Achieving real change for indigenous students through education.
Policy-makers and educators have long known that Australia’s schools are failing Indigenous students, but not how to deliver much needed change. In fact, significant investments in Indigenous education programs over many decades have delivered few sustainable improvements in students’ experiences and outcomes.
Macquarie University Indigenous Research Fellow, Dr Kevin Lowe, and colleagues, are aiming to transform Indigenous education through their ambitious Aboriginal Voices program. The program will deliver a new framework for teacher professional development that will recalibrate both classroom practices and the relationships between schools and Indigenous students and their communities.
School disengagement and underachievement cannot be separated from the intergenerational dispossession, trauma, racism and disadvantage that continues to effect Indigenous communities. Consequently, at its heart, Aboriginal Voices is committed to supporting Indigenous students to achieve academic success without compromising their connections to Country, culture and identity.
“There is widespread recognition of the urgent need to do things differently in our schools, but little clear idea of how to best move forward,” said Dr Lowe.
“With Aboriginal Voices, we are building the understanding and the new evidence-base that is essential if we are to achieve transformational change for Indigenous students.”
Given that many of the programs and policies that have purported to support Indigenous students in Australia have not been underpinned by evidence, the first step was a series of ground-breaking systematic reviews of the relevant literature. These unique reviews of Australian research have identified national, state and local programs and policies seen to achieve success in improving Aboriginal student outcomes.. At the same time, critical knowledge gaps in Indigenous educational research in Australia have been identified.
The Aboriginal Voices consortium of researchers, led by Dr Lowe, brings together 13 researchers from nine Australian universities, including MQ’s Associate Professor Neil Harrison and the University of Sydney’s. Drs. Cathie Burgess (USyd), Greg Vass (UNSW, Assoc Prof John Guenther (Batchelor) Jacinta Maxwell and Prof. Karen Trimmer (USQ)’ Sophie Rudolph and Nikki Moodie (Uni Melb), Rose Dixon (UOW), Jodie Miller (UQ) and Amanda Gutierrez (ACU). The team is working to develop a new theoretical framework of professional practice for Indigenous education, informed by the systematic reviews, the first of their kind to be undertaken in Australia.
The Aboriginal Voices project is also engaging directly with Aboriginal students to gather first-hand evidence of how schooling is experienced by Australia’s 230,000 or so Indigenous students and their communities; the missing piece in the research puzzle. A case study project at four NSW high school is viewing education through the eyes of Aboriginal students to build a picture of the educational, social and cultural impact of everyday school experiences.
“This is an incredibly important area of research. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education is heavily politicised in Australia and is consistently held up as the key to socio-economic advancement for Aboriginal people, yet there is little evidence current program have improved student or community outcomes.
“We need a new direction, informed by authentic Aboriginal voices – this is what we aim to deliver.”
MQ Indigenous Research Fellow, Dr Kevin Lowe is a Gubbi Gubbi man from Queensland who gained decades of experience in high school teaching, Indigenous educational leadership and policy and curriculum development before going into academia. His professional and research experience includes developing partnerships, Aboriginal languages and knowledge, teacher professional development and change and building Indigenous research capacity, with an overall focus on developing an Aboriginal research agenda.
Associate Professor Neil Harrison’s applied research is influencing theory and practice in Indigenous education and his signature text, Learning and Teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education (3e) Oxford University Press, is prescribed in Teacher Education at 14 institutions of higher education across Australia (OUP Marketing figures). His original research with urban Indigenous communities and their local schools has broken new ground, as has his innovative digital dissemination strategy that is enabling his work to both support and inform teachers and communities and related research in Australia and internationally.