Race, Rules and Relationships: What Can Critical Race Theory Offer Contemporary Aboriginal Boarding Schools?

ABSTRACT

Boarding schools have been increasingly championed in strategies to move closer to educational equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. However, there is a significant lack of research and evidence on the implications of the boarding environment for Aboriginal students, families and communities. This paper presents a study of an Aboriginal residential program in South Australia. Semi-structured and narrative interviews with 55 participants (including residence staff, family, and past students) reveal the centrality of rules and relationships within this setting. Consideration of these themes from a Critical Race Theory perspective provides a sociocultural basis to analyse the implications of race, racism and power. In doing so, the underlying implications of the boarding model that should be acknowledged, explored and applied in this setting are identified. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical race Theory
• Indigenous education
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education
• Aboriginal boarding schools
• education inequality

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award and the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the CRC-REP or Ninti One Limited or its participants. Errors or omissions remain with the authors.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Tessa Benveniste has recently completed a PhD at CQUniversity through The Appleton Institute, investigating the role of boarding school in the education and lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She applies a holistic approach to health and wellbeing and grounds her work in the context and views of participants.

John Guenther is currently the Research Leader–Education and Training for Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, based in Darwin. His work focuses on learning contexts, theory and practice and policies as they connect with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Drew Dawson is Director of The Appleton Institute at CQUniversity. He has worked in a variety of areas over the last three decades. He has a long standing interest in social innovation and has worked with Indigenous communities in the area of community and social enterprise development with a particular interest on liminal economic spaces between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures.

Lorraine King is a Senior Aboriginal Community Researcher, born and raised in Papunya community 240 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs. She identifies as a Pintupi-Luritja Warlpiri woman, and was raised by her grandmother, spending most of her childhood between Papunya and her grandfather's homeland (Central Mount Wedge), on Warlpiri country. She is a qualified interpreter in Pitjantjatjara, Luritja-Pintupi, and Warlpiri languages.

ORCID

Tessa Benveniste http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7189-5118

John Guenther http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0080-1698

Drew Dawson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7385-5630