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Session E5: Training, employment and informal learning

1. B. Ewing, C. Matthews, T. Cooper, A. Baturo, V. Sun, G. Sarra, E. Duus, K. Moore, M. Mccarthy, J. Golding: Getting skilled for education, training and employment: Indigenous Cultural Knowledges and mainstream knowledges of mathematics

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Abstract

This abstract is a preliminary discussion of the importance of blending of Indigenous cultural knowledges with mainstream knowledges of mathematics for supporting Indigenous young people. This import is emphasised in the documents Preparing the Ground for Partnership (Priest, 2005), The Indigenous Education Strategic Directions 2008–2011 (Department of Education, Training and the Arts, 2007) and the National Goals for Indigenous Education (Department of Education, Employment and Work Relations, 2008). These documents highlight the contextualising of literacy and numeracy to students’ community and culture (see Priest, 2005). Here, community describes “a culture that is oriented primarily towards the needs of the group. Martin Nakata (2007) describes contextualising to culture as about that which already exists, that is, Torres Strait Islander community, cultural context and home languages (Nakata, 2007, p. 2). Continuing, Ezeife (2002) cites Hollins (1996) in stating that Indigenous people belong to “high-context culture groups” (p. 185). That is, “high-context cultures are characterized by a holistic (top-down) approach to information processing in which meaning is “extracted” from the environment and the situation. Low-context cultures use a linear, sequential building block (bottom-up) approach to information processing in which meaning is constructed” (p.185). In this regard, students who use holistic thought processing are more likely to be disadvantaged in mainstream mathematics classrooms. This is because Westernised mathematics is presented as broken into parts with limited connections made between concepts and with the students’ culture. It potentially conflicts with how they learn. If this is to change the curriculum needs to be made more culture-sensitive and community orientated so that students know and understand what they are learning and for what purposes.

Author bios:

Dr Bronwyn Ewing is a mathematics education researcher at QUT specialising in the pedagogy of mathematics classrooms from the early years to VET contexts. She has a special interest in the teaching and learning of mathematics to Torres Strait Islander students, the role of Torres Strait Islander  women in their children’s prior-to-school mathematics education, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students transitioning into university.

Dr Chris Matthews is a traditional owner Minjerribah (Stradebroke Island) in the Quandamooka Nation (Moreton Bay, Queensland). In 2003, Chris completed a PhD in Applied Mathematics at Griffith University, Australia. From 2006 - 2008, Chris was been employed as a lecturer at Griffith University in the Griffith School of Environment and has recently taken on the role as the coordinator of the Indigenous Research Network at Griffith University. His research interests are the field of applied mathematics and mathematics education. These two fields have strong interconnections and enables Chris to explore questions like: As an Indigenous Australian, why would you study and/or practice mathematics? How objective is mathematics and how does culture determine the teaching, learning and practice of mathematics?

2. George Morgan: Young Aboriginal Men, Informal Learning and Work Aspirations in Redfern- Waterloo

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Abstract

Many Aboriginal people moved to live in cities during 1960s and 70s. This was also the time when urban manufacturing industry jobs began to decline significantly, affecting men disproportionately. While Aboriginal women remained pivotal in family and communal life, men struggle to find fulfilling social roles, either through or outside paid employment. In 2004 the NSW government formed the Redfern Waterloo Authority (RWA) to oversee the area’s redevelopment. Part of the authority’s brief is to enhance education, training and employment opportunities for the Aboriginal population. Youth unemployment levels are particularly high among the indigenous community and the low levels of workforce participation hide a much more substantial problem of long term unemployment and welfare reliance. This will only get worse in the current economic conditions. Unemployment results both from lack of available opportunities but also from the inability to form individual narratives of aspiration, to see pathways into the adult world. This is a significant problem for young Aboriginal men who have left school early, branded as failures, and for whom peer-group activities are much more attractive than is the world of formal education or work. This paper reports the results of an AIATIS-funded project exploring the participation of young Aboriginal men in community cultural projects (music, film/video, new media) in Redfern Waterloo. The research comprises of interviews designed to elicit narratives of vocational aspiration from young Aboriginal men involved in community cultural projects. The paper will examine what role cultural creativity might play in those aspirations.

Author bio:

George Morgan is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Sydney. He currently has two current funded research projects. Firstly an AIATSIS grant/project entitled 'Young Aboriginal Men, Informal Learning and the "New Economy" in Redfern Waterloo'. Secondly,  ARC Discovery grant entitled: The Just-in-Time Self: Young Men, Skill and Narratives of Aspiration. His books include Unsettled Places: Aboriginal People and Urbanisation in New South Wales (Wakefield Press, 2006) Outrageous! Moral Panics in Australia (ACYS Press, 2007) - the latter co-edited with Scott Poynting.