Reflecting on the ‘Dream Circle’ : urban Indigenous education processes designed for student and community empowerment

The ‘Dream Circle’ is a space designed by and operated through Indigenous educator footprints as a safe space for the school’s deadly jarjums (Indigenous children). The ‘Dream Circle’ uses a kinnected methodology drawing on the rich vein of Murri cultural knowledges and Torres Strait Islander supports within the local community to provide a safe and supportive circle. The ‘Dream Circle’ operates on a school site in the Logan area as an after school homework and cultural studies class. The ‘Dream Circle’ embodies practices and ritualises processes which ensure cultural safety and integrity. In this way the ‘Dream Circle’ balances the measures that Sarra (2005) purports are the stronger, smarter realities needed for positive change in Indigenous education.

Special Measures in Indigenous Welfare Reform: Examining the Cape York Trial

The Cape York Welfare Reform (‘CYWR’) trial was due to expire at the end of 2011. In October 2011, the Queensland Government voted to extend the trial until the end of 2013. In November 2011, the Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs announced changes to the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 (Cth) that will extend another similar welfare reform, the School Enrolment and Attendance through Welfare Reform Measure (‘SEAM’), throughout other parts of Australia. This article examines the CYWR with reference to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (‘RDA’), using the data available in the publications from the Family Responsibilities Commission (‘FRC’).It finds no clear evidence that the reforms have been effective in improving social conditions thus far and, as such, serious concerns as to whether the CYWR breaches the RDA.

Indigenous Health Scholars Attend the MAI Conference

This short newsletter article discusses the Queensland University of Technology's (QUT) delegation at the 2011 Maori and Indigenous Doctoral (MAI) Conference hosted by Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi (Indigenous University), Whakatane, New Zealand. The newsletter is free to download.

Exploring Indigenous social attitudes and priorities in Australia

Given significant government attention to, and expenditure on, Indigenous equity in Australia, this article addresses a core problem: the lack of a sound understanding of Indigenous social attitudes and priorities. An account of cultural theory raises the likelihood of difference in outlook between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, including those making and implementing policy. Yet, years of scholarly research and official statistical collections have overlooked potentially critical aspects of Indigineity. Suggestions of difference emerge from reference to the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA). If the attitudes recorded a small sample in this instrument manifest in the Indigenous population at large, policy priorities and directions should be reviewed and possibly revised. Despite inherent methodological difficulties, the article calls for targeted social attitude research among Australia's Indigenous peoples so that future policy can be better oriented and calibrated. The national benefits would outweigh the costs via better directed policy making.

Philanthropic capacity to support Indigenous causes : the journey to improvement

The role of philanthropy in addressing Indigenous causes is still conceptually emerging in Australia despite many years of practice. This paper reports on a qualitative study with grantmakers and grantseekers to better understand the issues affecting the philanthropic grantmaking system for Indigenous causes in Australia. An attitudinal emphasis on human rights for politically, economically and socially disadvantaged groups and an impetus for structural change emerged that has yet to deliver real funding equity. The way forward is still largely focussed on ‘improving’ Indigenous community capacity in organisational governance systems. In contrast, this study points to strategic leverage points within philanthropic organisations which could be used to first assess and then develop policies, processes and their underlying attitudes which impact on cross-cultural work i.e. the ‘cultural competence ’ of philanthropic organisations. It is argued such an approach would support improved social justice practice in the sector and subsequently Indigenous outcomes.

Can the Cardiac ARIA Index Improve Cardiac Care for Australia's Indigenous Population?

Background: Timely access to appropriate cardiac care is critical for optimising outcomes. Our aim was to derive an objective, comparable, geographic measure reflecting access to cardiac services for Australia's 20,387 population locations. Methods: An expert panel defined a single patient care pathway. Using geographic information systems (GIS) the numeric/alpha index was modelled in two phases. The acute phase index (numeric) ranged from 1 (access to tertiary centre with PCI ≤1 h) to 8 (no ambulance service, >3 h to medical facility, air transport required). The aftercare index was modelled into 5 alphabetic categories; A (Access to general practitioner, pharmacy, cardiac rehabilitation, pathology ≤1 h) to E (no services available within 1 h). Results: Approximately 70% or 13.9 million people lived within a CardiacARIAindex category 1A location. Disparity continues in access to category 1A cardiac services for 5.8 million (30%) of all Australians, 60% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and 32% of people over 65 years of age. In a cardiac emergency only 40% of the Indigenous population reside within one hour of category 1 hospital. Approximately 30% (81,491 Indigenous persons) are more than one to three hours from basic cardiac services. Conclusion: Geographically, the majority of Australian's have timely access for survival of a cardiac event. The CardiacARIAindex objectively demonstrates that the healthcare system may not be providing for the needs of 60% of Indigenous people residing outside the 1A geographic radius. Innovative clinical practice maybe required to address these disparities.

Enhancing resilience in indigenous people: The integration of individual, family and community interventions

This paper describes a number of interventions being developed to address the emotional, social and behavioural problems experienced by Aboriginal people in Australia. These are: the We-Al-Li program to help people deal with the impact of transgenerational trauma; and the RAP Indigenous Parenting Program. It is argued that the emotional well being of indigenous people will be enhanced through the integration of interventions targeting the individual, family and community.

Indigenous knowledge and effective parent–school partnerships : issues and insights

Towards the last decade of the last millennium, Indigenous knowledge was central to international scholarly debates relating to decolonising knowledge. Indigenous scholars, particularly those from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, advanced many of these debates. They argued for Indigenous knowledge to be used as the epistemological standpoint for intellectual engagements and the methodology for resisting colonial constructions of the colonised other (Rigney 1997; Smith 1999, 2005). However, the challenge of engaging Indigenous knowledge to inform research and educational processes, in many respects, is still a contested debate in Western-oriented universities and institutions of higher education. This chapter discusses findings of the Parent–School Partnership Initiative (hereafter referred to as PSPI) project conducted by the Oodgeroo Unit staff and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Focus Group for the Caboolture Shire, in South East Queensland. The state government sponsored initiative examined factors that promote and enhance parent–school engagement with students’ schooling, and contributed to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ learning and completion of secondary schooling within the participating schools. We argue in this chapter for the importance of recognising Indigenous knowledge and its place in enhancing parent–school partnerships.

Towards designing digital noticeboards with a remote indigenous community

This position paper reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of designing a digital noticeboard system with a remote indigenous community that supports their aspirations for both internal and external communication. The project itself has evolved from a relationship built through ecological work between scientists and the local community on the Groote Eylandt archipelago to study native populations of animal species over the long term. In the course of this work the aspiration has emerged to explore how digital noticeboards might promote and communicate aspects of work and life on the island through both the web and touchscreen noticeboards. This paper introduces the community, the context and the history of the project. We then reflect upon the science project and its outcomes, in order to draw lessons for extending what we see as a pragmatic and relationship based approach towards design.

Valuing diversity : a multiliteracies project in a remote Indigenous community

This chapter draws attention to the complex nature of teachers’ work when working with linguistically and culturally diverse students and their communities in an era of new literacies. One multiliteracies project undertaken within a remote Indigenous community in the Torres Straits, Far North Queensland, Australia, is presented. The discussion considers understandings of student diversity as articulated in the Australian Curriculum documents, designs of meaning for written and visual text and the various components of pedagogy introduced into a multiliteracies project. The chapter concludes by highlighting the usefulness of the ‘wide, but not vague’ multiliteracies approach and the importance of an explicit grammar for written and visual text, for meeting the literacy learning needs of one group of 21st century learners.

Introductory Indigenous Studies in Education : Reflection and the Importance of Knowing

Although the demand for pre-service teachers to be better informed about Indigenous issues in Australia has been broadly articulated, it is reasonably new for universities to make Indigenous studies a compulsory area of study, or to define what is meant by 'Indigenous education'. This book was motivated by the growing necessity for an approach to Indigenous education that would include more than just a summarising of Indigenous history and traditional culture. It is useful for anyone with an interest in challenging their ideas about culture, identity and history in Australia.

Re/presenting readings of the indigenous literary terrain

In this study I investigate the spectrum of authoring, publishing and everyday reading of three texts - My Place (Morgan 1987), Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance (Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995) and Carpentaria (Wright 2006). I have addressed this study within the field of production and consumption, utilising amongst others the work of Edward Said (1978, 1983) and Stanley Fish (1980). I locate this work within the holism of Kombu-merri philosopher, Mary Graham's 'Aboriginal Inquiry' (2008), which promotes self-reflexivity and a concern for others as central tenets of such inquiry. I also locate this work within a postcolonial framework and in recognition of the dynamic nature of that phenomenon I use Aileen MoretonRobinson's (2003) adoption of the active verb, "postcolonising"(38). In apprehending selected texts through the people who make them and who make meaning from them - authors, publishers and everyday readers, I interviewed members of each cohort within a framework that recognises the exercise of agency in their respective practices as well as the socio-historical contexts to such textual practices. Although my research design can be applied to other critical arrangements of texts, my interest here lies principally in texts that incorporate the subjects of Indigenous worldview and Indigenous experience; and in texts that are Indigenous authored or Indigenous co-authored.