Inclusion/exclusion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students: Understanding how ‘We’ matters

View/ Open
Author(s)
Demosthenous, Catherine
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2012
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The inclusion of Indigenous people in universities is an important policy issue, as evidenced by the Review of Higher Education and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which is currently underway. While the Review aims to collectively address access and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in universities to ensure parity in the sector, a key contributor to those outcomes is that of participation. This article examines a focus group interaction in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are yarning about their experiences of participating in university life, using ...
View more >The inclusion of Indigenous people in universities is an important policy issue, as evidenced by the Review of Higher Education and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which is currently underway. While the Review aims to collectively address access and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in universities to ensure parity in the sector, a key contributor to those outcomes is that of participation. This article examines a focus group interaction in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are yarning about their experiences of participating in university life, using Ethnomethodology (EM) and its analytic methods. Premised on the understanding that language is action, the study examines the students' use of personal pronouns and particularly the first person pronoun 'we', using the inclusive/exclusive distinction. Applying this pronominal system here provides insights into the notion of inclusion/exclusion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australian higher education, and for understanding how 'we' matter(s) in everyday university life.
View less >
View more >The inclusion of Indigenous people in universities is an important policy issue, as evidenced by the Review of Higher Education and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which is currently underway. While the Review aims to collectively address access and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in universities to ensure parity in the sector, a key contributor to those outcomes is that of participation. This article examines a focus group interaction in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are yarning about their experiences of participating in university life, using Ethnomethodology (EM) and its analytic methods. Premised on the understanding that language is action, the study examines the students' use of personal pronouns and particularly the first person pronoun 'we', using the inclusive/exclusive distinction. Applying this pronominal system here provides insights into the notion of inclusion/exclusion for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australian higher education, and for understanding how 'we' matter(s) in everyday university life.
View less >
Journal Title
Journal of Social Inclusion
Volume
3
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2012. The attached file is posted here with permission of the copyright owner for your personal use only. No further distribution permitted. For information about this journal please refer to the journal’s website. The online version of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License, available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/au/
Subject
Linguistics not elsewhere classified
Social Work
Sociology