Abstract
Schools are understood as an important site for the circulation of discourses pertaining to colonisation and reconciliation. Wider community educational practices have also engaged with these concerns, including initiatives such as the Reconciliation Study Circle Kits that were developed by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in Australia in the 1990s. This paper considers the role of school and community education in developing non-Indigenous Australians’ understanding of, and engagement with, Australia’s post-invasion history and reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Drawing on original focus group and interview research the paper highlights some of the key areas where education appears to have transformed non-Indigenous perspectives in recent decades, while also highlighting areas for further policy and curriculum development.
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Notes
- 1.
The argument developed in this chapter is based on an analysis of the focus group research outlined in the appendix to this volume.
- 2.
This inquiry produced the seminal report Bringing them home: Report of the national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. The inquiry had been instigated by the Keating Government in 1995 in response to Indigenous demands for greater recognition of the impact of child removal policies.
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Maddison, S., Stastny, A. (2016). Silence or Deafness? Education and the Non-Indigenous Responsibility to Engage. In: Maddison, S., Clark, T., de Costa, R. (eds) The Limits of Settler Colonial Reconciliation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2654-6_14
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