Engaging 'disengaged' Aboriginal youth: policy, practice and success in youth development programs
Date
2015
Authors
Alexiou, Helen
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Abstract
This thesis contributes to the limited research available within
the field of Aboriginal education and policy specific to work
with Indigenous youth. The statistical ‘gaps’ between
Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians in regards to
engagement in education and the attainment of qualifications, as
well as in involvement in part-time or full-time employment, have
been well documented. It is these statistical gaps that inform
current policy thinking on the nature of the ‘Aboriginal
education problem’, and what needs to be fixed. However, this
policy approach is dominated by aggregate statistics and
generalised discourse and tends to view the ‘Aboriginal
education problem’ as representative of all Indigenous youth.
Youth development programs have been a popular model for
addressing the ‘Aboriginal education problem’ and have
enjoyed years of positive and uncritical reflection on their
approach. This research explores the compatibility of this
current policy approach with the actuality of the social, local
and historical contexts that many of the Indigenous youth come
from, and argues that it is poorly related to the reality of the
lives of many youths who attend these programs.
From a policy perspective understanding the value of the current
policy approach is important because program success or failure,
and consequently refunding, may be based on flawed indicators of
success, particularly today when these indicators are driven by
neoliberal processes and objectives. In practice the kinds of
indicators chosen affect the delivery of youth work by confining
the youth workers to unrealistic models of delivery and notions
of success that easily lead to both young people and youth
workers being defined as failing.
This thesis draws on data collected over 18 months of
anthropological fieldwork with NGOs, corporate organisations,
schools, Aboriginal organisations and young Aboriginal people, by
following one national government-funded youth and career
development program. The evidence challenges the assumption that
Indigenous youth necessarily have limited aspirations when it
comes to education and employment or even a limited acceptance of
the reasoning behind schooling, even in the case of youth from
remote regions. I outline how the need of policy makers to
demonstrate value, efficiency, effectiveness and accountability,
imposes an increasingly hierarchical system in the delivery of
youth work, creating a divide between managers and their staff.
Consequently organisations are becoming less responsive to the
voices of those who work in the organisation, as well as to the
young people they aim to serve.
I explore the consequences of this reshaping of the youth work
environment on the youth workers themselves and on their
professional and personal identity as Aboriginal. I demonstrate
how the discourse of the ‘disengaged young person’ and the
popular operation of youth work within a functional model
reshapes a youth work environment traditionally established to
critique conventional approaches. I end with an assessment of
whether the youth program at the heart of this study was a
success.
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Indigenous, youth work, youth development, policy, practice, aspirations
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Thesis (PhD)
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