Toward an Australian Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Project Aims

The aim of this project was to examine how teachers enact culturally responsive pedagogy in Australian mainstream middle school classrooms. Specifically this entailed a multi-sited action research project in 10 mainstream schools, augmented by analysis of policy texts, and additional evidence about school structures, and school culture. The project was designed to develop an Australian theory for culturally responsive pedagogy that draws on International and Australian Indigenous Studies, new pedagogy studies, and new empirical work in schools. In pursuing this aim, the project:

(A) Sustained a collaborative research community across a cluster of schools to produce new professional and scholarly knowledge about culturally responsive pedagogical practice;

(B) Reviewed the archive of educational research in settler colonial countries for rationales, theories, and descriptions of practice, for culturally responsive pedagogy;

(C) Analysed federal and state policy texts in the area of Indigenous schooling to ascertain how problems are named and how solutions are proposed;

(D) Developed an augmented approach to action research that brought together data sets from classroom action research over 2 years, in 10 schools, with data about school structures and school culture; and

(E) Advanced descriptions and theorisations of an Australian culturally responsive pedagogy that can inform teacher education, school-based professional development, and schooling and Indigenous policy in different Australian jurisdictions.

Background

The huge discrepancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous student success at school, by any measure, is an urgent international problem. This issue has been articulated in a number of key Australian policy texts. Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 2008) that calls for a rights based approach to Indigenous education and preparation for teaching Indigenous Education. Domestically, the Council of Australian Governments Closing the Gap policy (COAG, 2008) drew on the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy (DEST, 1989) and targeted Indigenous educational disadvantage amongst other things. In 2016, Prime Minister Turnball reported to parliament that the Closing the Gap schooling targets are ‘not on track’ (Gordon & Hunter 2016). Spanning nearly 20 years, the Hobart, Adelaide and Melbourne Declarations (MCEETYA, 2008) asserted improvement in teaching to address educational disparity. The Australian Curriculum and Australian Teacher Professional Standards (AITSL, 2016) requires culturally responsive approaches to teaching. For example Professional Teacher Standards Focus Area 1.4: Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students, and Focus Area 2.4: Understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians (White et al, 2013).

There has been decades of policy action in this area, but there is no comprehensive review of the take up of these policy ideas, especially the ways schools are organized and how curriculum and pedagogy in schools are enacted. What do we know about ‘actually existing pedagogies’ (Lingard 2007: 246) that dominate in schools across Australia? There has been some review work in the area of teacher education (Moreton-Robinson et al, 2012) that provides some insights for further research. For instance, they argue there is a paucity of research ‘analysing the impact of racism on Indigenous educational outcomes’, and they recommend ‘the development of an Indigenous pedagogy for pre-service teacher training’ with a complementary anti-racist pedagogy as part of the Aboriginal Studies curricula’ (p.1-2).

Given that most Indigenous students attend government schools (ABS, 2015) in Australian cities and or large regional centres (ABS 2006), we can infer important findings from large pedagogy studies conducted recently. Without being extensive, recent Australian studies such as the Queensland Longitudinal Study, The Changing Schools Changing Times Project, and Redesigning Pedagogies in the North provide useful findings. For example, Lingard (2007) refers to the dominant pedagogies as pedagogies of indifference or pedagogies of the same, summarised as being strong in care for students, but mostly ‘fail to work with and across differences’, (p. 246). This view is confirmed by Hayes et al (2009) who found that ‘classroom practices are very traditional, following predictable routines, and are largely unsuccessful as far as formal learning is concerned’ (p. 251-2).

Yet globally there is growing body of evidence that culturally responsive pedagogies do improve academic success for First Nations peoples (Castagno & Brayboy 2008). Culturally responsive pedagogies for Indigenous students are now accepted as a hopeful strategy for improving academic achievement of First Peoples in settler colonial countries such as the USA, Canada, and New Zealand (Castagno & Brayboy 2008; Dick, Estell, & McCarty, 1994; Bishop et al 2007; Smith 2003). By way of a working definition, culturally responsive pedagogy ‘emphasises and respects students identities and backgrounds as meaningful sources for optimal learning’ (Klump & McNair, 2005: 3). Additionally culturally responsive pedagogy demands ‘high expectations of students and ensuring that these expectations are realized’ (p. 3). We agree with Castagno et al (2008) that culturally responsive pedagogy is also realized when a shift occurs in: teaching pedagogy; methods; curricular materials; teacher dispositions; and school–community relations’ (p. 941). A more elaborate and generative version of a culturally responsive approach is found in Eight Alaskan Culturally Responsive Teacher Standards (Assembly of Alaska Native Educators, 1999). Alaskan culturally responsive pedagogies concentrate teachers’ work on in-depth study of surrounding physical and cultural environment in which the school is situated, while recognizing the unique contribution that local Indigenous community and parents can make to learning. Such pedagogies embrace and build on student identities and background as an asset for learning.

In Australia, in the past decade there have been many schooling initiatives including Dare to Lead, What Works, Making it Count, Stronger Smarter, and the Cape York Institute, all with varied and uneven effects (Craven & Price 2009; Price & Hughes 2009; Buckskin, et al 2010). Research into the experiences of Indigenous students has too often focused on the problems, barriers and challenges teachers face and the need to improve teacher quality and pre-service teacher education (Budby 1982; Hughes 1988; Bourke, et al 1993; Rigney, et al 1998; Craven, et al 2005; Rigney 2011a; 2011b; Price, 2012). Despite these initiatives, little attention has been given to culturally responsive pedagogies in Australian public school classrooms. Unfortunately the theory and practice of culturally responsive pedagogies in Australia is only weakly developed, has had no significant peer evaluated reviews (e.g. Perso, 2012; Krakouer, 2015), and presently has a few productive advocates (e.g. Sarra 2007, Yunkaporta, & McGinty, 2009, Nakata, 2011; Rahman, 2013), but this work has yet to seriously inform the curriculum and pedagogical reform projects of the state and federal jurisdictions. There is presently no substantial theoretically informed and empirically substantiated Australian version of culturally responsive pedagogy available to Australian educators working in schools, or those preparing new teachers.

The Toward an Australian Culturally Responsive Project investigated the development and enactment of culturally responsive pedagogies and explored their adaptation, development and enactment in ten South Australian public schools with significant Indigenous student cohorts. The project shared and reviewed with a cohort of teachers various approaches to culturally responsive pedagogy, and borrowed and bent ideas from these approaches to redesign curriculum and pedagogy in their classrooms, and to systematically examine what happens with an augmented version of action research.

Design and Methods

We required a methodology that was capable of handling these questions: How do policy texts both define the problem and the solutions for Indigenous schooling? In other settler colonial countries, how is ‘culturally responsive pedagogy’ understood in policy, theory and practice, and what can Australia learn from international comparisons? How might culturally responsive pedagogy, both theory and practice, be further developed in mainstream classrooms in the middle years of public schooling?

Broadly speaking this study used a critical action research approach that was augmented with methods borrowed from policy sociology and educational ethnography. Collaborative and participatory action research has growing influence internationally and in Australian educational research, contributing to teacher capacity-building and professional renewal in local settings (Somekh 2006; Hattam et al 2009). Such methodologies enable the systematic examination of the re-designing of pedagogic practice by teachers. The proposed study borrowed and developed further these elements from the Re-designing Pedagogies in the North project (Hattam et al, 2009; Zipin & Hattam, 2009): convening and sustaining a professional learning community in the form of ‘research roundtables’ (Ladwig & White 1996); establishing conditions for critical reflection; inviting teachers to read relevant research collaboratively with university researchers; focusing on improving theory and practice; fostering teacher/school ownership; systematic examination involving collection and analysis of evidence.

Our approach also took heed of various recent developments for action research. From Gore (1997) we affirm that ‘systematic collection and analysis of data is fundamental to the project of developing a theory of pedagogy’ (p. 211). If the aim is to ‘help practitioners to change what occurs in classrooms’ then we require ‘socially recognisable evidence’ (p. 214). Specifically she outlines the importance of ‘systematic, meticulous, tedious, detailed observations’ of ‘pedagogical sites’ (p. 215), involving detailed field notes of events and interviews conducted with participants’ (p. 215). As well Gore et al (2015) highlight the following methods which we incorporated into our approach: developing a shared set of concepts and language through professional reading; providing detailed protocols for teachers to guide their observations; engaging teachers in rigorous analysis of their own data. From Hattam and Sullivan (2016), we borrowed their notion of the school as a key site of reform and hence the demand to examine pedagogy as an ‘ongoing practical accomplishment’ (Freebody & Freiberg 2012: 80), constituted out of the ‘practical reasoning’ or ‘practical theorising’ (p.80) at the local school level. Those working in schools ‘use the resources [available] within the [school] to: constitute the rationality of action, intelligibly and collaboratively make meaning, solve interactional problems, and in general, work to ensure the smooth running of situated everyday activities [ie pedagogy]’ (p. 83). In which case we were interested in examining school structures: the use of time and space, groupings of staff and students, staff roles, organisation of curriculum, and use of technology; and school cultures: values, beliefs, assumptions, habits, patterns of behaviour and relationships in school organisational culture.

Our approach also borrowed from Maori scholar Linda Smith’s (1999) ‘decolonising methodologies’ for researching the concerns of Indigenous peoples. As such our methodology was defined by the following strategies: (i) the project aims to empower Indigenous participants while unsettling deficit and victim constructions of Indigenous peoples; (ii) drawing upon Indigenous knowledges and their sustainability while highlighting their subjugation; (iii) working ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ Indigenous peoples to privilege their voices rather than speak for them; (iv) methodologically this demands a ‘negotiated approach’ where reflexivity is required that is sensitive to a politics of knowledge. The research involved four linked phases – orientation; analysis of key texts; augmented action research; and theory building – which are elaborated below. They are represented as a neat serial progression; but in reality the phases informed each other.

Orientation phase

The orientation phase put in place people and processes for building a professional learning community across the university-schools nexus.

(A.1) CIs developed a set of discussion papers and resources including literature reviews on culturally responsive pedagogy; protocols for Research Roundtables; action research protocols for teachers; audit instruments for pre and post testing; and protocols for researching school structures and culture.

(A.3) Ten schools were selected using the following criteria: (i) large (>450) public school with middle years cohort (year 6-year 9); (ii) substantial numbers of Indigenous students in the middle years; (iii) active Aboriginal Community Engagement Officer; (iv) improving Indigenous learning identified on School Improvement Plan; (v) strong connection with local Elders; (vi) confirmation by Department for Education and Child Development Education Directors; (vii) willingness to commit to a 2-year professional learning project. Three Indigenous Elders that are active in these schools were also invited to be involved in the action research.

(A.4) Two teachers were selected by their school Principals who are committed to improving learning for Indigenous students. The teachers and the Aboriginal Community Engagement Officers from each of the 10 participating schools will be partly funded to attend regular Research Roundtables (twice per term including an annual conference). The year 1 focus was on curriculum redesigns that are informed by collective readings of culturally responsive pedagogy research literature, and trialling action research approaches. Year 2 Roundtables focused on further refining action research projects that engaged that knowledge.

(A.5) The project convened annual conferences in year 1 and 2 that provided a venue for teachers, students, university researchers and policy makers to share learning about building culturally responsive pedagogy.

(A.6) A Project Reference Group was established to engage local Aboriginal communities and build effective partnerships between local Elders, School Principals, Department of Education, IECBs (Indigenous education consultative body), researchers and pedagogical experts. This group provided advice and strategic direction during the course of the initiative.

Analysis of key texts phase (Year 1 & 2)

(B.1) The CIs developed publishable reviews of the archive of educational research, in settler colonial countries, for a genealogy, rationales, theories, and descriptions of practice, for culturally responsive pedagogy. We identified these themes: different cultural contexts; definitional issues; getting past deficit views; cultural difference as an asset for learning and identity formation; enabling conditions and impediments.

(C.1) The CIs analysed key policy texts that operate in Australia that inform the key decisions that teachers make about their classroom practice. These included: the Melbourne Declaration (MCEETYA, 2008), the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2016), Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2016), and the pedagogy frameworks used in different jurisdictions, including ‘Productive Pedagogy’ (QLD), ‘Quality Teaching, Successful Students’ (NSW), and ‘Teaching for Effective Learning’ (SA). Some of these policy texts also provide exemplars of practice. We were especially interested in analysing the affordances these texts and their exemplars provide for developing culturally responsive pedagogy. Our analyses will inform the action research phase.

Action research phase (Year 1 & 2)

(D.1) In the first half of Year 1, the CIs interviewed the principals of the participating schools to understanding how each school is structured, its school plans for improving learning for Indigenous students, how professional development works, what data is collected to monitor Indigenous student learning, links to the Indigenous community, and how each school understands the challenges of such a project (Burgess, 1998). There were follow-up interviews in Year 2. We also collected school policy documents such as school improvement plans, school timetable/curriculum offerings and whole school agreements on teaching practice.

(D.2) During Year 1 the CIs convened research roundtables for the participating teachers, Aboriginal Community Engagement Officer and Elders. Roundtable meetings will be convened twice a term. Each year involved one complete research cycle: Orientation and designing a research question; designing a significant teaching sequence; teaching the new unit and doing the action research and collecting data/evidence; analysing the data and theorising; representing findings for colleagues and future practice. The first year enabled the participants to develop a shared understanding of ‘culturally responsive pedagogy’, develop a shared vocabulary, begin to redesign their curriculum and pedagogy, and become familiar with the action research protocols.

(D.3) During Year 2 the process was repeated. In the second year though, the participants were very familiar with the project logic and research processes. The curriculum redesigns then built on what was learned in Year 1 and hence became far more innovative.

Discussions at roundtable meetings were recorded. All participants were interviewed at the end of each year for their detailed reflections on the process.

Theory building (Year 1-3)

(E.1) Theory building occured all through the duration of the project, but with more intensity during the last year.

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