A space to learn: A community-based approach to meaningful adult learning and literacy in remote Indigenous Australia

Abstract

If young adults in remote Indigenous Australian communities are to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to participate effectively in mature roles in their own and the wider community, then educators will need to pay attention not only to the provision of schooling and formal adult-literacy tuition, but also to how language, literacy, and technological know-how are acquired through socialization and learning as a lifelong process. In this article, Inge Kral and Jerry Schwab take a social practice approach to reading (and writing) by looking at how Indigenous youth use alphabetic and digital literacies in everyday life and in community settings beyond school. Their proposition is that, in addition to pedagogy, it is meaningful practice across the lifespan that determines competence. Drawing on ethnographic research, Kral and Schwab outline a ‘‘learning centre’’ model, suggesting that it provides a template not only for transformative practice but also for achieving an appropriate blend of formal and nonformal approaches to adult learning in the remote context.