Special issue editorial: systematic reviews in Indigenous education

Between 2017 and 2020 the Aboriginal Voices project brought together 14 researchers from 11 Australian universities to conduct the first systematic review (Cochrane 2011; Lowe et al., 2019) if empirical research on Indigenous education. Collectively, we have now reviewed more than 13,000 publications across 10 areas critical to understanding the nature of schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in Australia.

The Aboriginal Voices project sought to innovate methodologically, finding some avenues opened up by the systematic review tools and others to be less fruitful. We sought evidence that Indigenous education strategies worked as claimed, and evidence that met quality benchmarks. We sought to use the systematic review method to consolidate the research on Indigenous schooling and achievement, not only the critiques and theoretical work, but the empirical data that could be relied upon to support important conversations about learning. We sought to recognise the burden of extractive data collection on communities who are not only already over-researched, but on communities who have already participated in research on these very topics over many years. We sought to hear the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, parents, families and communities, that have been archived in the research, to make sure that those voices are still heard – strong and clear – across decades.

Not only is the Aboriginal Voices project one of few studies to apply the systematic review method (Cochrane, 2011) in the field of education internationally, we believe it is the only study to apply the systematic review method to conduct a review of empirical research in the field in Australia. Reviews like the 10 our team have conducted serve a range of purposes; they enable a periodic stocktake of evidence, help hold policymakers to a standard of proof, and enable a reconsideration of evidence quality in this important field.

The purpose of this special issue is to bring together the final reviews from the Aboriginal Voices project and to consolidate insights on the issues affecting underachievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australia. We present here the final four papers on leadership, literacy, numeracy and cultural programmes for Indigenous students, and the final synthesis of all reviews conducted across the 3 years of the project.

The first paper by Moodie, Vass, and Lowe (2021) synthesises all 10 systematic reviews in order to critically reflect on knowledge-making practices and the value that Indigenous knowledges hold in schools and schooling systems. The papers developed across the project show how integral partnerships between schools and families are to equitable schooling for Indigenous students, and identifies the structural challenges that prevent schools, teachers and policymakers from hearing the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The second paper on leadership by Trimmer, Dixon, and Guenther (2021) describes how complex the job of a school principal is, in terms of curriculum leadership, professional learning and cultural capability development, compounded by the responsibility they bear for tailoring educational opportunities to Indigenous community needs and aspirations. This paper categorises findings under six themes that cover community relationships, the principal’s role, leadership styles, curriculum and pedagogy, participation and assessment, and, accountability. Trimmer et al. (2021) find that the evidence confirms how long-term educational improvement for Indigenous students must be based on co-leadership frameworks that are developed as whole school projects.

The third paper on literacy by Gutierrez, Lowe, and Guenther (2021) notes that successive Australian Governments are no closer to their stated goal of “halving the gap” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous student performance on national standardised tests (Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet, 2020). However, despite significant government investment in a number of high-profile programmes to improve Indigenous literacy, there remains little rigorous evaluation of those programmes and many limitations in the types of literacies that those programmes claim to affect. In short, whilst many literacy programmes may do quite a good job of teaching Indigenous students about the English language, they do not do well at developing the kinds of literacies students need to get on in life and they do not do well at recognising the legitimacy and importance of the linguistic capabilities that students already possess when they arrive at school.

The fourth paper on numeracy by Miller and Armour (2021) explores how the research Indigenous numeracy tends not to be conducted with Indigenous students as a discrete sample, or assessing the numeracy skills Indigenous students possess or develop. Instead, the research here tends to be based on assessing teachers’ change in knowledge of mathematical concepts. Improvements in teachers’ cognitive engagement with mathematics does support all students’ engagement with the subject, but increasing teachers’ expectations of Indigenous students in particular seems beneficial. Importantly, however, employing Indigenous Teacher Assistants in classrooms, to act as a conduit for language support and to deepen students’ mathematical learning, does have a significant but still possibly under-reported positive impact on Indigenous student performance in this essential area.

The final paper by Lowe, Tennent, and Burgess (2021) explores the impact of traditional language and culture programmes on Indigenous students’ wellbeing and academic outcomes. Whilst a causal relationship is difficult to identify, across the studies included in this review, families and students consistently spoke of their aspirations to revive and maintain their languages and cultural practices. The role of schools in understanding and supporting this work was critical, and thus the absence of policy leadership from government can have ongoing ramifications. However, teachers and schools have highly developed skillsets that are uniquely placed to support the language and culture programmes that do improve the wellbeing of Indigenous students. Although schools are rarely enabled to do this work, small groups of Elders and communities, their organisations, teachers, linguists and volunteers, continue to provide opportunities for Indigenous students to learn the knowledge of their ancestors and build pride in their history and achievements.

Schooling in Australia still reproduces power relations that work to legitimate the settler colonial order (Bishop, Vass, & Thompson, 2019; Seawright, 2014). Core to that function is naturalising the assimilationist intent of a curriculum that erases Indigenous knowledges, and leadership that serves to ensure that Indigenous parents and families feel neither safe nor welcome at school (Lea, Thompson, McRae‐Williams, & Wegner, 2011). The Aboriginal Voices project has found some strong evidence of practices that support the wellbeing and achievement of Indigenous students. As a matter of urgency for the research community, however, the Aboriginal Voices project has found significant distance between the aspirations and priorities held by Indigenous students’ and their families, and the quality of evidence those priorities deserve. There is a gap between teacher practice in the classroom, teacher perception of that practice, and its impact on Indigenous students (Burgess et al., 2019). There is a gap between what Indigenous students and families know keeps them safe at school (anti-racism plans) and what happens at school (denial of their identity, harassment, assault and abuse) (Moodie, Maxwell, & Rudolph, 2019). There is a gap between what we do measure (teachers’ mathematics knowledge) and what we need to measure (students’ mathematics knowledge) (Miller & Armour, 2021). But we believe that the largest gap is the one between research that is directed by researchers, and research that is directed by communities who need it.

If schooling is to offer a compelling value proposition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and families, we suggest that researchers, education workers and policymakers at all levels must do better to hear the voices of those communities. In this issue, across all papers that form the output of the Aboriginal Voices project, and the final research presented here, we offer more than just the novel application of a process. We broach the difficult issue of what constitutes evidence, and ask what answers we can provide on the basis of that evidence, if we ultimately recognise that we are more accountable to Indigenous students, families and communities than we are to any other stakeholder in the complex policy environment that is Indigenous education in Australia.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the reviewers and editors who have engaged with the work of the Aboriginal Voices project across four years and multiple publications. We are very grateful for the commitment of the entire team of researchers and librarians who have worked together for so long to bring this project to print.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nikki Moodie

Nikki Moodie is a Gomeroi woman from northern New South Wales, whose research focuses on social policy, trust and identity.

Greg Vass

Greg Vass is a non-Indigenous scholar focused on the cultural politics of knowledge production and schooling, particularly teaching and learning practices that raise socio-political consciousness.

Kevin Lowe

Kevin Lowe is a Gubbi Gubbi man from southeast Queensland, working a community and school-focused research to develop a model of sustainable improvement in Aboriginal education.