Glenn Woods
PhD Candidate
Glenn Woods
PhD Candidate
School of Health Sciences and Social Work
Exploring the potential of Indigenous Australian teaching and learning practices within tertiary coursework to contribute to improved professional practice and social justice.
Griffith University Ethics Approval #GU Ref No: 2017/236
Primary Research Question
What defines an authentic Indigenous Australian teaching and learning experience?
Secondary Research Discussion Questions
1. What is the potential of Indigenous teaching and learning processes to contribute to improved professional practice?
​
2. What are the challenges to implementing Indigenous learning and teaching practices into tertiary education spaces.?
PhD Abstract
The purpose of this PhD was to explore what it means when we talk about an Indigenous approach to teaching and learning in practice.
This topic is important because the published discussion that currently exists in this space is far from comprehensive, often theoretically considered around pedagogical models but not clear in terms of what it is an Indigenous approach to teaching and learning might include as an experience for learners and teachers.
With an increasing recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples to engage the education space on their own terms, in ways that represent the beliefs, values and aspirations of Indigenous educators, it is important that we have definitions and examples of what an Indigenous education process might look like in contemporary Australian educations contexts, when advocating for and negotiating a place within those spaces.
Further to this, it is important to consider how an Indigenous approach to learning and teaching would look like in a specific context, such as a university qualification program, what the potential benefits of this approach are and what the current challenges are in implementing this.
The research approach involved engaging twelve culturally diverse First Nations education practitioners, who are committed to the recognition and engagement of Indigenous learning and teaching practices in contemporary education contexts. A yarning research method was utilised to thematically analyse the ways in which these practitioners defined what an Indigenous approach to teaching and learning is in contemporary and contested education spaces.
Key findings include a strong consensus amongst culturally diverse First Nations education practitioners around commonly held philosophical beliefs, shared values and shared aspirations regarding how we might define an Indigenous approach to learning and teaching in contemporary practice contexts. The strength of this consensus has led to a suggestion by the researcher that it may be best to define these shared beliefs as an Indigenist approach, that can be broadly applied outside of culturally specific Indigenous contexts but must always be done via the leadership and custodianship of Indigenous knowledge holders and in solidarity with the sovereign rights of all First Nations groups to maintain the integrity of their own specific knowledges and practices.
The format of the thesis is innovative and includes the presentation of the research in a multimedia web-based format. The choice to use this format has been primarily driven by the authors commitment to make this as accessible as possible to a non-academic, community centred audience. To this end the research has included his own voice as narrated audio introductions to written work and longer podcast style audio discussion regarding consideration and examples of how we might engage with Indigenist learning and teaching practices within mainstream educations settings, for all students and what the current challenges are to this happening.
Introduction
Publication 1
Learning in Community: Reflections on 17 Years of Visiting Kuntri.
Abstract
The process of engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities should be grounded within a human rights context, whereby it is the responsibility of those with agency and opportunity within universities and other institutions to recognise, support, and action the rights of Indigenous peoples to be included and involved at the highest levels of education design and delivery. In keeping with an Indigenous human rights approach, this inclusion of Indigenous peoples in higher education design and delivery needs to occur via equitable, negotiated, and culturally safe terms for all concerned. Further to this, facilitators and participants must understand and challenge the influence and impact of inappropriate, inaccurate, misleading, and discriminatory notions about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity and authenticity that are generated in a myriad of forums outside of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consent and control. The process of successful and sustainable engagement is facilitated by building meaningful interpersonal, inter-organisational and intercultural relationships beyond those that the Western university typically acknowledges or supports. Staff and students of the university will need to have a keen appreciation for the fundamental philosophies, values, and customs of Indigenous peoples and groups they are engaging with, including the significance of relationships to kuntri and the importance of reciprocity and sustainable process. This chapter presents a personal reflection on these topics. I discuss the process and outcomes of designing and facilitating student engagement experiences with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers and hosts since 1997. In doing so, I present some of my own key lessons and make suggestions that may help develop and improve other peoples’ experiences in the future.
Need for Study
Publication 2
Exploring Authenticity and Integrity in the Sharing of Indigenous Knowledge: Is Process More Important than Content?
Until very recently Indigenous Australian people and cultures have been the subjects of study and content in non-Indigenous Australian education settings rather than the teachers of knowledge systems. Like all knowledge systems Indigenous knowledge systems are philosophically inspired, value driven and delivered via particular process. How do we create opportunities for the holders of Indigenous knowledges to share their knowledge in ways that are authentic and meaningful to all participants? If particular people and places are intrinsic to the authenticity and integrity of Indigenous knowledge sharing how well is this understood and valued by non-Indigenous policy makers and educators that are in a position to support and make space for this? What are the consequences if the authenticity and integrity of the Indigenous knowledge sharing process is overlooked or ignored in the quest to include ‘it’ as content within a non-Indigenous teaching and learning space? This paper draws directly on the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge holders to provide some parameters around what makes a knowledge sharing experience authentic and meaningful. Further to this, it explores what the consequences may be when Indigenous process is overlooked or ignored in the quest to include Indigenous ‘content’.
Methodology
This work is presented as a written chapter. It has not been developed and edited as an intended publication. In considering this chapter I would like to point out that my methodology is also presented within the Findings publication, which was necessary as the Findings paper will need to be read as a stand-alone publication outside this space.
​
Methodology Introduction
Over the past two decades, there has been a steady increase in research and discussion about Indigenous pedagogies and the circumstances in which Indigenous pedagogies can or should be engaged.
Key contributions to research with and for First Nations communities within Australia have come from the work of Dr Tyson Yunkaporta, Dr Martin Nakata, Dr Irabinna-Lester Rigeny and the late Dr Errol West.
Nationally, we are seeing strong imperatives to ensure that research is being conducted in culturally safe, culturally responsive and culturally just ways and that research focused on Indigenous knowledges is Indigenous led.
Important considerations include the research methodologies used, the research outputs produced, the ethics of ownership of research data and the benefits of the research to Indigenous communities.
Considering the above, I adopted and overall Indigenous Research Methodological approach, informed by Indigenous Standpoint Theory which I detail further below.
Research Findings
_edited.jpg)
Publication 3
​
COMMON GROUND FOR RIGHTS-BASED EDUCATION: WHAT DEFINES AN INDIGENIST APPROACH TO LEARNING AND TEACHING IN AUSTRALIA?
​
Abstract
First Nations peoples have distinct approaches to learning and teaching, passed down intergenerationally for thousands of years, largely ignored by settler-colonial education institutions in developing policy and practice. A thematic analysis of yarns with 12 diverse First Nations educators found shared agreement about values, beliefs and approaches that inform an Indigenous/ist approach to learning and teaching in Australia. Four key themes emerged from this common ground: Relationship, Country, Practice Experiences and Knowledge Systems. While there are some similarities across recent literature about First Nations pedagogies, there is currently no collective agreement amongst Australia’s diverse First Nations groups on what defines an Indigenous/ist learning and teaching approach. There are also significant differences between the findings of this study and the dominant, Anglocentric learning and teaching approaches operationalised by the Australian settler-colonial State, particularly at a tertiary level. The settler-colonial State’s failure to consider First Nations approaches as an option in mainstream tertiary education context is at odds with a rights-based approach, pointing to a need to decolonise education. The four themes emerging from these yarns comprise an Indigenist approach and an opportunity to negotiate the inclusion of First Nations learning and teaching experiences across the national education context.
The voices of the yarning participants
Further Discussion
Publication 4
Extract from chapter
Critical posthumanism and Indigenist theorising and practice Critical – including feminist, anti-racist, anti-oppressive, anti-imperialist and post/anti/decolonial – scholars have long insisted that neither an objective representation of facts nor a universally applicable representation of ethical arguments in relation to these facts are possible or even desirable (see, for example, Braidotti, 2013; or, in social work, Dominelli, 2018). Considering ourselves part of this tradition, it is thus important to try and tease out how our respective locations in Australia as Indigenous (Glenn) and non-Indigenous (Dorothee) social work educators may have impacted our understanding of the case study before returning to consider points of convergence, tension and their implications for social work. We begin by laying out Dorothee’s position, which remains rooted within Eurocentric, academic traditions. This is followed by Glenn’s response, who has spent much of his working life trying to resist the dominance of European thought and practice within a variety of settings by helping to mainstream Indigenist articulations of what it means to be in this world.
Secondary Research Discussion Questions
This is the first podcast that talks to my secondary discussion questions.
This is my second podcast that talks to my secondary discussion questions.
