Indigenous Postgraduate Education

This book focuses on Indigenous participation in postgraduate education. The collaborating editors, from the contexts of Australian, Canadian and Nordic postgraduate education, have brought together voices of Indigenous postgraduate students and researchers about strategies to support postgraduate education for Indigenous students globally and to promote sustainable solution-focused and change-focused strategies to support Indigenous postgraduate students. The role of higher education institutions in meeting the needs of Indigenous students is considered by contributing scholars, including issues related to postgraduate education pedagogies, flexible learning and technologies. On a more fundamental level the book provides a valuable resource by giving voice to Indigenous postgraduate students themselves who share directly the stories of their experience, their inspirations and difficulties in undertaking postgraduate study. This component of the book gives precedence to the issues most relevant and important to students themselves for consideration by universities and researchers. Bringing the topic and the voices of Indigenous students clearly into the public domain provides a catalyst for discussion of the issues and potential strategies to assist future Indigenous postgraduate students. This book will assist higher education providers to develop understanding of how Indigenous postgraduate students and researchers negotiate research cultures and agendas that permeate higher education from the past to ensure the experience of postgraduate students is both rich in regard to data to be collected and culturally safe in approach; what connections, gaps and contradictions occur at the intersections between past models of postgraduate study and emerging theories around intercultural perspectives, including the impact of cultural and linguistic differences on Indigenous students' learning experiences; how Indigenous students’ and researchers’ personal and professional understandings, beliefs and experiences about what typifies knowledge and research or adds value to postgraduate studies are constructed, shared or challenged; and how higher education institutions manage the potential challenges and risks of developing pedagogies to ensure that they give voice and power to Indigenous postgraduate students.

This book brings together the academic fields of educational leadership, educational administration, strategic change management, and Indigenous education in order to provide a critical, multi-perspective, systems level analysis of the provision of education services to Indigenous people. It draws on a range of theorists across these fields internationally, mobilising social exchange and intelligent complex adaptive systems theories to address the key problematic of intergenerational, educational failure. Ma Rhea establishes the basis for an Indigenous rights approach to the state provision of education to Indigenous peoples that includes recognition of their distinctive economic, linguistic and cultural rights within complex, globalized, postcolonial education systems. The book problematizes the central concept of a partnership between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous school leaders, staff and government policy makers, even as it holds this key concept at its centre. The infantilising of Indigenous communities and Indigenous people can take priority over the education of their children in the modern state; this book offers an argument for a profound rethinking of the leadership and management of Indigenous education. Leading and Managing Indigenous Education in the Postcolonial World will be of value to researchers and postgraduate students focusing on Indigenous education, as well as teachers, education administrators and bureaucrats, sociologists of education, Indigenous education specialists, and those in international and comparative education.

Indigenous Education and the Metaphysics of Presence: A worlded philosophy explores a notion of education called ‘worldedness’ that sits at the core of indigenous philosophy. This is the idea that any one thing is constituted by all others and is, therefore, educational to the extent that it is formational. A suggested opposite of this indigenous philosophy is the metaphysics of presence, which describes the tendency in dominant Western philosophy to privilege presence over absence. This book compares these competing philosophies and argues that, even though the metaphysics of presence and the formational notion of education are at odds with each other, they also constitute each other from an indigenous worlded philosophical viewpoint. Drawing on both Maori and Western philosophies, this book demonstrates how the metaphysics of presence is both related and opposed to the indigenous notion of worldedness. Mika explains that presence seeks to fragment things in the world, underpins how indigenous peoples can represent things, and prevents indigenous students, critics, and scholars from reflecting on philosophical colonisation. However, the metaphysics of presence, from an indigenous perspective, is constituted by all other things in the world, and Mika argues that the indigenous student and critic can re-emphasise worldedness and destabilise presence through creative responses, humour, and speculative thinking. This book concludes by positioning well-being within education, because education comprises acts of worldedness and presence. This book will be of key interest to indigenous as well as non-indigenous academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, indigenous and Western philosophy, political strategy and post-colonial studies. It will also be relevant for those who are interested in philosophies of language, ontology, metaphysics and knowledge.

This National Teaching Fellowship addressed the issue of low participation rates of Indigenous students in Higher Degree by Research (HDR) programs and developed strategies to improve the transition of Indigenous students from undergraduate to HDRs. The Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) Review of Australiaâs Research Training System (2016) identified Indigenous students a s one of the most underrepresented groups in Higher Degrees by Research (HDRs)/Research Higher Degrees today. Drawing on critical pedagogy as the theoretical and methodological framework, the fellowship was completed in four phases and included collaboration with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory group, two Indigenous evaluators and a network of Indigenous staff. There were five phases involved : Phase one a day long Indigenous advisory group meeting, Phase two a pilot workshop, Phase three further workshops, Phase four another advisory group meeting, interviews and a national symposium and Phase five a second national symposium. Ultimately, the knowledge gained through the fellowship will inform universities and other research institutionsâ programs for Indigenous students, empowering them to achieve their education goals, have their voices heard, and help build a better future for Indigenous Australians. [Executive summary, ed].

This book is a state-of-the-art reference work that defines and frames the state of thinking, research and practice in indigenous education. The book provides an authoritative overview of the subject in one text. The work sits within the context of The UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that states “Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity of their cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which shall be appropriately reflected in education” (Article 14.1). Twenty-five years ago a book of this nature would have been largely written by non-Indigenous researchers about Indigenous people and education. Today Indigenous researchers can write this work about and for themselves and others. The book is comprehensive in its coverage. Authors are drawn from various individual jurisdictions that have significant indigenous populations where the issues include language, culture and identity, and indigenous people’s participation in society. It brings together multiple streams of research by ‘new’ indigenous voices. The book also brings together a wide range of educational topics including early childhood education, educational governance, teacher education, curriculum, pedagogy, educational psychology, etc. The focus of one body of work on Indigenous education is a welcome enhancement to the pursuit of the field of Indigenous educational aspirations and development.

A deep-seated issue persists in postgraduate education-one that threatens the relevance of academia in our diverse and evolving world. The problem at hand is the Western-centric nature of postgraduate education, where research paradigms, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks overwhelmingly reflect a Western worldview. This rigid adherence to Western ideologies has left indigenous communities on the periphery of academic discourse, denying them the opportunity to engage with their knowledge systems and practices. Despite the richness and prevalence of indigenous knowledge, the existing educational structure remains a barrier to their inclusion. This disconnect is not only an academic concern but also a societal one, as it hinders sustainable development and stifles the voices of indigenous scholars and students. Global Perspectives on Decolonizing Postgraduate Education serves as a compelling solution to the problem at hand. It offers a comprehensive roadmap to decolonize postgraduate education, infusing it with indigenous approaches, paradigms, theories, and methods. Through critical examination and practical strategies, this book empowers academics, curriculum designers, and postgraduate students to embark on a transformative journey.

This book explores the impact of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Japan and Australia, where it has heralded change in the rights of Indigenous Peoples to have their histories, cultures, and lifeways taught in culturally appropriate and respectful ways in mainstream education systems. The book examines the impact of imposed education on Indigenous Peoples’ pre-existing education values and systems, considers emergent approaches towards Indigenous education in the post-imperial context of migration, and critiques certain professional development, assessment, pedagogical approaches and curriculum developments. This book will be of great interest to researchers and lecturers of education specialising in Indigenous Education, as well as postgraduate students of education and teachers specialising in Indigenous Education.

Indigenous people have often been confronted with education systems that ignore their cultural and historical perspectives. Largely unsuccessful projects of assimilation have been the predominant outcome of indigenous communities' encounters with state schools, as many indigenous students fail to conform to mainstream cultural norms. This insightful volume is an important contribution to our understanding of indigenous empowerment through education. The contributors to this volume work in the fields of education, social development and community empowerment among indigenous communities around the world. Their essays create a new foundation for implementing specialized indigenous/minority education worldwide, and engage the simultaneous projects of cultural preservation and social integration. This work will be vital for scholars in Native American studies, ethnic studies, and education.