Navigating culturally responsive pedagogy through an Indigenous games unit

ABSTRACT

Curricula and pedagogies that fail to utilise the cultural resources of students contribute to educational disadvantage. The health and physical education (HPE) learning area is not exempt from these concerns with calls emerging within Australia to include movement forms and ways of knowing of Indigenous and ethnic-minority students. In many respects, these are calls to counter the normativity of Anglo-Saxon middle-class male framings for HPE. This paper engages with these concerns and seeks to contribute through reporting on a case study from Australian-based research into culturally responsive pedagogies (CRP). Utilising Ricoeur’s theorisation of narrative processes we explore a case study which centres on CRP informed pedagogical and curricular redesign in HPE. We engage with discourses of CRP to explore emergent understandings and raise awareness amongst HPE educators about the possibilities of CRP in foregrounding culturally informed movement forms and ways of knowing. We conclude in arguing all HPE educators face an ethical imperative to take up the challenge of adopting CRP and a broader range of culturally defined movement forms.

KEYWORDS:

• Culturally responsive pedagogies
• health and physical education
• Indigenous games
• Ricoeur
• narratives

Acknowledgements

This research was drawn upon data funded by the Australian Government through the Australian ResearchCouncil’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project ID: IN170100017 Lester-Irabinna Rigney and Robert Hattam ‘Toward an Australianculturally responsive pedagogy’). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the AustralianGovernment or Australian Research Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Writing from the Australian context we use the term Indigenous in discussing issues and experiences as these relate to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) students in their heterogeneity.

2 Middle-years of schooling in Australia incorporates primary and secondary school classes where students are young or early adolescents (Garrett & Wrench, 2011).

3 SAASTA refers to the South Australian Aboriginal Sports Training Academy, a sporting and educational program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander senior secondary students. The premise being that sport builds skills, confidence and connections to culture and schooling (Department for Education, 2018).

4 The Yulunga games resource is a collation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander games from all parts of Australia (Edwards, 2008).

5 Map of Australia that attempts to represent to represent all the language, tribal or nation groups of Indigenous people of Australia.

6 Kaurna people are the original inhabitants of Adelaide and the Adelaide Plains, South Australia. Jake and Jai's school is located on Kaurna lands.

7 Narunnga people's Country or traditional lands are located throughout Yorke Peninsula, South Australia.

8 Soft-Crosse is a modified version of lacrosse.

9 Country encapsulates an interdependent relationship between individuals and their ancestral lands and seas that is sustained by cultural knowledge, histories and language (Harrison & Skrebneva, 2020).

10 Yarning circles are used for dialogue that enables learning, passes on of culture, and builds relationships.