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Lecture 9Indigeneity and Social Justice in

Education

Lecture Overview

• Who are the Aboriginal people?

• How are Aboriginal students situated in Australia’s education system?

• How have Aboriginal students been positioned due to education policy?

Sociological ImaginationA term coined by Charles Wright Mills to describe the sociological approach to analysing issues. We see the world through a sociological imagination, or think

sociologically, when we make a link between personal troubles and public issues.

Acknowledgement of Country

Indigeneity and Social Justice

If schools are powerful sites that transmit the dominant culture – that is ‘white’ culture – what happens to Indigenous students in

this system?

What messages are sent to Indigenous students about their cultures, their identities, their communities?

School Involvement

Education is the key factor in improving levels of health, employment and opportunity for

Aboriginal peopleBUT

Although levels of participation and retention in school are increasing for Aboriginal students

although it is still well below that of non-indigenous students

Aboriginal Student Retention Rates

Textbook

Cultural background shouldn’t have anything to do with the educational outcomes or opportunities of any Australian student – but unfortunately it still does….

1. Due to systematic discrimination, Indigenous students suffer social injustices far greater than their non-Indigenous counterparts.

2. Health and socio-economic status is directly linked to education participation and achievement.

We know that….

• Teachers have sought to identify Indigenous students by applying racist stereotypes

• Discriminatory stereotypes deny Aboriginal children their cultural identity and heritage

• As teachers we must challenge our assumptions and world views

• There is an ongoing presence of racism in schools• For Indigenous youth, ‘identity’ is a complex process• There is no one definition of ‘how to be indigenous’

Before the Invasion…

• Before 1770 the Australian continent comprised of over 500 different peoples, each with their own language and stories

• Education occurred through a process of kinships structures and social organisation

• People were non-literate as opposed to illiterate

Education and the dominant culture…

• The knowledge and skills which are presented within the schooling experience are those which society considers to be important

• Education is therefore a social resource that should never be limited or denied to any members of society

• HOWEVER, Australian schools typically empower those with western or European heritage, leaving minority students severely disadvantaged

• Many Aboriginal people were excluded from the education process as they were not even considered to be citizens of their own country until 1967

(Heitmeyer, 2006)

History of Aboriginal Education in NSW

• 1880: Public Instruction Act

• 1884: Clean, Clad and Courteous

• 1902: Exclusion on Demand

• 1930’s: Assimilation or Absorption policy

Removal of Aboriginal Children resulted in…

• Imparting of Christian doctrine rather than formal education

• Physical, sexual and psychological abuse• Poor living standards• Physical labour for children rather than an education• Low expectations that destroyed any possibility of the

attainment of self-esteem• Low levels of knowledge of and respect for Indigenous

culture• (Foley, 2010, p.184)

Stolen Generation

“The 1997 report on the Stolen Generations by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission recognised the adverse psychological effects of the assimilation policy on

both the children as individuals and as future parents” (Foley, 2010. p.184).

Poor attendance, retention and performance of Aboriginal students in schools is a direct result of policies of

segregation, protection and assimilation, many of which still remain today in contemporary approaches to education

(Foley, 2010).

Cycle of Disadvantage relating directly to Institutional Racism…

Disadvantage

Poor education

Poor employment

prospects

Dependence on welfare

Poverty

Critical TheoryHegemony: a groups resignation to the authority and dominance of another group

Critical theorists argued that student resistance is a response to the hegemonic attributes of schooling as a white, middle-class institution. In this way, students’ alienation from school is something done to students by external structures and norms as well as something done by students as an explicit rejection of these external structures and norms. Such an articulation highlights the mismatch between the cultural capital of lower-class and non-white youth and the dominant cultural capital of the school.

Lower class and minority groups use resistances strategically to free themselves from domination

Racism in everyday schooling practices

Racism occurs in schools everyday on two levels:

Systemic racial discriminationSchool power hierarchies; the white European dominance in

our curriculums and pedagogies; white middle-class schooling practices

Everyday practices of individuals the dilemma of the fair-skinned Koori - p.172

lack of teacher awareness – p.198

Resistance TheoryResistance theory helps define the relationship between the school and dominant society by

questioning the role of schools in sustaining dominant social practices and structures which are found in societies divided along class, race and gender lines

(Beresford & Partington, 2003, p.32).

We see resistance in schools everyday when a student’s response simply says “I don’t buy it”

Student resistance to classroom instruction is often thought of as a student’s critical rejection of formal and impositional academic content knowledge. But there is more to it than that.

SO RESISTANCE AS

Rejection of academic contentRejection of the educational context

In this way we can consider the idea of student resistance as the WILFUL (be it active or passive) rejection of academic content as well as the strategic rejection of the academic context

Resistance Theory in relation to Indigenous Education

Resistance theory explains some Aboriginal students’ rejection of schooling

Minority groups come to actively oppose intellectual activity because it is seen as the

domain of the dominant group

Schooling is seen as white man’s business

Alienation

Alienation has been described as a state of oppression

Alienation from school can lead to a negative self concept

Relationships with teachers can help break down resistance

Special Schooling….A disproportionate number of Indigenous students are placed in special classes for intellectual disability or behavior disorders (should be 3.5% in

Junior school as per capita – but it is actually more like 34%!)

WHY?

Systematic racism in our institutions

Failure of schooling to recognise cultural differences between the schooling system and Indigenous students’ backgrounds, knowledges and

experiences including cultural and linguistic bias of schooling (curriculums, pedagogies, testing, social/schooling hierarchies)

Thinking through the ‘Indigenous Problem’ in Education

1. Us versus them

2. Deficit model of Indigenous education

3. White race privilege

Where to now….

Barriers of segregation and institutional racism can be broken down by incorporating

Indigenous culture into lesson plans and teaching methods

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u_qsSl5rik&feature=relmfu

Indigenous Community Schools

• Elders have positions of respect in the school and wider community

• Success with primary student Literacy and Numeracy in primary

• Developing community bridging strategies to connect with the wider community

• Reputation for educational excellence• School as community hub

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwpIl4TShcc

Summing up…….

Educators must find ways to close the cultural gap in teaching and learning

The voice of Indigenous people must be heard in Australian schools

Let’s expand our national view of ‘worthwhile knowledge’

ReferencesAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, (1998). As a matter of fact. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.Allen, J. (2006). Sociology of Education: Possibilities and PracticesBeresford, Q., & Partington,G. (2003). Reform and resistance in Aboriginal education: the Australian experience. Crawley, Western Australia: University of Western Australia Press.Connell, R., Campbell, C., Vickers, M., Welch,A., Foley, D., Bagnall, N., & Hayes, D. (2010). Education, change and society (2nd ed). South Melbourne, Victoria: Oxford University Press.Dewey, J. (1910). How we think. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co.Generation One AU. (2010). Hands across Australia: Murri School QLD. Retrieved from Youtube 25 September, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B1w95EBFckStronger Smarter Institute. (2010). East Kalgoorlie Primary School, Retrieved from Youtube 25 September, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B1w95EBFck