(2009). Integrating Indigenous Cultures into English Language Teaching. English Teaching Forum, v47 n1 p2-9. One of the most important components of a culture is its language. With language, people not only expeditiously communicate; they also express their values, beliefs, and world views. When a language becomes extinct, a part of the cultural patrimony of humanity is lost. For linguists, this also means the loss of an opportunity for a better understanding of the manifestation of the human faculty of language. In this article, the authors discuss the preservation of cultures through English language teaching and provide practical teaching ideas in which English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers can integrate indigenous artifacts and cultural components into their classes…. [PDF]
(2014). SCSEEC Successful School Attendance Strategies Evidence-Based Project: Literature Review. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Governments, schools, and communities throughout Australia are working to improve school attendance among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students using numerous strategies. Currently, however, little is known about the effectiveness of these strategies and the key factors which underpin programs and strategies which are successful. This report forms a key element of a larger project (the Standing Council on School Education and Early Childhood (SCSEEC) Successful School Attendance Strategies Evidence-based Project) designed to fill the current gap in the evidence by bringing together published data on effectiveness with the on-the-ground experiences of schools and communities who have been successful in improving the attendance of their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Reviewing literature from Australia and internationally, this report has found evidence for the effectiveness of 9 types of strategies for improving school attendance: (1) engagement programs,… [Direct]
(2012). Real Stories, Extraordinary People: Preliminary Findings from an Aboriginal Community-Controlled Cultural Immersion Program for Local Teachers. Australian Association for Research in Education (NJ1), Paper presented at the Joint Australian Association for Research in Education and Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association Conference (AARE-APERA 2012) World Education Research Association (WERA) Focal Meeting (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Dec 2-6, 2012). This paper reports on effective strategies for developing the cultural competence of teachers involved in Aboriginal education and presents the preliminary findings of a review into the Connecting to Country Program (CTC), a joint venture of the NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG) and the NSW Department of Education and Communities (DEC). They suggest that the AECG three-day cultural immersion has a dramatic [PDF]
(2012). Despairing the Disparity: What Can We Do to Help?. Kairaranga, v13 n2 p49-54. This article is a position paper, based on, and supported by, the extensive literature on the topic of Maori underachievement in education in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It places emphasis on what underachieving Maori students need to reach their full potential and ways in which educationalists can assist. I am of mixed heritage raised amongst three world views–Dalmatian, Maori and Pakeha. I have been fortunate in being exposed to a wide spectrum of environments and cultures, and therefore see, and am seen, through these associated lenses. My involvement in Aotearoa New Zealand education, as both teacher and student, has also provided me with the insight to learn and teach using both Pakeha and Maori approaches. I do not claim that the position I take in this paper is the accepted view of all on Maori underachievement; rather, it is the result of my personal experiences which is also backed by evidence from research literature. The paper argues that effective relationships between home… [PDF]
(2011). Using Multiculturalism as a "New Way of Seeing the World": Ontario Aboriginal Educational Policy According to Foucault. International Journal of Multicultural Education, v13 n2. By considering the "Ontario First Nation, M√©tis, and Inuit Policy Framework" (2007) from a Foucauldian perspective, this paper presents a policy discourse of knowledge, power, and identity from a multicultural education framework. Through Foucauldian theoretical perspectives, the paper creates alternate possibilities in confronting the ways to understand public educational policy–considered the purpose of multicultural education. It invites teachers, administrators, district leaders, and policy makers to consider how educational policy in one Canadian province strategically situates Aboriginal peoples in a historical context, exercises Foucauldian notions of power and care, and potentially endorses the subjectification of Aboriginal peoples through recommendations of self-identification practices…. [PDF]
(2011). Zebra Crossing: Walking in Two Continents Sharing and Celebrating Difference through Music. Intercultural Education, v22 n6 p487-494. I use the metaphor "zebra crossing" in my reflective narrative to describe my plight and struggle as a non-white person growing up and working in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the apartheid era. This article considers and compares the notions of culture, diversity and identity as I now work in a tertiary institution in Melbourne, Australia. I reflect on my teaching of African music and position myself as "the other" at "zebra crossings", as I create a space in multicultural Australia. By engaging in meaningful dialogue with music and culture, I contend, we do have opportunity to explore, experience and express music making and sharing globally. The inclusion and embracing of non-western music can serve as a dais for understanding and celebrating cultural difference not as distant experiences but as integral aspects of our daily lives…. [Direct]
(2012). Education Funding: A Brief to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services from the British Columbia Teachers' Federation. British Columbia Teachers' Federation Students in British Columbia are being shortchanged in comparison to students elsewhere in Canada. The teachers of BC are urgently appealing to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to recommend to government sufficient increases in education funding to reverse this situation and provide more educational services to BC students. The British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) researchers believe these services are vitally important to the students in school now and to the social and economic health of the province in the longer term. In this brief, they will identify how the situation in BC compares to other provinces, and why the government should, as a start, adopt a plan to bring BC's education funding and services up to at the very least the average in Canada. BC is below the Canadian average in improvements to education funding. This is a situation that should not exist in a province endowed with such natural wealth and human potential. Appended are:… [PDF]
(2012). Research Paradigm Choices Made by Postgraduate Students with Pacific Education Research Interests in New Zealand. Higher Education Research and Development, v31 n4 p479-492. This paper explores the nature of postgraduate research in the broad area of Pacific education completed in New Zealand universities. First, a number of basic trends are identified in terms of institutional affiliation, area of educational research, MA and PhD balance, growth over time, national/ethnic focus and the expected beneficiaries of the research. Secondly, and more significantly, trends in the theorisation of Pacific postgraduate education research are identified using a positivist-interpetivist-emancipationist-deconstructivist paradigm typology as a basis for analysis, in particular the degree to which the latter two research perspectives have been embraced. It is argued that research done within emancipationist and deconstructionist paradigms has the most socially transformative potential. The completion of socially transformative educational research is significant given increasing calls from within Pacific communities to decolonise and re-indigenise both educational… [Direct]
(2010). Creativity, Content, and Policy. Arts Education Policy Review, v111 n2 p39-47. Creativity, content, and policy have multiple relationships. Creativity and disciplinary content are inextricably linked. In dealing with creativity, the first education policy choice is whether to recognize and act on that fact. Care is needed in using the term \creativity\ in advocacy contexts, lest the relationship between creativity and content become obscured or forgotten altogether. Creativity is central to the arts, and thus arts education is a natural curricular place to develop creativity. However, the development of creative potential requires work over time. Creativity development in all fields requires serious sustained study and practice with certain goals in mind. Other kinds of study may be valuable, but they will not develop creativity. If we want to develop creative potential in schools, we must want the necessary structures and means for its development as much as we want the results. A number of major adjustments are required. Necessary means include the provision… [Direct]
(2010). Social Inclusion and Critical Consciousness in Australia. Australian Journal of Career Development, v19 n1 p13-17 Aut. Australia's Indigenous population is excluded from a range of opportunities, experiences and amenities that facilitate wellbeing, self-determination and social inclusion. This social exclusion constrains the career development and occupational attainment of Indigenous youth, which represent key routes to societal inclusion. Critical consciousness–the awareness of socio-political inequality and motivation to participate in social action to change social structures and practices that foster social exclusion–is examined here as a precursor to social inclusion for Indigenous Australian youth. Critical consciousness appears to facilitate the career development and occupational attainment of socially excluded youth and augment career interventions for socially excluded people in North America. Given similarities in the social structures and practices that foster social exclusion in North America and Australia, critical consciousness may augment Australian educational policy and practice,… [Direct]
(2011). Origins of the Discrimination Perceived by Mapuches in Chile Based on an Evaluation of Kimeltuwun. Journal of American Indian Education, v50 n2 p65-83. The aim of this article is to examine the origin of perceived discrimination as it appears in the discourse of Mapuches living in Temuco and Santiago, and how that discourse is related to the evaluation of "kimeltuwun" (educational knowledge). A qualitative design was used to survey Mapuche emigrants to these two urban centers, where most of them are concentrated. The sample used for the evaluation of educational knowledge was a group of "kimches" (Mapuche sages who are the holders of educational knowledge) from communities of the Araucania region. Open coding of grounded theory was used in combination with a field analysis to discover the most significant concepts of perceived discrimination and how this relates to Mapuche educational knowledge. The outcome is a set of topics for understanding discrimination against Indigenous people from a conceptual framework revealed in relation to their educational knowledge…. [Direct]
(2011). Comprehension as Social and Intellectual Practice: Rebuilding Curriculum in Low Socioeconomic and Cultural Minority Schools. Theory Into Practice, v50 n2 p157-164. This article reframes the concept of comprehension as a social and intellectual practice. It reviews current approaches to reading instruction for linguistically and culturally diverse, indigenous and low socioeconomic students (SES), noting an emphasis on comprehension as autonomous skills. The four resources model (Freebody & Luke, 1990) is used to make the case for integrating comprehension instruction with an emphasis on student cultural and community knowledge, and substantive intellectual and sociocultural content in elementary school curricula. Illustrations are drawn from our research on literacy in a low SES primary school…. [Direct]
(2013). Community as Teacher Model: Health Profession Students Learn Cultural Safety from an Aboriginal Community. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, v20 n1 p5-17 Fall. Communication between health care professionals and Aboriginal patients is complicated by cultural differences and the enduring effects of colonization. Health care providers need better training to meet the needs of Aboriginal patients and communities. We describe the development and outcomes of a community-driven service-learning program in which health professional students learn with, from, and about the community through brief immersion in summer camps put on by an Aboriginal agency to teach their own youth about their culture. Outcomes were assessed by semi-structured interviews with students and community members. Health profession students learn about important cultural differences, become more aware of their own values, beliefs and stereotypes, and consider ways to overcome communication barriers that interfere with developing trust with Aboriginal patients. These outcomes are retained long-term and influence relationships with patients in practice as well as career paths…. [PDF] [PDF]
(2014). The Centrality of Relationships for Pedagogy: The "Whanaungatanga" Thesis. American Educational Research Journal, v51 n1 p184-214 Feb. "Te Kotahitanga" is a research and professional development project that seeks to reduce educational disparities between indigenous Maori students and their non-Maori peers in New Zealand secondary schools. While evidence of the impact of the project on teachers' practice and the associated gains made by Maori students has been published previously, in order for the work of "Te Kotahitanga" to contribute to the broader educational research community, its pedagogical premises require empirical verification. To do so, we must first establish the validity of the pedagogical data by addressing two questions: (a) To what degree can the data gathered in the collaborative processes of "Te Kotahitanga" be used as a measure of pedagogical quality? and (b) Do these data support the foundational hypothesis of the project, that "extended family" relationships, as understood by Maori people when using the Maori term, "whanaungatanga," are a… [Direct]
(2014). Culturally Responsive Teaching in Yukon First Nation Settings: What Does It Look Like and What Is Its Influence?. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, n155 p1-34 Apr. This study presents a pedagogical framework to inform culturally responsive teaching in a Yukon First Nations community. The paper describes the community-based processes used to develop the framework, and presents accounts from teachers who have used the framework to inform their teaching. Preliminary indications of the adjusted teaching practices' influence on student learning are presented, using qualitative data describing the changed teaching practices, and quantitative data specific to the changed practices' impact on student learning. Finally, the paper outlines the ongoing community-based research work in the Yukon context, with reference to the work's potential significance to the wider education community…. [PDF]