“Ceaselessly circling the centre”

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore the educational journey of indigenous Australians since the time of the 1788 invasion through into the modern Australian university. This exploration is intended to clarify the way in which education delivery in this country has been used to position the nation's "first peoples" within a context of centre/periphery thinking. Design/methodology/approach -The paper established an overview of the educational service provision for indigenous Australians through a review of archival materials, historical texts and education reports. This information was then aligned with the data gathered through face-to-face interviews and focus group meetings conducted by the author in her own PhD research, to test the complementarity of the sources in terms of the indigenous experience. Findings -The paper provides insights into the current positioning of indigenous Australians. The process of viewing the present against the backdrop of the past identified important historical landmarks that were then examined through the diversity of lens provided through interviews/ meetings with contemporary students and staff to reveal the critical impact of centre/periphery thinking on indigenous education in this country. Originality/value -This paper provides an historical overview of indigenous Australian education that, in clarifying some of the connections and ruptures between "centre and periphery", provides valuable insights into the full diversity of the indigenous historical experience in Australian education.

Exploring Indigenous education leadership research in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand

“…Interviews were used frequently as well (Berryman et al, 2017;Bird et al, 2013;D'Arbon et al, 2009;Fitzgerald, 2006;Henderson et al, 2015;Jeannie, 2012;Jorgensen and Niesche, 2010;Niesche and Keddie, 2014). It should be noted that some other research methods, such as qualitative methods, ethnography, mixed methods and case studies, included interviews.…”

“…Indigenous leadership in educational development has been one of the important research focuses of scholars in the four targeted countries (Blakesley, 2010;Brower, 2016;Faircloth and Tippeconnic, 2013;Hohepa, 2013;Hohepa and Robinson, 2008;Jeannie, 2012;King, 2008;Wimmer, 2016). Scholars from Canada and the United States had the largest number of publications on this topic.…”

Demanding dialogue in an unsettled settler state: implications for education and justice

“…The colonial intention to marginalise, and often misrepresent, Indigenous knowledges and languages has been an ongoing feature of the education system. For example Herbert (2012) demonstrates how Indigenous knowledges and subjectivities were positioned on the periphery of the education system, while European knowledge and experience was centred. Similarly Rose (2012) outlines what he describes as a “silent apartheid” of knowledge in the schooling system, resulting in all Australians missing out on the richness of Indigenous knowledge through its systemic silencing.…”

“…Since the British invasion of Australia in 1788, education has been a site of deep contestation and at times contradiction. Education was seen by settlers and colonists as both an opportunity to “civilise” the Indigenous population and a way of controlling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander access to their own knowledges, languages and cultural practices (Herbert, 2012). Many Indigenous students who attended state and mission schools in the 19th and 20th centuries were dissuaded, often punished, for speaking their languages and they were considered by settler teachers, anthropologists, medical scientists and government officials to be “inferior” to Europeans (see for example, Anderson, 2003; Parbury, 2011; Rudolph 2019b).…”

Race, citizenship and national identity in The School Paper, 1946-1968

“…Similarly, a report on Aboriginal education in South Australia wrote that "the Education Department and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs are co-operating in an endeavour to implement the Commonwealth Government's policy of integrating Aborigines into the general community" (Monash University, 1969, p. 34). School curricula did not provide space for Aboriginal cultural or social values and learning systems, and was deliberately Western oriented in scope; in educational historian Jeannie Herbert's words, Aboriginal people were deliberately positioned at the "periphery" of mainstream education, in ways that not only rendered them powerless but have worked to sustain and institutionalise that powerlessness (Herbert, 2012; see also Sarra, 2008). Schulz, examining white teachers at Ernabella Mission from 1937 to 1971, has shown how education at the Mission was implicated in "extending a system of disciplinary control over Anangu bodies, minds and souls, and in securing the racial order through habitual recourse to hegemonic whiteness" (Schulz, 2011).…”