Historical significance continues to be the forgotten element of history education. Without student capacity to establish what they think is important, or why they would care about certain events and people from the past, students will continue to be disinterested in the study of history. This paper draws on the results of a three-year study aimed…

This paper presents the results of a three-year study of the impacts of teaching about the experiences of trauma on students studying to become teachers. The project's overarching objective is to develop an effective trauma-informed pedagogy that can support students who learn about the experiences of the 'Stolen Generations', the Holocaust, wars,…

The pedagogical urge to decolonise student thinking has been at the heart of the drive to embed Indigenous knowledge in universities throughout the western world. Despite ongoing efforts in the Pacific, North America and South Africa, there is little in the way of explicit curriculum scholarship informing approaches to the inclusion of Indigenous…

The 'Aboriginal Voices' project is a consortium of researchers invested in seeking long-term solutions to the many and varied issues that have been identified as factors contributing to the underachievement of Indigenous students in education across Australia. The Aboriginal Voices systematic review project established an agreed methodology and…

School-based gardens (SBGs) are contributing to improvements in many areas of education, including nutrition, health, connectedness and engagement of students. While considerable research has been conducted in other parts of the world, research in Australia provides limited understanding of the impact of SBGs. The aim of this paper is to give a…

2020 looms large for Indigenous education in Australia, with the 'Refreshed' "Close the Gap" strategy hanging over the collective heads of schools, Indigenous students and their families. After a decade of promises, there is now an acknowledgement within the government that programmes to improve student outcomes in literacy, numeracy and…

Many great cultures of the world have recognised the impossibility of teaching. Governments in various colonial countries continue to spend huge sums of money on 'closing the gap' in Indigenous education, yet national assessment figures would support the claim that teaching is indeed an impossibility. This paper draws on some of Biesta's recent…

This article offers a trans-Tasman critique of approaches to the teaching of history in New Zealand and Australia. Taking knowledge out of place and time and presenting it in textbooks is a conflicted task for schooling in both countries. The disembodiment of knowledge in history books has led students to the proclamation that the teaching of…

Student capacities to actively listen, sense and feel are often relegated to lower order skills in an education system increasingly governed by measurable outcomes. While most school-based pedagogies focus their approach on cognition, this paper considers how we might make sense of the affective experiences that often resist the deep thinking,…

School systems and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have long acknowledged the levels of social, cultural and epistemic conflict that has historically existed between teachers and schools, and Aboriginal students, families and their local communities. This relationship is both symptomatic and causal of the broader and highly complex field of…

The import of professional learning in support of quality teaching is well established. Moreover, demonstrating active engagement with ongoing professional learning is now a requirement of maintaining teacher accreditation. For example, within an education policy climate that monitors the achievements of Indigenous learners closely, the evaluation…

Geography is about the places that make up the world. A key focus of the new geography curriculum in Australia is on different ways of finding knowledge about those places. Yet there is limited demonstration in the curriculum and its elaborations of just how students might understand those places outside the realm of their own experience. In…

Country constitutes the very anchor of life for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. It is central to Indigenous identities and history, and is a powerful signifier of overall health and well-being; yet, the significance of country to Indigenous people living in large urban localities such as Sydney, Australia, remains…

Drawing on demographic data collected from interviews with 50 Indigenous Australians with a doctoral qualification and 33 of their supervisors, this paper provides the first detailed picture of Indigenous doctoral education in Australia, with the focus on study modes, age of candidates, completion times and employment. It also analyses data…

This paper maps ethical and epistemological issues around attempts by a university to negotiate with the traditional custodians of the Sydney basin, the Darug, to facilitate the intergenerational transmission of knowledge within their community, and through the university curriculum. The theory and practice of research raised some important…