboriginal communities, promote quality teaching and improve students’ learning outcomes. The school studies come from different demographic regions in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state and showcase the achievements and challenges; highs and lows; affordances and obstacles in the development and delivery of innovative curriculum strategies for teaching Aboriginal histories and cultures in Australian schools. The findings illustrate that engaging teachers in a learning journey in collaboration with academic partners and members of local Aboriginal communities in an action learning process, can deliver innovative teaching programs over a sustained period of time. As a result schools demonstrated that these approaches do produce positive educational outcomes for teachers and students and enable authentic partnerships with Aboriginal communities.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education: An Introduction for the Teaching Profession prepares students for the classroom and community environments they will encounter when teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in urban, rural and remote schools at early childhood, primary and secondary levels. The book addresses many issues and challenges faced by teacher education students and assists them to understand the deeper social, cultural and historical context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. This is a unique textbook written by a team of highly regarded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics. Each chapter opens with an engaging anecdote from the author, connecting learning to real-world issues. This is also the first textbook to address Torres Strait Islander education. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education is an essential resource for teacher education students.

This book is a state-of-the-art reference work that defines and frames the state of thinking, research and practice in indigenous education. The book provides an authoritative overview of the subject in one text. The work sits within the context of The UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that states “Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which shall be appropriately reflected in education” (Article 14.1). Twenty-five years ago a book of this nature would have been largely written by non-Indigenous researchers about Indigenous people and education. Today Indigenous researchers can write this work about and for themselves and others. The book is comprehensive in its coverage. Authors are drawn from various individual jurisdictions that have significant indigenous populations where the issues include language, culture and identity, and indigenous people’s participation in society. It brings together multiple streams of research by ‘new’ indigenous voices. The book also brings together a wide range of educational topics including early childhood education, educational governance, teacher education, curriculum, pedagogy, educational psychology, etc. The focus of one body of work on Indigenous education is a welcome enhancement to the pursuit of the field of Indigenous educational aspirations and development.

This book takes us inside the complex lived experience of being a First Nations student in predominantly non-Indigenous schools in Australia. Built around the first-hand narratives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander alumni from across the nation, scholarly analysis is layered with personal accounts and reflections. The result is a wide ranging and longitudinal exploration of the enduring impact of years spent boarding which challenges narrow and exclusively empirical measures currently used to define ‘success’ in education. Used as instruments of repression and assimilation, boarding, or residential, schools have played a long and contentious role throughout the settler-colonial world. In Canada and North America, the full scale of human tragedy associated with residential schools is still being exposed. By contrast, in contemporary Australia, boarding schools are characterised as beacons of opportunity and hope; places of empowerment and, in the best, of cultural restitution. In this work, young people interviewed over a span of seven years reflect, in real time, on the intended and unintended consequences boarding has had in their own lives. They relate expected and dramatically unexpected outcomes. They speak to the long-term benefits of education, and to the intergenerational reach of education policy. This book assists practitioners and policy makers to critically review the structures, policies, and cultural assumptions embedded in the institutions in which they work, to the benefit of First Nations students and their families. It encourages new and collaborative approaches Indigenous education programs.