BOARDING AND AUSTRALIA'S FIRST PEOPLES : understanding how residential schooling shapes... lives

This book takes us inside the complex lived experience of being a First Nations student in predominantly non-Indigenous schools in Australia. Built around the first-hand narratives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander alumni from across the nation, scholarly analysis is layered with personal accounts and reflections. The result is a wide ranging and longitudinal exploration of the enduring impact of years spent boarding which challenges narrow and exclusively empirical measures currently used to define ‘success’ in education. Used as instruments of repression and assimilation, boarding, or residential, schools have played a long and contentious role throughout the settler-colonial world. In Canada and North America, the full scale of human tragedy associated with residential schools is still being exposed. By contrast, in contemporary Australia, boarding schools are characterised as beacons of opportunity and hope; places of empowerment and, in the best, of cultural restitution. In this work, young people interviewed over a span of seven years reflect, in real time, on the intended and unintended consequences boarding has had in their own lives. They relate expected and dramatically unexpected outcomes. They speak to the long-term benefits of education, and to the intergenerational reach of education policy. This book assists practitioners and policy makers to critically review the structures, policies, and cultural assumptions embedded in the institutions in which they work, to the benefit of First Nations students and their families. It encourages new and collaborative approaches Indigenous education programs. Acknowledgements Introduction Methodology and Structure References About This Book Contents Acronyms Part I Providing Context 1 Understanding the Historical Context 1.1 A Short and Selective History of Settler-Colonial Australia 1.1.1 The Colonial Era: Asymmetries of Power and the Great Australian Silence 1.1.2 Government Policy and ‘Managing the Aboriginal Problem’ 1.1.3 The History Wars 1.2 Deficit Discourse and ‘The Gap’ 1.3 Place-Based Education 1.4 A Snapshot of First Nations Australia, 2020 1.5 Understanding the Architecture of Australia’s Education System 1.5.1 School Resourcing and Equity in Australian Education Systems 1.5.2 ICSEA and the Profile of Participants in This Study 1.6 Conclusion References 2 Boarding Schools 2.1 Understanding the Role of Boarding in the Settler-Colonial World 2.2 Why Boarding? 2.3 Presumed Benefit of Boarding for Disadvantaged Students 2.4 Presumed Benefit of Boarding For First Nations Students 2.5 Power, Politics and the Educated Elite 2.6 Conclusion References 3 First Person: Context is Everything Part II Expectations and Transitions 4 The Purpose and Presumed Benefits of Boarding; Parents and Alumni 4.1 Autonomy and Individual Advancement 4.2 Opportunity and Choice in Remote Australia 4.3 Change/Challenge: Boarding School to Broaden Horizons and Enable Two-Way Learning 4.4 Free, Prior and Informed Consent 4.5 Problems in Community and Schooling to Interrupt Patterns of Behaviour 4.6 Attitudes to Social Dysfunction and Questioning Boarding Policy 4.7 Other Motivations for Choosing Boarding 4.7.1 Maximising Leadership and Academic Potential 4.7.2 The Promise of Professional Sport 4.8 The Choice of Boarding School for Urban Students 4.8.1 Practical Considerations 4.8.2 Political Considerations 4.8.3 Social Considerations 4.9 Conclusion References 5 The Purpose and Presumed Benefits of Indigenous Programs: Education Participants 5.1 Identifying the Organising Narrative 5.2 The Monster and the Machine 5.3 Student Perspectives on School Priorities 5.4 Conclusion References 6 Transition to Boarding 6.1 What Do We Know About the Transition to Boarding? 6.2 Living Through the Transition to Boarding References 7 First Person: Haste, Hope and Hubris Reference Part III Factors Constraining Success and How to Neutralise Them 8 Homesickness 8.1 Homesickness, Belonging, and Collective Identity 8.2 Homesickness and the Abrogation of Responsibilities to Loved Ones at Home 8.3 Homesickness, Self and Making Sense of Two Worlds 8.4 Recognising Homesickness 8.5 Implications of Homesickness 8.6 Conclusion References 9 First Person: Getting Lost, Being Found 10 Trauma 10.1 What is Trauma and What Effect Does It Have? 10.2 Prevalence and the Enduring Impact of Antecedent Trauma References 11 First Person: Courage 12 Encountering Cultural Dissonance, Racial Stereotypes and Racism at School 12.1 Describing and Defining Racism 12.2 Inter-Personal Racism 12.2.1 In-School Inter-Personal Racism 12.2.2 Inter-personal Racism as an Opportunity to Educate 12.2.3 Intra-Group Conflict at School 12.2.4 Institutional Responses to Inter-Personal Racism 12.2.5 Reverse Racism and Encountering Lateral Violence at Home 12.3 Internalised Racism and Deficit Thinking 12.4 Institutional Racism and the Role of School Culture 12.4.1 Institutional Racism, Stereotypes and Essentialism 12.4.2 Gender and the Stereotyping of Female Students 12.4.3 Racial Stereotypes and a Culture of Low Expectation 12.4.4 Institutional Racism and Asymmetries of Power 12.4.5 Consequences of Institutional Racism 12.4.6 Cultural Dissonance and Institutional Racism 12.4.7 Institutional Racism and Curriculum References 13 First Person: Challenging Structures of Power References Part IV Factors Enabling Success and How to Maximise Them 14 Family Support and Finding a Voice 14.1 The Social Gradient: Parents’ Social Class and How They Are Positioned to Support Their Children’s Education 14.2 Parents’ Lack of Trust 14.3 School Respect for Parental Support 14.4 Where There is no Parental Support 14.5 A Celebration of Grandparents References 15 First Person: Two Grandsons, Two Schools 15.1 Conclusion Reference 16 Resilience and Developing a Resistant Mind-Set References 17 Metamorphosis. Fighting the Good Fight 17.1 Conclusion References Part V Education Dilemma 18 Education Policy, Choice and Remote Education. Lest We Forget References 19 Understanding the Cost/Benefit of Boarding with Reference to Football 19.1 The Downside of Professional Sport 19.2 The Football Stereotype 19.3 Football, Health and Wellbeing References 20 First Person: Football, Flourishing and Capabilities References 21 First Person: Success. Or What Cost Education? Part VI First Person: Reflections on the Impact of Boarding 22 First Person: Accountability References 23 First Person: Success, Sacrifice and Identity 24 First Person: The Power of Positive Relationships Reference 25 First Person: Trauma and Why Identity Matters References 26 First Person: The Power of Insider Knowledge Part VII Driving Change 27 Truth Telling and Transformations 27.1 Driving Change 27.2 Appearance and Reality 27.3 The Power of the Activist Voice 27.4 Strenuous Truth Telling 27.5 Progress References 28 First Person: Turning the Ship Around 29 Conclusion References Glossary of Terms A Note About Race, Ethnicity and Indigeneity