Instruments of Power and Control in First Nations Remote Education

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: The Power and Possibilities for the Indigenous Good: The Importance of Indigenous Research and Praxis 3

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the representations of power that exert influence in schools for remote First Nations students. The purpose is to see the dynamics of the various forms of power through a critical theoretical lens to help explain the complexity of the remote education and why for decades, systems have failed to achieve the results they might have expected. We also aim to show how community representations of power have similarly failed to achieve what might have been hoped for.
To discuss these representations, we first draw on elements of theory from Apple, Gramsci, Bourdieu, and Foucault, viewed through a Critical Race Theory filter. Our purpose in using their frames of reference is to better understand how applications of power intersect with each other.
Based on three exemplar studies from our research, we describe representations of power as they are expressed through their instruments. In particular we focus on a selection of policy instruments (such as attendance and pedagogical strategies), curriculum (for example in the Framework for Aboriginal Languages and Torres Strait Islander Languages and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cross-curriculum priority, boarding schools and scholarship programs and community-led education initiatives (e.g. Bilingual and first language programs). Through these various instruments, we observe various models of influence, from assimilation/acculturation to coercion and subversive resistance/activism through to selective appropriation. We unpack each of these models to discuss the potential impact of each in relation to the other

Authors

• Samual Osborne, University of South Australia

• John Guenther, Batchelor Institute