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…

This article presents a number of possibilities that digital technologies can offer to increase access for Indigenous people to higher education in Australia. Such technologies can assist Indigenous high school students acquire the knowledge and skills they require to be accepted into higher education courses. They can also assist Indigenous…

Supporting children in their early development and learning has long-term benefits for both them and the broader community. Yet in Australia we still have significant examples of inequality of opportunity (Allan, 2010) and other structural barriers to family wellbeing, particularly in Indigenous and rural and remote communities (Bourke, Humphreys,…

In Australia, the "remote education system" presents itself as a simple system where the right inputs, such as quality teachers and leaders will engender the outputs that have been set by the system, such as certain levels of English literacy and numeracy. The system has measures in place, including national testing, to report on its…

There is often a disparity in Indigenous Affairs between many documents, such as policies, reports and legislation, and outcomes. This article explores this difference through analysing the policy area of Indigenous education during the period of 1991 to 2000. I examine three key documents relating to Indigenous education. These are the "National…

It is the aim of this article to provoke debate and encourage greater scrutiny regarding the use and meaning of the expression "Indigenous education" within the discursive practices, research and policy in Australian education. Drawing on Hall's (2007) development of ideas from Foucault that give rise to "Indigenous education" being viewed as a…

This article examines a controversial initiative in Indigenous education: the establishment of the Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy (CYAAA). The article provides a brief description of the Academy's three campuses and their communities and considers: the circumstances of its creation, including the role of Noel Pearson and Cape York…

This article explores student and teacher engagement with Australian Indigenous Studies. In this article I identify key themes in the film "September" (2007) that demonstrate how the film can be used as a catalyst for student learning and discussion. Critical whiteness theory provides a framework to explore three themes, the invisibility 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 focuses on the funds of knowledge that are mathematical in nature and how they might be used to support parents and children with their learning of mathematics that is taught and learned in the early years of school. Funds of knowledges are those that have been historically and culturally accumulated into a body of knowledge and…

This project has been developed on Darug country, Sydney to examine how pre-service and beginning teachers can work with Aboriginal people in their local urban community. These teachers often want to know how to approach an Aboriginal "community", how they can ask Aboriginal people for information in order to include it in their teaching, and how…

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…