Australia Association for Research in Education
Indigenous education policy
Indigenous voices: why we urgently need windows and mirrors
Could you see yourself reflected in your English classroom? I would like you to take yourself back in time for a moment. Take yourself back to your high school English classroom. I want you to imagine the books you studied. Think of their titles and who they were by. Think about what you learnt and …
‘My attitude COMPLETELY changed’: why universities should move new teachers from resentment to respect for Indigenous Australia as we vote on the Voice
Editor’s note: One of the biggest challenges in Australian education is how we embed an understanding of Indigenous …
Patience, persistence and persuasion: the how-to of Indigenous curriculum practice
‘I can’t breathe’. As the Black Lives Matter movement gathered global momentum these words became a familiar refrain; forever linked to the African American man whose life was extinguished by police on a city street in 2020. Few recall the same words uttered by an Aboriginal man in a police cell in Sydney in 2015, …
How to reimagine research for self-determined Indigenous futures
An excerpt from Associate Professor Nikki Moodie’s keynote, opening the 2021 AARE conference on Monday November 29. Indigenous …
We must embed the full histories of this Country or rob all Australian students of understanding our home
We come together as Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal collaborators with a strong desire to see the excellent policy reforms in Indigenous education in Australia come to life. …
Into this silence the children said – we are not the problem we are the solution
“…And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more People talking without speaking, people hearing without listeningPeople writing songs that voices ever shared, no one dared disturb the sound of silence…” (Excerpt from Sound of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel, 1965) There is a silence echoing within government chambers, as the need to …
Effective teaching methods that work for Indigenous students: latest research
What does effective teaching of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students look like? Thousands of research studies have been dedicated to finding answers to this question. But much of what we think we know, or hear, about Indigenous education remains mired in myths and legends. Governments have been surprisingly frank about the failure of their …
The trickery used to marginalise and silence Indigenous voice in education
Indigenous education policy, reviews and reports have consistently sought for the inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in all levels of decision-making. However, actions and evidence suggest otherwise: the silencing and marginalisation of Indigenous peoples continues. My research focuses on the various mechanisms put in place that counter the goodwill intentions shared by …
Boarding school for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students can have very damaging effects: new evidence-based research
For many Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students living in remote communities across Australia, ‘choice’ in secondary education …
Myth buster: improving school attendance does not improve student outcomes
Does improved student attendance lead to improved student achievement? Join prime ministers, premiers and education ministers from all sides of politics if you believe it does. They regularly tell us about the need to “improve” or “increase” attendance in order to improve achievement. We recently had unprecedented access to state government data on individual school …