Restorative Pedagogical Justice: Indigenous Australian knowledge and preservice teachers

Abstract

This paper argues from the standpoint that Indigenous Australian knowledge and the cultural interface (Nakata, 2007) is central to embedding Indigenous perspectives in Australian curricula. In this interface, Indigenous knowledge is in constant tension and negotiation with Western knowledge systems, competing for validity, authenticity, and the right to be located in educational systems and teaching and learning theory. Accordingly, a critical interrogation of how Australia’s colonial system of schooling knowledge is reproduced and deployed is significant to understanding how Australian educational institutions transform into spaces where Indigenous Knowledge (IK) informs and contributes to the formation of the pedagogical cultural identity and teaching methods of the school systems Indigenous and non-Indigenous pre-service teachers are employed within. This paper presents the background to and some initial findings of a project funded by an Australian Teaching and Learning Council (ALTC) Grant for supporting future curriculum leaders in embedding Indigenous knowledge in teaching practicum. The project investigates how role modelling occurs in the learning and teaching relationships between pre-service teachers and their supervising teachers on practicum. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, it interrogates how critical teaching and learning moments occur within the cultural interface through embedding Indigenous knowledge and perspective. From these engagements, the project endeavours to develop new knowledge and identify possibilities and understandings in how teaching and curriculum become praxis.