Strong And Smart Towards A Pedagogy For Emancipation

Strong and Smart – Towards a Pedagogy for Emancipation tells the story of how Dr Chris Sarra overcame low expectations for his future to become an educator who has sought to change the tide of low expectations for other Indigenous students. The book draws upon Roy Bhaskar’s theory of Critical Realism to demonstrate how Indigenous people have agency and can take control of their own emancipation. Sarra shows that it is important for Indigenous students to have confidence in their own strength and ability to be as "able" as any other group within society. The book also compares and contrasts White perceptions of what it is to be Indigenous and Indigenous views of what it is to be an Aboriginal Australian. The book calls for Indigenous Australians to radically transform and not simply reproduce the identity that Mainstream White Australia has sought to foster for them. Here the book explores in what ways Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are "othered" by White Australians. Sarra seeks to advance the novel position that it is OK to be other to White Australia. The question becomes, "which other?" The Indigenous Student should not be treated as the Feared and/or Despised Other, nor should they be coerced into wholly assimilating into White culture.

Strong and Smart – Towards a Pedagogy for Emancipation tells the story of how Dr Chris Sarra overcame low expectations for his future to become an educator who has sought to change the tide of low expectations for other Indigenous students. The book draws upon Roy Bhaskar’s theory of Critical Realism to demonstrate how Indigenous people have agency and can take control of their own emancipation. Sarra shows that it is important for Indigenous students to have confidence in their own strength and ability to be as "able" as any other group within society. The book also compares and contrasts White perceptions of what it is to be Indigenous and Indigenous views of what it is to be an Aboriginal Australian. The book calls for Indigenous Australians to radically transform and not simply reproduce the identity that Mainstream White Australia has sought to foster for them. Here the book explores in what ways Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are "othered" by White Australians. Sarra seeks to advance the novel position that it is OK to be other to White Australia. The question becomes, "which other?" The Indigenous Student should not be treated as the Feared and/or Despised Other, nor should they be coerced into wholly assimilating into White culture.

This is an essential, practical resource for pre- and in-service educators on creating contexts for success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Based on the latest research and practice, this book provides an in-depth understanding of the colonised context within which education in Australia is located, with an emphasis on effective strategies for the classroom. Throughout the text, the authors share their personal and professional experiences providing rich examples for readers to learn from. Taking a strengths-based approach, this book will support new and experienced teachers to drive positive educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Strength Basing, Empowering and Regenerating Indigenous Knowledge Education demonstrates how to bring Indigenous Knowledges to the forefront of education practice and provides educators with the tools to enact culturally responsive curricula and pedagogies, ensuring positive educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and students. In this book, John Davis presents Indigenous Knowledges – ways of doing, creating, and learning – combined with contemporary education practice, to develop a culturally responsive pedagogy that builds on the strengths that Indigenous Australian students bring to the classroom. Setting Cultural Proficiency as the benchmark, the book offers educators a lens through which to review their education practice. It moves beyond the deficit model of Indigenous education by challenging non-Indigenous educators to reflect on personal biases and to raise their expectations of Indigenous students. Not ‘tacked on’ to an existing curriculum, or specific to a single school term or unit of learning, Riteway places Indigenous Knowledges at the centre of education. The approach is holistic and adaptable to any educational context, from the early years right through to tertiary education. Providing a roadmap toward transformational education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and students, this book will be essential reading for pre- and in-service educators alike.

This edited collection by leading Australian Aboriginal scholars uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) to explore how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are growing up in contemporary Australia. The authors provide an overview of the study, including the Indigenous methodological and ethical framework which guides the analysis. They also address the resulting policy ramifications, alongside the cultural, social, educational and family dynamics of Indigenous children’s lives. Indigenous Children Growing Up Strong will be of interest to students and scholars in the areas of sociology, social work, anthropology and childhood and youth studies.

This book aims to show how a meta-theory of critical realism can be applied to research about pedagogy in the changing landscape of higher education in England. It introduces some of the key ideas of critical realism, and its potential to clarify complex issues that arise in research. This book draws on a critical realist study of structure/agency interactions in three contrasting higher education institutions. Seven case studies of lecturers, over the three universities, are considered to explore the interplay of global, national and institutional structures and processes in their everyday working lives and the extent of their agency in these settings. Conceptual approaches to pedagogy are developed through an application of critical realism to the nature of knowledge, human agency and structure-agency interactions against the changing landscape in higher education at global, national and institutional levels. The book offers a way out of the current malaise in educational research which appears to be stuck between empiricist reductionism and hermeneutic interpretive positions. Highlighting the importance of ontological analyses, this book explores a realist approach to learning, pedagogy and knowledge in English higher education and will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners working in education, critical realism and philosophy more generally.

In many English-speaking countries, teachers are encouraged to differentiate their classrooms, and in some cases, through various policy mechanisms. This encouragement is often accompanied by threats and sanctions for not making the grade. By exploring the ways in which one education system in Australia has mandated differentiation through an audit of teacher practices, this book provides a timely engagement with the relationship between differentiated classrooms and social justice. It covers tensions, for instance, between providing culturally-appropriate classrooms, including constructing engaging and relevant curricula, and lowering expectations for students who have traditionally been marginalised by schooling. The data for this book has been collected from the same group of teachers over a period of three years, and offers detailed insights into how a particular politics of differentiation has played itself out in the context of a ‘global reform movement’ that has focused on improving student outcomes.