This article presents the developmental stages of a nationwide whole-school strengths-based behavioural intervention by Maori and centring on Maori interests; an initiative that has the potential to transform educational success and opportunities. The initial phase involved a cycle of data collection. This was conducted via a series of focus…

The education system, as it relates to very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, faces challenges. While considerable resources have been applied to very remote schools, results in terms of enrollments, attendance and learning outcomes have changed little, despite the effort applied. The Cooperative Research…

Recent debates in Australia, largely led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island academics over the past 5 or so years, have focused on the need for non-Indigenous educators to understand how their practices not only demonstrate lack of understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, but even deny their presence. This debate has…

For quite some time the achievements of students in remote Australian schools have been lamented. There is not necessarily anything new about the relative difference between the results of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in remote communities and their counterparts in urban, regional and rural schools across Australia. However, in…

MindMatters, implemented by Principals Australia Institute, is a resource and professional development initiative supporting Australian secondary schools in promoting and protecting the mental health and social and emotional wellbeing of members of school communities, preferring a proactive paradigm (Covey, 1989) to the position of "disaster…

This article sets the scene for the series of five articles on "red dirt thinking". It first introduces the idea behind red dirt thinking as opposed to "blue sky thinking". Both accept that there are any number of creative and expansive solutions and possibilities to identified challenges--in this case, the challenge of…

State and Federal education departments have increasingly recognised the importance of community consultation in the development of school curricula, and the requirement for teachers to consult with Indigenous communities is explicit in many curriculum documents. This article reports the findings of research into how teachers of senior Aboriginal…

This article describes an intervention strategy, initiated under the New Zealand Government's tribal partnership scheme, which promotes a culture-based/place-based approach to education in mainstream schools and early childhood centres in one tribal region. Through place-based education children are immersed in local heritage, including language…

In 2008, almost 40% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Indigenous Health Promotion at The University of Sydney failed to complete the course. Although this was not considered unusual when compared to previous years, the decision was made to investigate why so many students struggled to meet the…

Reading seasons and environments has been a long-held practice for Torres Strait Islanders through their close relationships with their islands and seas. This research project worked with elders on Erub (Darnley) Island, in the eastern group of islands in the Torres Strait, to document and synthesise their knowledge of seasonal patterns and…

Maori and other Indigenous scholars have been calling for the Indigenisation of academic space for decades. But what is the day-to-day experience of Maori academics within Aotearoa-New Zealand universities, and how does this experience reveal or enact the commitments to claim space? We interviewed 12 Maori academics and analysed and organised…

This article draws upon a Maori metaphor to describe the theoretical framework underpinning the methodology and findings of a research project completed by researchers from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2010. It explains how and why the project required the research team to synthesise key information from four New Zealand Ministry…

This article describes the objectives and methodology of a doctoral research project (Manning, 2008). It then draws upon the key findings of that project to briefly describe how an envisioned critical pedagogy of place partnership model, involving nominated members of the "Te Atiawa iwi" (tribe) and local history teachers, might enhance the…

A one-year mathematics project that focused on measurement was conducted with six Torres Strait Islander schools and communities. Its key focus was to contextualise the teaching and learning of measurement within the students' culture, communities and home languages. Six teachers and two teacher aides participated in the project. This paper…

In the bi-cultural context of Aotearoa (New Zealand), engagement with stakeholders that is transparent and culturally responsive is a priority for educational research. More common research approaches in New Zealand have followed a Western euro-centric model of engagement with research participants resulting in interventions and initiatives that…