Enhancing Indigenous content in arts curricula through service learning with Indigenous communities

Executive summary At the heart of this project has been the desire to enhance the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural content is embedded in higher education arts curricula. It comes at a time when higher education institutions are facing growing pressure to make curriculum content more representative of and responsive to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. In response, many Australian universities have established formal initiatives to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and intercultural competency across the curriculum. This has taken the form of policies and reconciliation action plans, community engagement initiatives, networks and councils of Elders. Despite the proliferation of such initiatives, the incorporation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives into higher education curricula and cultures remains a challenging political, social and practical task. This project has sought to address this challenging task by positioning arts based service learning (ABSL) as a strategy through which Australian higher education institutions can promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural content for students in ways that also directly support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

The Beacon, July 9, 2014

Vol. 26, Issue 3, July 9, 2014, 8 pageshttps://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/student_newspaper/1009/thumbnail.jp

A mixed methods study on factors that influence recent high school dropouts to persist in adult secondary educational programs to pusue the general educational development certificate, 2012

Every day thousands of students make the decision to abandon the nations high schools for various reasons. Instead of staying in school and graduating with their high school diploma, these students opt for a life that is often inundated with personal, social, educational, and employment barriers, such as unemployment, incarceration, poverty, and a reliance on public assistance. After being out of school and experiencing these unwelcoming circumstances, many high school dropouts decide to give education a second chance. So, within years of leaving school, many high school dropouts enroll in adult education programs to pursue the General Educational Development certificate. Although thousands of students return to extend their education, the data show that some students persist, others continue through a cycle of stopping out, and many give up once again. Because of this occurrence and the reality that existing research examining this phenomenon is scarce, this study sought to disclose the specific variables that increased a students likelihood of persisting after returning to Adult Secondary Education programs to pursue the GED certificate. To adequately understand this phenomenon, a mixed-methods approach was utilized to determine which student-input, environmental, and institutional variables showed a relationship with persistence. To analyze the findings, the researcher referred to descriptive statistics, a frequency count, t-tests, qualitative coding, a Pearson r correlation, and analysis of observation data. The findings demonstrated that there was a high-positive relationship between persistence and self-efficacy, teacher-student relationships, the impact of family, teaching methods and pedagogy, and sense of belonging. Moreover, the qualitative data demonstrated that the convenience and flexibility of classes was also significant. Findings from the qualitative data also yielded additional variables that impacted persistence that were not in the researchers initial hypotheses. Implications, recommendations, and limitations were discussed in detail

Origins of Persisting Poor Aboriginal Health: An Historical Exploration of Poor Aboriginal Health and the Continuity of the Colonial Relationship as an Explanation of the Persistence of Poor Aboriginal Health.

The thesis examines the history of Central Australia and specifically the development of health services in the Northern Territory. The continuing colonial realtionships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia are explored as a reason for the peristence of poor Aboriginal health status, including the cycle of vself destructive behaviours. It rovides an explanation of the importance of community agency to address community problems, and the potential of community controlled ABoriginal health services as vehicles for such community action

Origins of Persisting Poor Aboriginal Health: An Historical Exploration of Poor Aboriginal Health and the Continuity of the Colonial Relationship as an Explanation of the Persistence of Poor Aboriginal Health.

The thesis examines the history of Central Australia and specifically the development of health services in the Northern Territory. The continuing colonial realtionships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia are explored as a reason for the peristence of poor Aboriginal health status, including the cycle of vself destructive behaviours. It rovides an explanation of the importance of community agency to address community problems, and the potential of community controlled ABoriginal health services as vehicles for such community action

Reaching the intersection of Indigenous and modern: A critical analysis of disaster risk management modernization in Ivatan Indigenous communities

Known for their Indigenous knowledge, systems, and practices (IKSPs) in managing disaster risks, the Ivatans of Batanes Province in the Philippines are faced with the pressures of modernizing such generations-old traditions. While noble in intent, the technologically-driven narrative of managing disaster risks idealized by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) brings to question the change it influences on Ivatan Indigenous communities. The intersection between Ivatan IKSPs and the NDRRMC’s initiatives reflected epistemological contrasts of positivist vis-à-vis constructivist approaches that warranted a critical view. Drawing new understanding and knowledge using the critical paradigm required an Action Research-driven methodology. Specific data gathering and collaboration methods included desk research; validation of an Ivatan DRRM IKSP inventory; FGDs and workshops that delved into understanding community and Local DRRM Council perceptions and critiques; and a workshop to craft recommendations for integrating Indigenous and scientific resiliency systems. Research findings pointed out hegemonic, top- down-centric policies that insisted outsider-oriented, technical solutions that were ineffective to the local context and were potentially damaging to traditional cultural systems and practices of resiliency. However, Ivatans were also faced with endogenous agencies such as the strong thrust for modernity through technology that may potentially wane traditional resiliency practices. Outcomes from community workshops also revealed a paradigm shift in society to integrate the scientific and traditional as a continuous evolution of IKSPs and resiliency in light of the increasing threat of climate change disruptions.

Emerging identities in virtual exchange

This book explores how identities emerge and are negotiated by young people in online facilitated dialogue, a form of virtual exchange. It offers a framework for this type of exploration based on the assumption that both the situated context and the technologies mediating online interactions influence, but do not necessarily determine, the interactions taking place and the participants\u2019 identity orientations. Identity is viewed not as fixed and static, but rather multiple and fluid as interactants position themselves in relation to one another. This framework is then applied to the analysis of one specific virtual exchange context, and the interactions over several weeks of a group of participants from a wide range of backgrounds

Protective-restoring to maintain self integrity : a grounded theory of the human experience of dog relinquishment

Dog relinquishment or ‘getting rid of the dog’ is common practice in Australia and other countries where dogs are kept as pets. Each year thousands of dogs are relinquished for a variety of reasons. While losing a pet through death can be as devastating for some people as the death of a loved human, little is known about the human impact of losing a dog through relinquishment. This qualitative study sought to explore the experience of dog relinquishment from the perspectives of a Western Australian sample of 21 relinquishers, 10 adults who had experienced dog relinquishment in childhood and 15 animal welfare workers. Data, collected via semistructured interviews, were transcribed verbatim and analysed in accord with Straussian grounded theory methodology, an inductive, interpretative methodology, utilising the constant comparative method. The substantive grounded theory of ‘protective-restoring to maintain self integrity in the face of a self disturbing experience’ that was generated from an interpretative analysis of the data, describes the human experience of dog relinquishment as one of psychological, social and moral conflicts that challenged participants self and social image. The theory proposes that those who experience dog relinquishment personally or professionally experience a disturbed self integrity (i.e., a sense of cognitive and emotional unease). Five conditions, identified as threats to self integrity, were found to contribute to participants’ sense of unease, namely the culture of relinquishment, a crisis of conscience, a fear of losing face, losing faith and losing the dog. Variation in participants’ experience was accounted for by individual and social conditions that influenced the type, intensity, frequency and duration of their unease. Participants’ experience of dog relinquishment was characterised by one or more of three types of unease, namely, cognitive dissonance, psychological stress and grief, which were dealt with through a process identified as protective-restoring. The continuous four phase process of protective-restoring involved recognition, identification, assessment and counteraction of threats to self integrity. Its aim was to protect participants from further threats and to restore their self integrity. Six types of strategies were identified that participants employed during the counteracting phase of the protective-restoring process, namely, self enhancing, blaming, impact reducing, emotional management, avoiding and blocking. Strategies employed were not always successful and in some circumstances increased rather than reduced the unease of participants. Further the strategies sometimes contributed to the unease of others. These findings indicate that the human experience of dog relinquishment is multidimensional and complex. Further, given its potential to detrimentally impact the mental health and wellbeing of large numbers of adults and children, dog relinquishment is an experience that should not be trivialised or ignored. As well as contributing to the human-animal interaction body of knowledge, the substantive theory that has emerged from this research could be used to inform the development of a screening tool to identify those who are likely to be negatively impacted by dog relinquishment. Further, the theory could also be used to inform the development of interventions that could be used to assist adults and children to deal with the negative impact of dog relinquishment