The Astronomy of the Kamilaroi People and their Neighbours

The Kamilaroi people and their neighbours, the Euahlayi, Ngemba, and Murrawarri, are an Aboriginal cultural grouping located in the northwest and north central of New South Wales. They have a rich history, but have been missed in much of the literature concerned with sky knowledge in culture. This study collected stories, some of which have not previously been reported in an academic format, from Aboriginal people practicing their culture, augmented with stories from the literature, and analysed the data to create a database of sky knowledge that will be added to the larger body of Aboriginal cultural knowledge in Australia. We found that there is a strong sky culture reflected in the stories, and we also explored the stories for evidence of an ethnoscientific approach to knowledge of the sky.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure

Past, Present and Future: Acknowledging Indigenous Achievement and Aspiration in Higher Education

The number of Indigenous students enrolled in higher education is increasing. Yet parity with the proportion of domestic students attending university remains some way off. This review outlines the efforts that have been made to reduce the gap in Indigenous staff and student outcomes.Looking at the Australian higher education sector in 20 years’ time the authors ask what is the future for senior Indigenous appointments and the aspiration of including Indigenous knowledge in the curriculum? The review identifies one pathway to Indigenous workforce outcomes is through postgraduate programs. It describes efforts underway to embed Indigenous perspectives into the broader curriculum. The review concludes with some optimism that Indigenous Australian outcomes are gradually moving from the margins to the centre of universities missions albeit at a pace that will need to improve to achieve parity by 2040

The co-design and implementation of embedded monitoring, evaluation and learning into the standard practice of NGO-delivered services for high-risk young people

Young people who engage in multiple risky behaviours (high-risk young people), such as substance abuse, antisocial behaviour, or suicidal ideation, are more likely to experience serious harms later in life. Despite these harms, there is extraordinarily little intervention research available to guide policy makers’ or service providers’ decision making about investing in effective programs for high-risk young people (HRYP). One potential reason for this is that most interventions available for vulnerable populations globally, are implemented by NGO’s (Non-Government Organisations) that typically lack the capacity and capability to conduct rigorous evaluation in addition to their primary service delivery roles. There is also little to no consideration given to the application of Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) principles in the context of generating evidence with young Indigenous peoples. This thesis presents a range of methods that could be adopted by NGOs to design and deliver evidence-based programs for HRYP, and to explore the capacity to integrate more routine monitoring and evaluation into NGO’s delivery of those programs. This thesis seeks to demonstrate how research can be grounded in principles of IDS and considers methods for how research might best be operationalised in the context of NGO-delivered programs for HRYP. It is hoped that this approach may provide an exemplar for other programs, research projects and organisations that use data from Indigenous controlled organisations and from Indigenous peoples. The implications of the findings from this thesis, and recommendations for future research and practice implementation, are discussed. Dissemination of the methods described in this thesis will not only improve the internal capacity and capability of NGO-delivered programs to conduct evaluations in collaboration with researchers but will also increase the capacity of Indigenous peoples and communities to advocate for greater sovereignty in relation to the data and research methods with which they choose to engage. These improvements will lead to better outcomes for HRYP and their communities

Exploring an Indigenous graduate attribute project through a critical race theory lens

Graduate attributes are a mechanism not only for developing employability skills, but also for fostering graduate abilities to be productive contributors to social change. There is growing recognition that university graduates can and should contribute to enhancing outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians signaling the need for dedicated Indigenous curriculum for all university students. Consider the transformative possibilities of significant numbers of graduates empowered to work effectively in partnership with Indigenous Australians. In 2014 almost 10,000 students graduated from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Reflecting the organisational culture, graduate attributes also illustrate the values of an institution. In 2014, responding to the Behrendt Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People (2012) call for whole of university approaches, UTS approved the development of an Indigenous Graduate Attribute (IGA) Framework for all university courses. Recognising that resources would be required to support the implementation of such an ambitious project, a proposal was made to establish an Indigenous academic expertise centre to support the implementation of IGAs in all courses. In this paper the Aboriginal academic staff leading the IGA project will draw on Critical Race Theory (CRT), including the work of Ladson-Billings, to reflect on our experiences in the first year of the project. We use CRT to highlight the ways in which institutions might work with Indigenous academics to optimise the success of complex projects such as the UTS Indigenous Graduate Attribute project

The Emu Sky Knowledge of the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi Peoples

This paper presents a detailed study of the knowledge of the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi peoples about the Emu in the Sky. This study was done with ethnographic data that was not previously reported in detail. We surveyed the literature to find that there are widespread reports of an Emu in the Sky across Australian Aboriginal language groups, but little detailed knowledge available in the literature. This paper reports and describes a comprehensive Kamilaroi and Euahlayi knowledge of the Emu in the Sky and its cultural context.Comment: 13 Page

Building and strengthening Indigenous early career researcher trajectories

Due to their Indigeneity, Indigenous early career researchers are positioned differently and therefore experience the higher education sector differently to their non-Indigenous peers. Such positioning significantly impacts the development and progression of Indigenous academic research career trajectories. This article reports from the first stage of a three-year longitudinal study to examine the self-identified support needs of Indigenous early career researchers. The findings offer six factors that are crucial in supporting Indigenous early career researchers to develop and establish sound research careers within the academy. This article engages Indigenous standpoints related to the cultural interface and Indigenist research, with a view to shaping institutional responses to supporting Indigenous research career trajectories and further to recognise Indigenous Knowledges as integral to building global academies of teaching, learning and research

Star Maps and Travelling to Ceremonies -- the Euahlayi People and Their Use of the Night Sky

The Euahlayi people are an Australian Aboriginal language group located in north-central New South Wales and south-central Queensland. They have a rich culture of astronomy, and use of the night sky in resource management. Like several other Aboriginal peoples, they did not travel extensively at night, and so were assumed not to use the night sky for navigation. This study has confirmed that they, like most other Aboriginal groups, travelled extensively outside their own country for purposes of trade and ceremonies. We also found that, previously unknown, they used star maps in the night sky for learning and remembering waypoints along their routes of travel, but not for actual navigation. Further research may find that this was common to many Aboriginal groups in Australia.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure

Indigenous higher education sector: The evolution of recognised Indigenous Leaders within Australian Universities

There is clear evidence that Indigenous education has changed considerably over time. Indigenous Australians' early experiences of 'colonialised education' included missionary schools, segregated and mixed public schooling, total exclusion and 'modified curriculum' specifically for Indigenous students which focused on teaching manual labour skills (as opposed to literacy and numeracy skills). The historical inequalities left a legacy of educational disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Following activist movements in the 1960s, the Commonwealth Government initiated a number of reviews and forged new policy directions with the aim of achieving parity of participation and outcomes in higher education between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Further reviews in the 1980s through to the new millennium produced recommendations specifically calling for Indigenous Australians to be given equality of access to higher education; for Indigenous Australians to be employed in higher education settings; and to be included in decisions regarding higher education. This paper aims to examine the evolution of Indigenous leaders in higher education from the period when we entered the space through to now. In doing so, it will examine the key documents to explore how the landscape has changed over time, eventually leading to a number of formal reviews, culminating in the Universities Australia 2017-2020 Indigenous Strategy (Universities Australia, 2017)