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‘Why can't we be smart?’ Exploring School Community partnerships through Decolonising Race Theory

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Abstract

For over a century, since Aboriginal children were permitted to access mainstream Australian schools, there has been a significant gap in academic achievement between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students. Community engagement by schools is recognised as a key factor in Aboriginal student success, but school approaches to community engagement remain inconsistent and driven by deficit thinking. As part of the Aboriginal Voices Project, this paper explores community engagement at six New South Wales (NSW) public school sites and applies Decolonising Race Theory (DRT) as a critical Indigenous lens to interpret and understand the challenges that students, families, and schools face within their relationships. While we find evidence of school–community partnerships that prioritise Indigenous healing, for the schools in this paper, there is a complexity within relationships with community that reflects the interaction between assimilationist positioning of Aboriginal students that often contains positive and negative elements simultaneously.

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Notes

  1. The researchers recognise the complexity of the use of language relating to Aboriginal identity in Australia. For the purposes of this paper, the term Aboriginal is used as a reflection of the Australian mainland as the Aboriginal Countries where this research was conducted. The use of this term respectfully includes participants who were Torres Strait Islanders and the feedback from the participants that chose to be identified as Aboriginal.

  2. More information about this research project can be found here: https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?tag=aboriginal-voices-project

  3. A Clontarf coordinator or director is employed by the Clontarf foundation as a mentor or counsellor focussed on behavioural change, discipline, life skills, self-esteem, and employment prospects of Aboriginal boys. See https://clontarf.org.au/.

  4. Name changed to deidentify participants.

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Funding

The project was supported by Macquarie University through Post-Doctoral Research Funds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, VIC, 3216, Australia

    Aleryk Fricker

  2. The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Nikki Moodie

  3. The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Cathie Burgess

Authors
  1. Aleryk Fricker
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  2. Nikki Moodie
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  3. Cathie Burgess
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Correspondence to Aleryk Fricker.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

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Ethics has been approved for this project from Macquarie University. Please see, no. 5201600672.

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Fricker, A., Moodie, N. & Burgess, C. ‘Why can't we be smart?’ Exploring School Community partnerships through Decolonising Race Theory. Aust. Educ. Res. 50, 55–71 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-022-00590-9

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