Bilingual education, Aboriginal self-determination and Yolŋu control at Shepherdson College, 1972–1983

Abstract

PurposeSelf-determination policies and the expansion of bilingual schooling across Australia's Northern Territory (NT) in the 1970s and 1980s provided opportunities for Aboriginal educators and communities to take control over schooling. This paper demonstrates how this occurred at Shepherdson College, a mission school turned government bilingual school, at Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island in North East, Arnhem Land, in the early years of the policies between 1972 and 1983. Yolŋu staff developed a syncretic vision for a Yolŋu-controlled space of education that prioritised Yolŋu knowledges and aimed to sustain Yolŋu existence.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses archival data as well as oral histories, focusing on those with a close involvement with Shepherdson College, to elucidate the development of a Yolŋu vision for schooling.FindingsMany Yolŋu school staff and their supporters, encouraged by promises of the era, pushed for greater Yolŋu control over staffing, curriculum, school spaces and governance. The budgetary and administrative control of the NT and federal governments acted to hinder possibilities. Yet despite these bureaucratic challenges, by the time of the shift towards neoliberal constraints in the early 1980s, Yolŋu educators and their supporters had envisioned and achieved, in a nascent way, a Yolŋu schooling system.Originality/valuePrevious scholarship on bilingual schooling has not closely examined the potent link between self-determination and bilingual schooling, largely focusing on pedagogical debates. Instead, this paper argues that Yolŋu embraced the “way in” offered by bilingual schooling to develop a new vision for community control through control of schooling.

Beyond zero-sum thinking in teacher education: cognitive science, educational neuroscience, and the history of education

“…It can point to how specific educational arrangements can both exacerbate longstanding patterns of harm, as well as offer possibilities for empowering learning (e.g. Keynes and Marsden, 2021; Thomas, 2021; Rudolph, 2021), which can in turn be related to differential physiological and cognitive effects (e.g. Cave et al ., 2020; Walsemann et al ., 2022; Cholewa et al ., 2014).…”

Culture and education with Alice Rigney (1942–2017), Australia's first Aboriginal woman school principal

“…Alice Rigney's life began in a period when “education for Indigenous people was deliberately positioned at the periphery of all educational provision” in Australia (Herbert, 2012, p. 95). While much research in the history of education followed suit, the emergence of new critical research into education policies and administration, curriculum and practices, along with the experiences of Aboriginal families and children across overlapping eras of segregation and protection (Povey and Trudgett, 2019), assimilation (Marsden, 2018) and self-determination (Thomas, 2021) is deconstructing histories of education in Australia. For example, Povey and Trudgett and Marsden focus on the agency of Aboriginal families and students regarding state schooling and the inherently racist curriculum in remote Western Australia and rural Victoria.…”

“…It was not until the 1970s, however, that governments began to systematically recruit Aboriginal people as educators in Australian state school systems, initially as paraprofessional teacher aides; and establish specific pathways to full qualification as teachers (Reid and Santoro, 2006; MacGill, 2017; Thomas, 2021). Although there is considerable contemporary research stemming from these initiatives, this article draws judiciously on studies that included Alice Rigney's contemporaries who had much more restricted access to secondary and tertiary education than recent generations of Aboriginal educators (e.g., Reid and Santoro, 2006; Fitzgerald, 2010; MacGill, 2017; Kamara, 2017; Thomas, 2021). Several common themes from these studies will be applied to our account of Alice Rigney's life and work.…”

“…Thirdly, working in state school systems where leadership has historically been constructed as a male prerogative (Miller, 1986; Whitehead, 2019), Aboriginal women educators' first-hand experiences of entrenched institutional and individual racial and gender discrimination is a common theme across the generations. Lastly, Aboriginal women educators' pedagogical skills and knowledge are frequently marginalised but they are expected to take responsibility for “Indigenous” matters without reciprocity on the part of white colleagues (Reid and Santoro, 2006; MacGill, 2017; Thomas, 2021; Whitehead et al ., 2021a). Nevertheless, there is significant diversity among Aboriginal women educators' lives and work.…”

“…Historical research into women educators in Australian state schools and kindergartens has focused mostly on white teachers (Whitehead, 2019) but a handful of Aboriginal women qualified as teachers in the 1950s, including May O'Brien (Hunt and Trotman, 2002), Nancy Barnes (Whitehead et al ., 2021a) and Amy Levai (Whitehead et al ., 2021b). It was not until the 1970s, however, that governments began to systematically recruit Aboriginal people as educators in Australian state school systems, initially as paraprofessional teacher aides; and establish specific pathways to full qualification as teachers (Reid and Santoro, 2006; MacGill, 2017; Thomas, 2021). Although there is considerable contemporary research stemming from these initiatives, this article draws judiciously on studies that included Alice Rigney's contemporaries who had much more restricted access to secondary and tertiary education than recent generations of Aboriginal educators (e.g., Reid and Santoro, 2006; Fitzgerald, 2010; MacGill, 2017; Kamara, 2017; Thomas, 2021).…”