Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Curriculum and learning in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education: A systematic review

  • Published:
The Australian Educational Researcher Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

One of the aims of a systematic literature review (SLR) is to test the weight of historical perception against the reality of research and practice. A second aim is to identify approaches to knowing in schools (defined as curriculum) that might help us to identify possibilities for improvement in Indigenous student engagement and achievement in Australian schools. Given that education is representational practice, this SLR explores various representations of the world and how these might be taught in schools in ways that support “successful learning” for Indigenous students. We focus on how the curriculum might allow for multiple stories to be told, and how it can support the multiplicity of social and cultural identities. The question for this segment of the SLR is, how does curriculum govern learning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australia? A comprehensive search of the research literature produced over the period 2006–2017 highlights how the Australian government’s focus on numbers contrasts radically with the ways in which many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and their parents conceptualise the goals of education.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Atweh, B., & Singh, P. (2011). The Australian curriculum: Continuing the national conversation. Australian Journal of Education, 55(3), 189–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Australian Government (2018). Closing the Gap Prime Minister’s Report 2018. Retrieved from https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/indigenous-affairs/closing-gap-prime-ministers-report-2018

  • Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bat, M., Kilgariff, C., & Doe, T. (2014). Indigenous tertiary education—we are all learning: Both-ways pedagogy in the Northern Territory of Australia. Higher Education Research & Development, 33(5), 871–886.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burgess, C., Tennent, C., Vass, G., Guenther, J. Lowe, K. & Moodie, N. (2019). A systematic review of pedagogies that support, engage and improve the educational outcomes of Aboriginal students. Australian Education Researcher

  • Calderon, D. (2014). Speaking back to manifest destinies: A land education-based approach to critical curriculum inquiry. Environmental Education Research, 20(1), 24–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, (1995). Negotiations 1972–1990, trans. M Joughin. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Disbray, S. (2016). Spaces for learning: Policy and practice for Indigenous languages in a remote context. Language and Education, 30(4), 317–336.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ewen, S., Mazel, O., & Knoche, D. (2012). Exposing the hidden curriculum influencing medical education on the health of Indigenous people in Australia and New Zealand: The role of the critical reflection tool. Academic Medicine, 87(2), 200–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ewing, B. (2012). Mathematics funds of knowledge: Sotmaute and Sermaute fish in a Torres Strait Islander community. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 52(1), 134–152.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ewing, B. (2014). Rich and purposeful mathematical knowledge of mothers and children in a Torres Strait Islander community. New York: Springerplus.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fogarty, W.P. (2010). Learning through Country: Competing knowledge systems and place based pedagogy’ PhD thesis. Canberra: Australian National University.

  • Goodson, I., & Crick, R. D. (2009). Curriculum as narration: tales from the children of the colonised. The Curriculum Journal, 20(3), 225–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Green, B. (2018). Engaging curriculum: Bridging the curriculum theory and English education divide. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guenther, J., Bat, M., & Osborne, S. (2013). Red dirt thinking on educational disadvantage. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 42(2), 100–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guenther, J., Bat, M., & Osborne, S. (2014). Red dirt thinking on remote educational advantage. Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 24(1), 54–67.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guenther, J., Disbray, S., & Osborne, S. (2015). Building on ‘Red Dirt’ perspectives: What counts as important for remote education? Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 44(2), 194–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guenther, J., Lowe, K., Burgess, C. Vass, G., Moodie, N. (2019). Factors contributing to educational outcomes for Indigenous students from remote communities: A systematic review. Australian Educational Researcher

  • Guyula, Y. (2010). The story comes along, and the children are taught. Learning Communities, 2, 18–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardy, I. (2016). ‘Capitalising’ on community? Understanding and critiquing instrumentalist approaches to Indigenous schooling. Oxford Review of Education, 42(6), 661–676.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, N. (2013). Country teaches: The significance of the local in the Australian history curriculum. Australian Journal of Education, 57(3), 214–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jorgensen, R., Grootenboer, P., Niesche, R., & Lerman, S. (2010). Challenges for teacher education: the mismatch between beliefs and practice in remote Indigenous contexts. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 38(2), 161–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keddie, A. (2014). Indigenous representation and alternative schooling: Prioritising an epistemology of relationality. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 18(1), 55–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Long, A. F., & Godfrey, M. (2004). An evaluation tool to assess the quality of qualitative research studies. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 7(2), 181–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lowe, K., Tennent, C., Guenther, J., Harrison, N., Burgess, C. Moodie, N. & Vass, G. (2019). Aboriginal Voices’: An overview of the methodology applied in the systematic review of recent research across ten key areas of Australian Indigenous education. Australian Education Researcher

  • Maxwell, J., Lowe, K., & Salter, P. (2018). The re-creation and resolution of the ‘problem’ of Indigenous education in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cross-curriculum priority. Australian Educational Researcher, 45, 161–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, H. (2010). Backboards to blackboards: rebounding from the margins: a critical auto/ethnographic study of the struggle for culturally-sensitive educational pathways for Aboriginal girls. PhD thesis.

  • MCEETYA (2008). Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. Retrieved from http://www.artsedge.dca.wa.gov.au/australian-curriculum/Pages/OV-The-Melbourne-Declaration.aspx

  • McKnight, A. (2016a). Meeting country and self to initiate an embodiment of knowledge: Embedding a process for Aboriginal perspectives. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 45(1), 11–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKnight, A. (2016b). Preservice teachers’ learning with Yuin Country: Becoming respectful teachers in Aboriginal education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 44, 110–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McNamara, K. E., & McNamara, J. P. (2011). Using participatory action research to share knowledge of the local environment and climate change: Case study of Erub Island, Torres Strait. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 40, 30–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Curriculum Services (2012). What Works—the work program: success in remote schools: a research study of eleven improving remote schools (9781875864737). Retrieved from https://goo.gl/kY55mq

  • Osberg, D. & Biesta, G. (2003). ‘Complexity, Representation and the Epistemology of Schooling’, in Proceedings of the 2003 Complexity Science and Educational Research Conference, October 16–18, Edmonton, Canada, pp. 83–89. Retrieved from www.complexityandeducation.ca.

  • Osborne, S., & Guenther, J. (2013). Red dirt thinking on aspiration and success. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 42(2), 88–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinar, W. F. (2012). What is curriculum theory? (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rioux, J. (2015). Two-way strong: A study of vertebrates using Queensland Indigenous knowledges and Montessori Linnaean materials to engage Indigenous secondary school students PhD thesis 2015. Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology.

  • Rioux, J., Ewing, B., & Coope, T. J. (2017). Embedding Aboriginal perspectives and knowledge in the biology curriculum: The little porky. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education. https://doi.org/10.1017/jie.2017.12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, F., Coughlan, M., & Cronin, P. (2007). Step-by-step guide to critiquing research. Part 2: Qualitative research. British Journal of Nursing, 16(12), 738–744.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sharifian, F. Truscott, A., Konigsberg, P. Malcolm, I.G. & Collard, G. (2012). Western Australia. Dept of Education (2012). Understanding stories my way’: Aboriginal-English speaking students’ (mis)understanding of school literacy materials in Australian English. Leederville WA: Western Australia. Dept of Education, 2012. Western Australia. Dept of Education

  • Sofa, B.M (2014). Promoting equitable and alternative early learning opportunities through Outdoor learning: A case study of the Bush School Project in Western Australia. PhD Murdoch WA: Murdoch University.

  • Treacy, K., Frid, S., & Jacob, L. (2014). Starting points and pathways in Aboriginal students’ learning of number: Recognising different world views. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 27(3), 263–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Verran, H. (2010). On being a ‘language and culture’ learner in a Yolngu world. Learning Communities, 2, 84–90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Verran, H. (2013). The dead as participants: Challenged by the Yolngu Aboriginal child learner at Gä ga. Learning Communities, 12, 35–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weuffen, S., Cahir, F., & Zeegers, M. (2016). What’s in a Name?: Exploring the Implications of Eurocentric (Re) naming Practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nomenclature in Australian Education Practices. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 45(2), 181–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitehouse, H. W., Lui, F., Sellwood, J., Barrett, M. J., & Chigeza, P. (2014). Sea Country: navigating Indigenous and colonial ontologies in Australian environmental education. Environmental Education Research, 20(1), 56–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yunkaporta T. (2009). Aboriginal pedagogies at the cultural interface, PhD thesis, Townsville Qld: James Cook University.

  • Yunkaporta, T., & McGinty, S. (2009). Reclaiming Aboriginal knowledge at the cultural interface. The Australian Educational Researcher, 36(2), 55–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    N. Harrison & K. Lowe

  2. University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    C. Tennent

  3. Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

    G. Vass

  4. Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Batchelor, Australia

    J. Guenther

  5. University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    N. Moodie

Authors
  1. N. Harrison
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. C. Tennent
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. G. Vass
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. J. Guenther
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. K. Lowe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. N. Moodie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to N. Harrison.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Harrison, N., Tennent, C., Vass, G. et al. Curriculum and learning in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education: A systematic review. Aust. Educ. Res. 46, 233–251 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-019-00311-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-019-00311-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation