Bulletin

Issue: August/September 2006

Research in Action

Studies into Indigenous education

Research that examines the history and practice of education for Indigenous students in Australia and its widespread failure to meet their needs - and suggests ways to incorporate new forms of learning for them - is the subject of a new book by La Trobe University’s Raymond Nichol.

Titled Socialisation, Land and Citizenship Among Aboriginal Australians: Reconciling Indigenous and Western Forms of Education, it has been published by the Edwin Mellen Press, New York. The book is being distributed in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia.

Mr Nichol, a senior lecturer in Education, played a significant role in developing Indigenous education programs and resources at the Bendigo campus.

Head of Education at Bendigo, Professor Vaughan Prain, says the book offers ‘insights into the Aboriginal experience of Australian education which has largely been unacknowledged’. The author argues that culturally appropriate education for people of Indigenous descent is not a privilege - it is a fundamental right.

The book explores Indigenous Australian education, particularly over the last thirty years, and suggests ways to reconcile dominant western and Indigenous forms of education. It is based on an ethnographic case study and wide-ranging consultation with Indigenous Australians.

The book has been hailed for the way in which it traces the history of an Aboriginal community from pre-contact times to the present, detailing its social structure, relationships, education and rituals prior to European contact.

One reviewer described it as ‘a most useful account of the social processes that produced the existing situation in which a large proportion of the Aboriginal population lack the motivation, skills and power to effect changes in their lives.’

Mr Nichol says he hopes the book will increase understanding of the context of education for Aboriginal students and their communities.

‘It aims to provide insight and directions for students, educators and those in allied professions, particularly in Indigenous studies, Indigenous education and health, and community development courses.’

Equally, he says non-Indigenous people have much to learn from the Indigenous world. ‘However Indigenous knowledge and methods of learning are often ignored or discounted by metropolitan, industrial societies.’

Mr Nichol says the book and his research, on which it was based, have attracted interest around the world for their relevance and comparative insights.

Professor Rob Gilbert, from Queensland’s James Cook University, notes in the preface: ‘Combining the careful eye of the historian, the analytical techniques of the anthropologist, and the educator’s appreciation of people’s potential, the author creates a detailed picture which should be read by all interested in the education of minorities dispossessed by dominant cultures.

‘The approach taken here ensures that the work is significant not only for an Australian audience, but for anyone wishing to understand the experience of First Nations peoples in this globalised age ... the book derives insights and recommendations which offer positive directions for the future, and which will be of enormous benefit to educators everywhere.’