The mismatch between rhetoric and action - A study into the Commonwealth's role in redressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educational inequity

Abstract

Educational issues are almost always represented as the failings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals, families and communities, with insufficient attention given to the dominant ideologies that underpin educational policy and practice.

This research endeavours to bring a fresh perspective to the understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educational inequity, in relation to the role of the Commonwealth in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. In doing so, it illuminates how discourses, narratives and ideologies are mutually reinforced across multiple layers of social organisation, permeating all levels of education from policy to practice. It also highlights the simplistic behavioural framing of educational problems and dominant narratives that attribute educational underachievement to deficits in the sociocultural background of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

This understanding of educational issues creates the perception that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's educational predicament is one of misfortune rather than the direct result of the previous and ongoing actions of the state. I argue that centring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices in education, acknowledging the power of language in shaping educational issues and embedding counternarratives that challenge dominant ideologies and assumptions about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners would vastly improve the educational experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and thus contribute to enhanced conditions to support improvements in educational outcomes.

To bring about fundamental change in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education, this research presents a roadmap for the Commonwealth to begin to make steps towards redressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educational inequity. I advance a framework for contesting and replacing dominant ideologies in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education through the articulation of a theory of change. I also develop a blueprint for future Commonwealth investment to reframe the current approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. There is a need for an overarching national vision, led by the Commonwealth, to mobilise support and drive systemic and structural reform in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education, in order to progress this important agenda. Show more