This page awaits further construction.“Finding a Pedagogy in Common between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Cultures”
boriginal and Torres Straight Islander (Indigenous) culture, as traditionally practised, existed “‘not in a landscape, but a humanised realm saturated with significance.’” (WEH Stanner, quoted in Rose, 1996, p. 18) Upon the introduction of a British presence in 1788, however, a diaspora of the autochthonous people further into and across Australia was promulgated by the newly-dominant society. The arrival of these Munaŋa (Munanga) people—a Yolŋu term used widely across Arnhem Land and Australia to refer to non-indigenous settlers and society (Nash, 2008; Yolŋu-matha Dictionary, 2002)—displaced many of the 500+ “clan groups or ‘nations’” on the continent. (Digital Transformation Agency, 2016)
The connection to home country, largely lost by this forced emigration, is integral to Indigenous epistemology, (Yunkaporta, 2010) providing a frame of reference for everything in the culture. “…if you don’t know where you come from,” as one woman expressed it, “then you don’t know where you’re going.” (Thelma Gertz, quoted in Klenowski, 2009, p. 13) As such, land links comprise the central point of Indigenous teaching and learning. (Yunkaporta, 2010) Thus from the onset of colonisation, Aboriginal pedagogy itself has been marginalised in direct proportion to loss of access and interaction with country. Furthermore, loss of land and livelihood have perpetuated “intergenerational cycles of social and economic disadvantage” (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, quoted in Klenowski, 2009, p. 11) and a prevalence of health issues in Indigenous communities, “directly related to dispossession.” (A. Department of Education, 2010, p. 2) The combination of these and related variables impact directly on school participation and success (A. Department of Education, 2010) leading to Indigenous education becoming “one of the enduring crises” in contemporary Australia. (Hickling‐Hudson & Ahlquist, 2003, p. 71)
Inherent differences between worldviews create difficulties in communication that must be acknowledged, (Bain, 1992) and working through the disparities between Indigenous and Munaŋa cultures continues to take “explicit effort” 231 years after first contact. (Kearney, McIntosh, Perry, Dockett, & Clayton, 2014, p. 348) This has contributed to a mutual lack of understanding and a rift between the educational outcomes of Munaŋa and Indigenous children. In addition, the policies of schools and Indigenous stereotypes inculcated in Australian teachers have mutually reinforced one another (Dandy, Durkin, Barber, & Houghton, 2015) such that though Indigenous children have been entitled to equal rights in public schooling since 1972, (S. of N. S. W. Department of Education, 2017) there has been considerable difficulty in integrating them within the education system of the majority. Indigenous students are, on whole, “viewed and treated as ‘guests’ in an alien and culturally unresponsive learning environment.” (Morgan, 2018, p. 10)
Many studies demonstrate the disproportionate gap in participation, retention, achievement, year repetition and referrals to special education that have resulted from such “long-standing systemic racism.” (Dandy et al., 2015, p. 60) The gap has been conclusively demonstrated, but institutional programs have only resulted in widening the disparity. (Hickling‐Hudson & Ahlquist, 2003; Klenowski, 2009; Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013) This failure has been attributed to the fact that these efforts have historically focused more on attendance rates and testing benchmarks than they have explored underlying issues. The Australian Department of Education (DoE) has stated an explicit goal to “[achieve] better results for Indigenous Australians and…improvements in outcomes for all students.” (A. Department of Education, 2018) Following the lead of the Rudd, Gillard, Abbot and other administrations, however, (Krakouer, 2016; Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013) the DoE highlights attendance, core curriculum benchmarks and course completion as its focused goals, exactly as decried as ineffective by researchers. (cf. Hickling-Hudson & Ahlquist, Klenowski, Lowe & Yunkaporta, etc.) For these reasons, Australia has been identified as a “high quality–low equity” country. (Klenowski, 2009, p. 1)
In a move to surmount this stigmata, the agency responsible for national school standards, the Australian Curriculum Assessment & Reporting Authority (ACARA), increased Indigenous content in its national curriculum. For the curriculum’s revision, ACARA consulted key stakeholders in the Indigenous community. (Klenowski, 2009) The final document, however, was submitted a full year before the consultation process had concluded. The committee’s findings were subsequently ignored or posteriorly added into the curriculum as non-mandatory recommendations. (Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013) The outcomes of what did make it into the curriculum are found almost solely in the Primary years, most descriptors located in and before Year 4. The lack of significant interaction into high school severely limits the depth of exposure students have Indigenous cultures at higher levels of learning. (Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013)
Overall, expectation levels as measured against Bloom’s Taxonomy are statistically low, specifying “knowledge” and “understanding” outcomes that fall short of the “analysis” and “evaluation” of higher-level tasks. (Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013, pp. 6–7) ACARA’s resultant “unabashedly Anglocentric” (Hickling‐Hudson & Ahlquist, 2003, p. 72) curriculum has ended up being “more exclusive than inclusive of Indigenous positions.” (Williamson & Dalal, quoted in Klenowski, 2009, p. 16) Instead, facts and figures about Indigenous society are broken down in western abstraction. (Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013) Abstractions of this type—that is, abstractions beyond 1:1 relationships—are foreign to the Indigenous worldview. (Bain, 1992) Thus the validity and experience of Indigenous perspective is lost, and Indigenous students are marginalised even within the study of their own culture.
The roots of this dissociation between the curriculum and Indigenous academic success lie in the ubiquitous communication breakdown the two societies have always faced. Just as Western abstraction is inconsistent with Indigenous epistemology, so too are Munaŋa social constructs antithetical to a culture which holds social good far above all else. Everything is underscored by the question, “What does this mean to me and my mob?” (Korff, 2019; Yunkaporta, 2010, p. 7) Munaŋa culture and any curriculum written from that perspective, on the other hand, is individualistic. (Hickling‐Hudson & Ahlquist, 2003)
These factors play contributing roles in the poor attendance rates—the institutional- and self-marginalisation—of Indigenous students. (Hickling‐Hudson & Ahlquist, 2003) Parents too have “a huge hesitation” about Munaŋa education. (Aboriginal elder Noel Pearson, quoted in Korff, 2019) The Indigenous student needs an educational environment suited to community needs, and as any institution will reflect the worldview in which it was constructed, the school required has been difficult to find in Munaŋa society. The director for the Aboriginal and Islander Independent Community School (Murri School) explains that effective schooling is about “feeling able to engage in learning.” (Lisa Hillan, quoted in Haxton, 2015) Yet a state-educated Indigenous woman relates, “[School] was a place with many rules and regulations—none of which seemed to have any relevance to me.” (Kris Johnston, quoted in Hickling‐Hudson & Ahlquist, 2003, p. 81)
To provide supportive environments for their children, Indigenous families are increasingly turning to non-Government schooling. 75% of Australian independent schools registered Indigenous students in 2016, equating to the largest growth of that population across school systems nationally. (ISCA, 2017, pp. 10–11) Community, the foundation of independent education, (ISCA, 2017) is vitally important to Indigenous culture and, hence, pedagogy. (Yunkaporta, 2010) Furthermore, the independent sector—comprised of Anglican, Montessori, Steiner and other pedagogical models—has the liberty and flexibility needed in order to work within the bounds of the curriculum while simultaneously addressing the needs of the students and their communities. (ISCA, 2017)
The educational requirements in any class are necessitated by the modes of knowing and being of the students in the room. This is true of Indigenous and Munaŋa children, alike. As outlined previously, for Indigenous students this means connecting to knowledge within community, supported by the land, through direct 1:1 relationships. The culture of these students will also be appropriately supported through story; song; imagery; and non-linear, non-verbal processing. Moreover, the all-encompassing reality of the Dreaming in Indigenous ontology creates a worldview that will best imbue learning in a unified, universal context. (Yunkaporta, 2010) The provision of these pedagogical allowances, in terms of established Munaŋa systems, are alternately represented almost evenly between Montessori and Steiner education.
Indigenous culture shows marked correspondence with the theories of Jean Piaget. (Bain, 1992) With parallels to Piaget themselves, both the Steiner (Steiner, 1996; Wright, 2000) and Montessori (Elkind, 1967) systems provide suitable methodologies for Indigenous education. And while the applicability of the two overlap in certain regards, their differences provide specific services where appropriate.
Land links are much stronger in Indigenous thought than either Montessori or Steiner, but the latter does lay significant importance to both the observation and interpretation of nature. (Steiner, 2007) Aligned with this, Steiner education is also strong in the type of archetypes and imagery to which the Indigenous child culturally relates. This helps the student experience a “connection with the cosmos,” which relates moreover to the provision of universality in knowledge and understanding. (Steiner, 2007, p. 71) To do this, Steiner—in line with recommendations for Indigenous students (Hickling‐Hudson & Ahlquist, 2003; Korff, 2019; Yunkaporta, 2010)—recommends music and art, (Steiner, 2007; Wright, 2000) and all of this can be encapsulated in storytelling. (Steiner, 1995) For the Indigenous person, story “runs through everything in land, body, mind and spirit, tying together the shape of learning for all peoples.” (Yunkaporta, 2010, p. 1) Every morning, Steiner classrooms begin with a circle of ritual, imagination and tale. (Uhrmacher, 2004)
Montessori also presents ideas through story, but of a different type. A series of presentations called the Great Lessons link the child with universal concepts through storytelling. (Dorer & Epstein, 2016) These are stories not in the imaginative and symbolic sense, however, but used to explain scientific understandings. From here, the over-arching picture of knowledge, is broken down into its component parts. This process is called Cosmic Education, (M. M. Montessori, 1976) and aligns with the non-linear learning styles of Indigenous students while giving them the opportunity to see all knowledge in context of the whole. Moreover, the Montessori didactic is based on material learning, (M. Montessori, 2012) giving learners, Indigenous or otherwise, understandings that “can be explored with their hands and feet.” (Yunkaporta, 2010, p. 2) The Montessori curriculum also includes an aspect called Practical Life, a series of lessons in grace and courtesy that befit the recommendation that schools give Indigenous students exposure to “basic norms” as means of connecting with community and settling into an environment. (Korff, 2019)
In government schools, classroom learning is hemmed-in by the heavy requirements of the “core curriculum” as it is presented in ACARA. Independent schools have more flexibility. By incorporating the ideas of Steiner and Montessori with the recommendations of Indigenous elders and their community, an accessible pedagogy can be provided for Indigenous students that will incorporate them, out from the institutional margins, into the care of an inclusive system of education.
For 40-120,000+ years, (Australian Association of Adult and Community Education & The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, 1993; Bowler et al., 2003) Australian people have been raising and educating their children independent of European influence. When investigated through the lens of cultural appreciation, the educational understandings that the Aboriginal and Islander peoples developed in relative isolation are remarkably in line with the pedagogies unveiled by the likes of Piaget, Steiner, Montessori and others. These are hidden similarities that can unite rather than distance Indigenous and Western schooling. “If we put the two [epistemologies] together, we get a much deeper science.” (Dharawal Elder Frances Bodkin, quoted in Korff, 2019) The melding of Western and Indigenous ideas into a “pedagogy in common” (Kearney et al., 2014, p. 339) may therefore suit Munaŋa children as well as Indigenous, providing new educational opportunity for all students. (Lowe & Yunkaporta, 2013) Indigenous education provides what is perhaps an interesting look into pedagogical possibilities. This outcome, though perhaps not by these means, has been the Australian Government’s stated intent. (A. Department of Education, 2018) Assuming a common understanding may be found between disparate cultures, these ideas are worthy of much deeper investigation.
“Aboriginal Epistemology through Bronfenbrenner Analysis”
boriginal presence in Australia almost certainly predates British colonisation by tens of millennia. Cremation remains and a ritual burial discovered at Lake Mungo have provided concrete evidence of prehistoric human occupation. Extrapolating from these finds, supported by proximal evidence of human presence, archaeologists place Homo Sapiens’ occupation of Mungo at 50-46 thousand years before present. (Bowler et al., 2003)
Notably, the “culturally advanced mortuary practices” of the remains indicate a level of sophistication to the customs of the people who inhabited the region. (Bowler et al., 2003, p. 840) Thus even while Homo Sapiens were only first arriving in Europe, (Gibbons, 2001) Aboriginal culture had been established at least as remotely as southwest New South Wales, some 2,800 km from the closest proposed entry-point of humans into Australia. (Doherty Institute, 2019; Scribble Maps, 2019) These findings, conjoined with earlier evidence elsewhere, suggest human occupation on the continent at 120 kyBP or earlier. (Australian Association of Adult and Community Education & Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, 1993, p. 2) Accordingly, “Aboriginal Australians likely have one of the oldest continuous population histories outside sub-Saharan Africa today.” (Rasmussen et al., quoted in A. McGrath & Jebb, 2015, p. 189)
Whether a previously developed culture was brought to the continent with human migrants, or such social practices (e.g., those witnessed at Lake Mungo or in “art and complex tools” found elsewhere) were a product of the people once they’d arrived, is a matter of academic debate. (A. McGrath & Jebb, 2015, p. 188) Regardless, the development of customary norms and Aboriginal practices, isolated by physical and temporal separation to the degree of 50-120,000+ years, has produced a culture that is, in distinct ways, vastly different from that of the British who would colonise the continent in 1788.
As a result of the pronounced separation between the milieux which produced them, the two dominant cultures in contemporary Australia are fundamentally different. This creates, “if not a total failure in understanding, then a limitation” between Aboriginal and Anglo-Australian thought. (Bain, 1992, p. 5) These mutually distinct societies, as do all, regard the world through an epistemology that, if not unique, is at least specific to its own “ontologically disparate” worldview. (Kearney, McIntosh, Perry, Dockett, & Clayton, 2014, p. 339) These epistemologies, the “patterns of basic assumptions” that define a culture, (Deal & Pearson, quoted in Leonard, 2011, p. 5) become the media through which all communication will be shared. But so long as the caveat is borne in mind that any exchange of ideas between discrete cultures will produce a “refraction relative to [the] system of origin” of the viewer, (Bain, 1992, p. 12) a study may be made into the structure of Aboriginal society from a “western” perspective. But as the ideas of one culture will be transliterated into language befitting the worldview of another, any model employed will have to be appropriate to both.
Beginning in 1979, Urie Bronfenbrenner proposed and refined the Ecology of Human Development, or Bioecological Systems Theory, a model for understanding intellectual, emotional, social and moral formation as a dialogue between “an active, growing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which the developing person lives.” (Brendtro, 2010; Johnson, 2008, p. 2) With the advent of this model came new appreciation for the role that environment plays in child- and human-development, allowing pedagogical understanding to arise simultaneously from attachment—“primacy of emotional relationships”—and sociological—“social, cultural context”—theories. (Guhn & Goelman, 2011, p. 200)
Bronfenbrenner identified four frameworks of influence: the micro-, meso-, exo- and macrosystems. These spheres, beginning with the child’s direct interpersonal relationships (microsystem), gradually expand outwards to include “linkages between microsystems” (mesosystem); “events, contingencies, decisions, and policies over which the developing person has no influence” but which have “unidirectional” bearing on the person’s life (exosystem); and the “social blueprint” or cultural realm within which the preceding three take place (macrosystem). (Johnson, 2008, pp. 2–3) Generally, these systems are conceptualised as nested spheres. Later, Bronfenbrenner added a “chronosystem” to recognise the influence of time in and between his postulated dimensions. (Neal & Neal, 2013, p. 22)
In a manner that cannot be fully appreciated from within the construct of western thought, Aboriginal society is deeply rooted in kinship ties. Interaction and connection are social imperatives from birth, the child being included as occupant and participant in the community with all implied respect granted forthwith. (Byers, Kulitja, Lowell, & Kruske, 2012) Thus any investigation must necessarily be rooted in community and relationship, and a consideration of Aboriginal views on childhood and child-rearing would be central to the theme. Moreover, the “doctrine of the Dream Time” is integral to Aboriginal thought, providing a universal framework of interaction between all things. (Stanner, quoted in Bain, 1992, p. 24) The social nature of Bioecological Systems Theory makes it thereby pertinent to a study of Indigenous Australian culture.
Yet though knowledge of Aboriginal society may be pursued through this perspective, it is imperative to properly emphasise the extent to which kinship structures define the culture. Kinship creates a sphere of influence in Aboriginal society analogous to Bronfenbrenner’s microsystem but to a degree not evident in a western context. In a manner similar to the Christian doctrine of homoousios (A. E. McGrath, 2013), the diverse beings bound in kinship ties—people, animals, spirits, and inanimate objects—are in fact “of the same substance.” (Strehlow, quoted in Bain, 1992, p. 23) This implies that there is no distinction between whole and unity; each person is not part of a kinship group but an equal manifestation of it. “[I]n these totemic unities Aborigines (sic) have grouped what Westerners divide.” (Bain, 1992, p. 41) In a sense, there is little room for the individual, as it were. This is indeed a microsystem, but one not traditionally evinced in western culture.
Following thereupon, the interaction between kinship groups, notwithstanding the depth of the inherent microsystem, is vital to Aboriginal ritual. This provides a mesosystemic type of exchange imperative to the Aboriginal worldview as a whole. “Opposing” participants must meet in ceremony in order for any rites to be performed, and it is only through these conjunctions that all aspects of Dreaming, the macrosystem, are maintained. Through such exchange, furthermore, each participatory microsystem, kinship group, is strengthened; without said interaction, both systems will die. (Bain, 1992)
An example of this exchange can be witnessed in the Aboriginal approach to child-rearing, a responsibility “shared by all.” (Byers et al., 2012, p. 3) At childbirth, woman acts as intermediary between Dreaming and created world, bringing the child into life. There is little notion of physiological paternity in traditional Aboriginal culture. At the other end of childhood, “initiates are reborn as adults” through the systemic intercession of the local society’s men. (Bain, 1992, pp. 44–45) In this sense, the child becomes a focal point for existence, hub between created, creation and collaborative creator. Throughout this period, purposeful interaction with fully initiated members of the community gives children “relationships with others who are ‘more mature or experienced,’” exactly as Bronfenbrenner had advocated. (quoted in Leonard, 2011, p. 16)
Exploring the realms that could best be classified as mesosystems within Aboriginal social exchange, however, becomes confrontational to western categorisation. It would make little sense, for instance, to regard an Aboriginal person’s development as nested within an ecology of nature, who defines nature and himself as one and the same. (Rose, 1996) In light of this, it may be advantageous to regard Aboriginal epistemology through the more flexible networked-systems analogy of Bronfenbrennerian analysis proposed by researchers such as Neal & Neal. (2013) In contrast to the nested models of Bronfenbrenner’s analysis, which favour “progressively more complex reciprocal interaction,” (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, quoted in Guhn & Goelman, 2011, p. 205) Aboriginal thought proceeds without multi-tiered abstraction. Western epistemologies “break the direct link with the real,” whereas all Aboriginal interaction exists “not through complex mathematical formulae” but by “1:1” relationship. (Bain, 1992, pp. 49–50) An example of this would be the use of tjuwari, “husband’s sister,” to denote the more abstract idea of “sister-in-law” through multiple 1:1 relationships. (Bain, 1992, p. 97) This suggests a social structure that is not nested, per se, but more appropriately networked, which redefines the mesosystem as a “relationship that bridges two microsystems [facilitating] direct social interactions.” (Neal & Neal, 2013, p. 731)
Yet the mesosystemic relationship is still somewhat misleading. Though each individual/kingroup has a “relationship with [only] a portion of nature,” (Bain, 1992, p. 31) implying the necessity for “linkages between microsystems,” (Johnson, 2008, p. 2) the identification of each individual as manifestation of the totem means that meetings between kinship groups are meeting between the individuals themselves. Thus mesosystem becomes microsystem. Similarly, the microsystem itself implies, is reflected in, and is a reflection of the macrosystem, the Dreaming. In fact, “relationship within the family provides the pattern for [all] classification.” (Bain, 1992, p. 47) Thus kinship ties in the microsystem provide the model of the macrosystem, in a way not suggested by a traditional Bronfenbrenner model. This type of polylateral development between unit and whole creates interactions between social systems more nuanced than simple nesting would imply. Bronfenbrenner’s model becomes reversible. As each member of a kinship group is the totem itself, so too is everything in creation an active, direct manifestation of Dreaming. Everything in the Aboriginal world exists in “multi-dimensional patterns.” (Bain, 1992, p. 24) Everything is Dreaming, there is no separation. And all members of society have their place, here and now, responsible for creating and maintaining Dreaming itself. (Bain, 1992; Rose, 1996)
The inextricable relationship between macrosystem and microsystem in the Aboriginal paradigm, with a mesosystem of certain influence, essentially precludes a definable exosystem. Though in a broad sense, one may be able to deduce such a relationship between disparate nations on the continent, separate geographically but united by the Dreaming. (Rose, 1996) The absence of any historic concept of time in Aboriginal thought, however, (Byers et al., 2012) denies the inclusion of Bronfenbrenner’s later chronosystem. Children’s ages, for instance, (Bain, 1992; Byers et al., 2012) alike geographical seasons, (Rose, 1996) are not quantified in months or years but noted through qualifiable changes. As Elkin points out, “all space is here and all time is now.” (quoted in Bain, 1992, p. 28)
Conclusively, analysis of Aboriginal culture through Bioecological Systems Theory is beneficial for the academic who, “thinking with European concepts and using European words, [does] what he can to phrase and grasp the Aboriginal conception.” (Stanner, quoted in Bain, 1992, p. 30) Bronfenbrenner’s lens yields insight both in how the model fits and where it diverges. Yet the medium, constructed of western abstraction, only succeeds in abstracting Aboriginal thought. Thus, it implicitly compromises its purpose. The Aboriginal mind employs the same “logical structures” (Bain, 1992, p. 27) as its western counterpart, but holds a “differently conceived relationship of person and thing, a different concept of the self and a different relationship between thing and thing.” (Bain, 1992, p. 100) Bronfenbrenner provides western minds a perforce social, cultural and inter-relational platform through which to regard Aboriginal society, but it will take a radical shift in comprehensive outlook in order to truly understand Indigenous ways of being. Still, the western academic must do “what he can.”
“Reschematisation of Australia’s ESL & EAL-D Policies Toward Indigenous Learners”
iscommunication between the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the continent’s latter colonisers has predominated their interrelationship since the onset of social contact. And though over 200 years have since elapsed, the disjoint perennially remains. Furthermore, while legislation in contemporary Australia seeks nominally to address the issue, institutional action and policy—current as well as historical—have long promulgated the rift. And though mandates and ingenious, ingenuous solutions abound, Australia’s intercultural misunderstandings have always been and continue to be fundamentally rooted in language politics. Language education, therefore, has long been promoted as both a divisive tool and a promised solution.
Language, in its development and application, is not an isolated entity, but rather derives from and in turn carries physical, social, historical, and conceptual roots. (Sharifian et al., 2012) This primacy of language as an inclusive cultural medium, then, endows it almost unparalleled efficacy for social engineering. In fact, “to plan language is to plan society.” (Cooper, quoted in Eisenchlas, Schalley, & Guillemin, 2015, p. 156) Thereby, whereas multiculturalism was endemic to Indigenous Australia, manifest in an estimated 250 social languages, (Malcolm, 2011) a “long tradition” of monolingualism, “probably starting with the curse of Babel” (Eisenchlas et al., 2015, p. 154) arrived with the First Fleet. The forced adoption of what has become Standard Australian English (SAE) became a primary manner by which the immigrant culture established its preeminence.
As western culture continued to lay roots in Australia, language usage and control—primarily in the educational application—systematically moulded the role that Aboriginal people played in the society that grew up around them. And though Australia itself has become increasingly pluralist in culture following the end of World War II and latter repeal of the “White Australia” policy, “multiculturalism in Australia was always premised on the supremacy of the English language.” (Koleth, 2010, p. 54) As a result, monolingualism in SAE—in the custody of “self-elected members of a rather exclusive club” (Widdowson, quoted in Malcolm, 2013, p. 48)—has been the “uncontested shared national (but not legislated or official) language of Australia.” (Lo Bianco, 2002, p. 5)
The local Indigenous people, however, did not readily assimilate or accept the Queen’s English, as the settlers had expected. (Malcolm, 2013) To facilitate exchange, only the most useful words were adopted, with others tailored to specific Aboriginal use, resulting in an Aboriginal English (AE) that, though phonologically and grammatically distinct, is and must be regarded as a dialect of English. Critically, the developing language was processed through an Indigenous worldview, creating what are known as linguistic schemas, “cultural concepts, knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, values and norms that lay the foundation for human reasoning.” (Sharifian et al., 2012, p. 14) It is through these schemas that all intercultural communication proceeds.
Yet as communication is integral to any society, Australia has had to develop means by which it could meet the needs of its multicultural nature. To help navigate the shared society, then, English as a Second Language (ESL) programs have been incorporated into education to enfranchise non-native speakers to the adoption of SAE. These programs, however, as well as the precept of multiculturalism, have come under repeated fire in public and media rhetoric, which have played “a central role in shaping the way that Australians have come to view multiculturalism.” (Koleth, 2010, p. 55)
On one hand, the advantages of multilingualism are regularly promoted. (Lo Bianco, 2002) Conversely, “public concerns about multiculturalism” (Koleth, 2010, p. 35) have been pivotal in swaying policy. Whereas the 1970s and ’80s saw a move toward the embrace of social pluralism, (Eisenchlas et al., 2015) media outcry after the 2001 US attacks and a rhetorical connection of insurrection to asylum seekers lest immigration become a “pipeline for terrorists” (Grewcock, quoted in Koleth, 2010, p. 31) evoked “latent anxieties about multiculturalism.” This influence swayed the Australian federal elections of that year, placing John Howard in the seat of Prime Minister, who shifted policy “away from multiculturalism and back to a focus on integration or assimilation.” (Koleth, 2010, pp. 31, 33–34) Immigration and multicultural policy at this time “‘obviously’ [gave] preference to things such as English language skills.” (John Howard, quoted in Miller, 2019)
The aligning of Aboriginal students into ESL programs, however, undermines their culture in particular, for by corralling Indigenous people as “second language” learners, their home language is implicitly disregarded as a proper dialect, relegated to “rubbish” or “broken English.” (Hampton, quoted in Malcolm, 2013, p. 42) Yet due to the fundamental difference between Aboriginal and Standard Australian English, related idioms with shared words but diametric schemas, the “invisible aspects of dialect learning” in a curriculum designed around SAE have been specifically difficult for Aboriginal learners, “particularly when compared to the relatively clear language distinctions the student faces when learning an additional language.” (Sharifian et al., 2012, p. 69, emphasis added)
To navigate the dominant culture, the Indigenous mind must go through a process known as “code-switching.” This is the dialectic of “understand[ing] a word as its speaker intended,” (Palmer, quoted in Sharifian et al., 2012, p. 88) a sort of deliberate or unconscious reschematisation. Thus the experience of Australian society is one of mystery and puzzlement for the Aboriginal student. “Everything is ‘code-switch’ for us. Not just the way we talk but the way we are asked to learn and behave.” (Indigenous student, quoted in Lewthwaite et al., 2015, p. 147)
At the assessment end, Indigenous learners are required to sit NAPLAN, a standardised test has been deemed “linguistically and culturally unsuitable.” (Wigglesworth, Simpson, & Loakes, 2011, p. 340) Upon the poor results of the first of these tests in 2008, “quick decisions” were made in remote areas which resulted in a “dismantling of the last remaining bilingual education programs” that instructed Aboriginal students in their native tongue. (Wigglesworth et al., 2011, p. 323)
It is at least partially due to these handicaps that Indigenous people have been identified as “the most educationally disadvantaged group of people within Australia.” (Sharifian et al., 2012, p. 9) The necessitated use of SAE imposes Australian schemas on its users, thus effectively becoming a tool of assimilation. (Sharifian et al., 2012) In the case of Indigenous students, this tendency in education is regarded as “internal colonialism.” (Welsh, quoted in Malcolm, 2011, p. 3) For Aboriginal people specifically, then, the promotion of ESL programs does not support but undermines their cultural identity. Whether or not this is applicable to other cultures as well is beyond the scope of this critique.
The historical dilemma of assimilation vs. acceptance of Aboriginal ways of thought and being into contemporary Australian society leaves the country with “twin goals of inclusion and empowerment,” and it is conceded that the “second goal [… ] is unlikely to [be] achieved without the first.” (Malcolm, et. al., quoted in Turnbull, 2001, p. 10) In the words of the Department of Immigration, this means an “inclusive and socially cohesive society where everyone can participate.” (2011, p. 5) To do this, the cultural importance of language will have to be evaluated. ESL—English as a Second Language—has been re-branded as English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) in many places, thus addressing the disrespect that has been paid to the legitimacy of AE, but the change must be more fundamental and sweeping than that. “We need to learn from what doesn’t work — and set this aside.” (Department of Education, 2007, p. 8)
Due to the importance that literacy in the student’s home language has in facilitating learning of all types, eventually translating into increased literacy even in an additional dialect, (Eisenchlas et al., 2015, p. 155) the child’s native language should be represented as directly as possible in the classroom environment. (Department of Education, 2007) This will be important not only to encourage literacy but also to value and uphold the cultural schemas that the language represents. Yet as “[c]urriculum, pedagogy and assessment are all inter-related” such sweeping change will require a “multi-level and holistic approach.” (Frigo & Simpson, 2001, p. 1) In fact, the systemic changes needed to facilitate this will require a reaching outside of school and into the realm of community as well, in order for the shift to be truly internalised. (Ockenden & Closing the Gap Clearinghouse (Australia), 2014) “Formulas and slogans have no place in confirmation.” (Noddings, quoted in Lewthwaite et al., 2015, p. 145)
Truly, use of SAE is important for all people, regardless of ethnicity or background in modern Australian society, but the avenue by which to present it to additional language/dialect learners must be aligned with cultural values and modes of thought. (Santoro, Reid, Crawford, & Simpson, 2011) Schools must teach the outcome of literacy rather than the skill of communication in SAE. For this reason, focus should be on SAE “competence through scaffolding” rather than acquisition, teaching cultural schemas explicitly where they are encountered. (Sharifian et al., 2012, p. 61) By taking care of cultural sensibilities, the teacher will begin to establish a relationship of trust. And though this is not an aspect of teaching practice prioritised in current doctrine, it is this sort of radical change and communal thinking that will begin to enfold Indigenous learners into the educational sphere. (Lewthwaite et al., 2015)
Upon having explored these changes to the place that language instruction holds—and its delivery— it is only in reflection that the Australian educational system will be able to know that it has truly made a difference. For though it is a Christian creed, it should apply equally to all educators “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly.” (Micah 6:8, Barker & Burdick, 2002). Then, having seen the effectiveness of a more “holistic approach,” (op. cit) the final “question that arises from this study is the uniqueness of these teacher attributes for Aboriginal learners. Are they not, simply, good teaching practices for all students?” (Lewthwaite et al., 2015, p. 152)