Pathways to progress? – collective conscientisation and progressive school reform in Aboriginal education

ABSTRACT

Setting in train various forms of curriculum and pedagogic change in schools whilst seeking to improve both teaching strategies and Aboriginal educational outcomes in Australia is a complex business. This involves a sustained effort to equip the next generation of educators with the skills and knowledges to identify, diagnose, and devise remedies for the ‘problems’ that are sometimes ascribed to Aboriginal learners. The work of Paolo Freire is a point of reference here. However, the halo around Freire and his work may occlude thinking about how to evoke his concepts, (specifically conscientisation) in the contemporary Australian context. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Freire’s work in this light. We also discuss the Culturally Nourishing Schooling (CNS) project, a whole school reform model where teachers are encouraged to shift their reflective gaze onto themselves and on the settings in which they work. We argue that for ‘success’ in education to no longer be defined by deficit thinking, firstly, conscientisation must be a collective process. To change teachers and their practice and schooling requires a different conception of both change and of conscientisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Aboriginal education
• culturally responsive pedagogy
• critical consciousness
• conscientisation
• freirean studies, Indigenous

Introduction

The education policy environment, practices in schooling, and the efforts of researchers that focus on what is known as Aboriginal¹ or Indigenous education is once again in a moment of flux within the Australian context. One of the more important and impactful ‘new’ directions has been the move away from whitefellas telling bla(c)k people what is good for them (Watego, 2021) and listening more responsively to Aboriginal people themselves. For non-Indigenous people this means building good relationships and forging alliances. More to the point, as explained by Osborne (2023), listening is better understood as a process of ‘repositioning and remaking’ the listener as a key methodological foundation for developing culturally responsive practices. This paper is offered in that vein.

There is no shortage of academic literature addressing the field of Aboriginal education. This literature has been growing for decades. Even if one only counts those with a focus on the Australian context, it already runs to thousands of publications (Guenther et al., 2019; Moodie et al., 2021). Within this, a great deal of work focuses on the requirement to orientate teachers towards more culturally responsive ways of relating to Aboriginal students (Harrison & Sellwood, 2021; Perso & Hayward, 2020). Further work relates to the need to foster critical thinking and skills among educators that would enable cutting edge curricular and pedagogical practices concerning the teaching of Aboriginal knowledges, histories and perspectives (Battiste, 2000; Calderon, 2014; Tuck & Gaztambide Fernández, 2013).

It is not the aim of this paper to delineate all the subfields relating to scholarship about Aboriginal education. That would not be feasible, and much of this has been well-mapped recently (Lowe et al., 2019). Nor do we address in their specificity the emerging discourses relating to community and learning on from and with Country. Nor do we address specifically place-based pedagogies, initial teacher education, and culturally sustaining/responsive/relevant teaching. We do, however, note that these are important current debates, and we are ongoingly involved with thinking about them.

This is more of a scoping paper. This paper discusses the creative and critical use of Freirean ideas of conscientisation as well as the distinctively collective ways of being and doing and knowing that are implied in Aboriginal ideas about the importance of Country. Both of these strands are interwoven at various points in the discussion.

Firstly, we are revisiting and expanding upon the work of Paolo Freire. We are interested in the concept of critical consciousness, which is sometimes also referred to in terms of conscientisation, and in his words, conscientización. This is a concept that continues to be central to progressive education reform debates relating to issues of equality and empowerment. Our take on the critical consciousness is viewed in relations to a project that the authors are involved in. The proposed use of the term is slightly different from, but overlapping with, the classic usage. As outlined below, our view of critical consciousness in education entails engaging in knowing, doing and being practices in a manner which reframes the familiar individual-institution dichotomy. We are arguing that we need to think of critical consciousness as not being either a purely collective or individual project, if those two conceptions are held in opposition to each other. Building on this, we discuss how a whole-of-school reform project points the way forward for reworking and developing the notion of collective critical consciousness. In essence, we argue that while there may be many instances of individual or small groups of teachers making important and valuable improvements within and across schools. What is often less apparent are examples where the changes in a critical mass of educators leads to significant and sustainable change at a whole of school level.

This approach draws on reworked understandings of conscientisation. We also see a place for looking back, to better understand the present, with the aspiration of contributing to discussions about imagined futures. In this usage, conscientisation views people as active subjects making and remaking the world; it asks people to fashion their existence out of both their ideas and material life. The more they are conscientised, the more they are able to influence others and be agents of change. As such, we concur with those who suggest that the education system of settler colonialism has not only effectively excluded or failed many students, but, epistemologically, has a limited notion of holistic views of the world. Thus, we are interested in the call for ‘epistemic disobedience’ as a way of interrupting the status quo (Mignolo, 2009). We make the case for fostering collective consciousness in relation to a connection to Country. As we proceed to sketch this out, it is important to note that this means more than just making individual students or educators aware of deeper connections. Rather, it is a call for setting the school, and the mode of instruction as a whole, on a footing where such terms would make sense organically. Individual change can then be facilitated by the learning context for all. We are not saying this is a panacea or an easy fix. Collective conscientisation is not a short linear journey, far less a simple theology; it is an open-ended project. A long process of becoming.

A statement on our positionality

The authors behind this paper, are a mix of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, all of whom have had some long-term engagement practically, academically and politically with education. We offer the following in the light of the sentence above. We sketch in our stories, connections to places, and links with the ideas explored in this paper.

Gubbi Gubbi scholar Kevin has a long history of involvement with schooling in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, stretching back to the 1970s as a teacher, later becoming a school inspector, working on curriculum reforms for the department, and eventually transitioning into an education researcher. Across this span, he has worked toward better understanding and addressing the schooling experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Greg was born in Canberra but spent his formative years in Meanjin (Brisbane, Australia), where he became a high school history teacher prior to moving into educational research, with his early work exploring the ways that race and the whiteness he shared with other educators, is reproduced in and through schooling. Julian has lived in Australia for more than 20 years, having originally been raised and educated in the UK, which laid the foundations for his research interests that have focused on gender, youth and cultural studies in the context of schooling. He has also taught on university courses that have contained some Aboriginal content for over two decades. Rose is an Afro-Caribbean woman (she/her) who lives and works on unceded Bedegal and Gadigal Countries. She has over 23 years of experience working with low socio-economic students, Aboriginal communities and schools in Australia and internationally. Rose moved to regional Australia with her family and has become an education researcher that addresses the intersections of school-community relationships.

In what way might Freire still be relevant for debates around improving Aboriginal education?

Paolo Freire’s legacy has made him a significant educational leader/theorist for many. It is not our intention to argue otherwise. Nor are we interested in constructing a straw person (such as writing him off for being a ‘dead white male’). In general terms, we are keen to write and theorise in line with his basic precepts, and we do think that his writing on education and progressive pedagogy can speak to aspects of intercultural relations and racialized oppression today. In that sense we concur with Steinberg (2023) that we all owe him a debt of gratitude. We stand by the idea that many of Freire’s insights about education are still useful. We also note the significant amount of work that continues to debate with him which is itself testimony to his continuing influence. Moving forward, we want to use elements of his work and see how we can construe/deploy his key issues and terms. The question of what is left after a critical reading we leave somewhat open.

We do note that many of Freire’s most vocal supporters, at least in the global North, are/were American Marxist (and post-Marxist) radicals (Darder et al., 2003; McLaren, 2003). We also recall that many of them were originally theorising in the era when a certain kind of Marxist reproduction theory was the dominant paradigm in the sociology of education (Apple, 1978; Young, 1975). Writers in this paradigm used Freire’s work to argue that the education system was inherently oppressive and that only facilitating the oppressed masses to become conscious of their subjection could bring about radical change.

In some Western traditions, Freire’s work has been a sort of touchstone of progressivism. The above named authors employed Freirean ideas to criticise the social control aspects of mainstream American education (Apple, 1978; Giroux, 2001). They also argued that his ideas could be pressed into service to foster resistance to this reproduction of social inequality (Freire, 1985; Giroux, 2001, 2006; McLaren, 2003). Like Freire they criticised the ‘banking model’ of education whereby conventional (and/or oppressive) forms of learning and curriculum content was ‘poured’ into the heads of schoolkids so as to domesticate them. For McLaren (2003) and others, this overlaps with discussions about the work of ideology in securing capitalist relations (Torres, 2019). As implied, we think that Freire’s work was original and had sufficient depth and energy to inspire many theorists and their frameworks.

We also recall, incidentally, that Freire was writing initially in South America. This was the continent that spawned ‘Liberation Theology’ (Gutierrez, 1988), where his basic humanist approach could seamlessly and plausibly link Christianity with a sometimes messianic Marxist worldview (Freire, 1998). There are other theoretical legacies that could be relevant here. For example, there is a conversation between Freirean models and contemporary work in the area of Indigenous education. Some New Zealand/Aotearoa scholars have built on Freirean ideas to discuss the uses of conscientisation and reform in relation to Māori education (Pihama et al., 2015; Smith, 2003; Smith, 2017). There has also been useful work done using Freirean categories in the global south. An example of this is the work on literacy done by Lynne Mario de Souza (2003) in Brazil. Each of these writers or approaches takes something from a Freirean framework and shows how it can be adapted and applied.

In relation to leading change, there was a special role in Freirean debates for the intellectuals whose job it was to steer the masses towards liberation. At its core, Freire’s work is built around a view of how the politics of education can evolve (Freire, 1973, 1985, 1994). He was unapologetic about this. As has been previously observed, this framework proceeds from the understanding that education is either actively maintaining or actively changing the status quo (Carnoy & Tarlau, 2019, p. 256, original emphasis). The status quo needs improving, especially for those who have been shut out or marginalised.

We cannot discuss positive change without thinking what holds things back. The role of ideology is an important part of any Marxian framework because the capturing of hearts and minds needs to be explained. To put it another way, if unfair relations were transparent, then one might expect them to have been swept aside more easily. In a Gramscian sense, this was a necessary part of the explanation of the persistence of manifest inequality (Gramsci, 1971). People cannot easily see the full picture and how it relates to their subjection. Freire fights well on this terrain of ideology and won consent/persuasion. Critical consciousness, for him, is a vital part of forcing a change in unequal relations and getting people to see the need for more rational ones. Becoming critically aware was a necessary precondition of acting against the current order. This is arguably the basis of Freire’s conceptualisation of praxis, which according to Mayo (2019), entailed critical reflection as the foundation of collective action – the pursuit of liberation was, and always is, a collective act. Individualised notions of liberation could not have the same depth and resonance.

The humanist dimension of Freire’s thought is also relevant here, with much of the rhetoric being couched in terms of the ‘humanisation’ of man (sic). This draws on the notion of an unalienated human freedom where Freire cites, approvingly, the work of Fromm (Freire, 1970b). We agree that it is useful to facilitate the critical awareness of negative conditions and oppressive structures (in Aboriginal education this might relate to exposing systemic racism, or entrenched deficit thinking). We do think popular empowerment (or a similar term) is relevant. This is also where the notion of emancipation comes back into view. It is a concept typically referring to the liberation and reclamation of power by people who have been disempowered. This gives it its human-centric register.

This is both a canonical view and a point of departure for us. Where we take a different tack in arguing that it is the collective dimension of critical consciousness (or conscientisation) that needs emphasising. Both individuals and groups can work hand in hand, but the liberation of the individual without the advancement of community, in the context of Aboriginal education would only be a partial success. More to the point, advancement is not to be understood in human-only ways, but rather as intertwined with Country. Hence, the notion of collective conscientisation advocated here gestures to a larger epistemological shift that collapses the false separation of people/communities from Country.

There is more to be said about the tension between individual and collective ways of being. The theoretical conception of the individual (as in the old formulation of ‘man versus society’) needs revising for our context. As some of his critics (Breuing, 2011) have pointed out Freire’s main work was written at a time before poststructuralism had become prominent in social theory. To add to this, a further point of critique would concern the extent to which Freirean discourse rests upon the Enlightenment idea of the unified (and ‘civilized’) subject. There are ongoing concerns connected with this line of thinking that are noteworthy in their own right. For instance, what happened in past decades did not just register with one or two isolated individuals. The lived experiences of many Aboriginal people are a collective matter. The intergenerational violence of schooling practices was part of the institutional arrangements that removed people from ancestral lands, suppressed their use of language, and imposed European religious practices in the belief that this was a humanizing undertaking. With a view to these sorts of legacies, Rigney (2020) recently outlined renewed calls for schooling to more meaningfully engage with Aboriginal students arriving in the classroom as already competent knowledge producers. Yet, this is not well understood; hence, schooling remains overly reliant on ‘banking’ approaches to teaching and learning that are designed to mitigate the ‘deficiencies’ the students are perceived as arriving with. Rigney (2020) for example, advocates for a move to a model of the co-construction of education practices and knowledge production. This would require a recognition of the importance of the injustices that extend beyond the school gate.

There are more ecological dimensions to thinking about Country that should be brought into the picture (and which we will revisit later). For example, there is little in the original work of Freire that resonates with a cosmological view of man and the environment. Today there is a growing recognition of the need to value and respect the more-than-human world, and there are calls for a greater emphasis to be placed on eco-species justice (Cudworth & Hobden, 2018). More to the point, as Cudworth and Hobden (2018) outline, there has been little meaningful change or improvement with regard to the structural arrangements and practices that maintain power hierarchies in relation to post-civil rights era advancements concerning gender or race inequities. There have long been links with Freire’s ideas regarding the tension between idealism and materialism, with the distinction between theory (thinking) and theory-informed practice (transformative action), and efforts to pursue meaningful cultural freedom as reliant on actions that change material relations (Mayo, 1999, 2004).

The aspirations of The Pedagogy of the Oppressed could not be formed by ‘thought and study’ alone, but rather through an active and political engagement with ‘concrete situations’ (Freire, 1970b). This too is a strength, but only if it is taken seriously. It is a concern with ongoing relevance, as academic interventions into Aboriginal education – or Aboriginal studies more broadly – might be said to be often more beneficial to academics than those they are theorising about. The academics get publications and kudos, but what do the subjects of research get? Some similar points were made by Smith (2003) decades ago with regards to Indigenous-focused research that constitutes a colonial raid in itself.

The long history of ‘failed’ reforms in Aboriginal education has often foundered on concerns to do with scope, scale and sustainability. We might ask where Government (and university research) rhetoric has led if praxis on the ground does not follow? For Aboriginal educators and their allies, is it useful to think of the main project being the ‘liberation of the masses’? Other than a general sense of dispossession, how useful are appeals for social justice and equity when couched in such abstract emancipatory terms? Obviously, this is an open question, but the homologies of oppression are still there to be thought through and debated.

Freire and the debates within ecology and Indigenous ways of being

An entry point to these debates this might be seen in relation to the frequently used expression ‘always was, always will be Aboriginal land’. When understood through a Eurocentric lens, this might be thought of as being about private and exclusive ownership, where liberation is associated with economic and legal boundaries of control and benefit. When understood from an Aboriginal worldview, it might relate to the idea of Country. That is Country that we have a shared relationship with, are reliant upon, and care for, with liberation then associated more with responsibility and obligation.

A somewhat less prominent, though potentially important critique of Freirean notions of educational reform is provided by Bowers and Apffel-Martin (2005 [2015]). Bowers (2007) had tried to refine the uptake of Freire’s work along two linked lines of critique. Firstly, there is a tension in theories that rely on Marxian notions of liberation if they do not simultaneously address issues of ecology and, within that discourse, some understanding of the decisive limits to growth (see also comments above about Country). When Marx was writing in the 19th century, it was plausible to argue that the solution to capitalist oppression and manufactured/managed scarcity was to produce more, and to share out the spoils more rationally and humanely. However, ecological thinking is a direct challenge to this as it points out that economic growth, whether capitalist or otherwise, has nowadays to be seen as part of the problem, not the solution. No worthwhile liberation can be predicated on the defence of the technologies of extractive capitalism. The resources of the planet are effectively finite. We cannot mine our way out of scarcity and inequality.

Secondly, there is Bowers’s (2007) critique of Freire’s ethnocentrism and anthropocentricism. Both of these tendencies could be contrasted with what we understand to be Aboriginal ways of ‘knowing, being and doing’. The main idea is that we need to understand that Indigenous people’s connection to Country is not just a belief system. It is a holistic and personal experience that underpins knowledge-making, notions of truth, and moral being. These elements are interwoven and cannot be separated. Therefore, connections to, with/on, Country encompasses not only past, present, and future, but also the physical and metaphysical aspects of life. One could say that the terms relating to living on Country have some overlap with Western philosophical terms such as epistemology, ontology and axiology (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020). With a view to these lines of thinking, Yunkaporta (2019) suggests that Indigenous peoples have a more sophisticated idea of humanity’s relationship to the web of life. Said another way, Bowers (2007) argues there is a problem within Freirean- inspired thinking that is unreflexively anthropocentric by putting Man (sic) at the sovereign centre, which is cosmologically inept as well as potentially dangerous. As Bowers (2007) puts it,

… Freire’s pedagogy was based on Western assumptions about the progressive nature of change, critical reflection as the one true source of knowledge that will emancipate individuals and communities from all their oppressive traditions, and the anthropocentrism that made no sense to indigenous cultures ….

(p. 117)

In other words, notions of Freirean/Marxist liberation have to be tempered with Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing.

Interestingly, there is little evidence in Freire’s work in acknowledgement of, or learning from, the Indigenous peoples of Brazil [such as the Tikuna, the Tupi or the Apiaca, etc.], not to mention the absence of a full consideration of nature and ecological balance (Bowers, 2007). Although there is not enough space to explore this fully here, we agree with the claim that Indigenous peoples have complex knowledge systems with distinct and wholistic cosmologies and epistemologies (Country et al., 2015). Instead, the broader point that we seek to make – which we understand is in the spirit of the Freirean tradition – is to remain focused on the structural arrangements and practices that serve to maintain the status quo. This aligns with the sort of emancipatory vision outlined by Cudworth and Hobden (2018).

There is one further point to make about a critique of any author or body of work. All analyses take place within a particular moment in time/history. Debates within academic disciplines are also necessarily inside the history of societies and social relations. It is not realistic or sensible to expect any writer to be ‘timeless’ in an unanchored sense. While some writers seem to anticipate future developments well, all are condemned to the horizons of the era to some extent. The messianic traces within Freire and the occasional lapses into a generalised notion of the emancipation of ‘man’ might be cases in point as we have already discussed. Of course, we can ‘rescue’ much of the insights of such an oeuvre and deploy it in various ways. Thinking through the processes of becoming critically conscious might be a case in point. Even the passionate belief in revolutionary change can be tempered with some caution. Indeed, we can use Freire’s ideas without necessarily buying into the belief that these will automatically force macro changes (Neumann, 2016).

How might debates about conscientisation relate to improving conditions in Aboriginal education?

Let us recall that consciousness raising has been a tradition in other social movements, such as the second wave feminism and Black Power movements. More broadly, there has been longstanding feminist practice relating to the need to raise consciousness of the pervasive patriarchy, so as to subvert/oppose it (Bowden & Mummery, 2014; Bryson, 1999). Within the feminist movement, one of the key forms of praxis was conscious-raising groups (Sarachild, 2000). Although the usual scale of these interventions was often localised and peer-to-peer, the basic idea is cross applicable.

In relation to initiatives concerning Aboriginal education, there is an ongoing debate regarding the efficacy of critical consciousness. Preparing for change and building alliances are good things. However, we think there is some prior thinking to be done here. Firstly, how is critical consciousness to be understood? And secondly, is it ‘transplantable’ in helpful ways within the context of Aboriginal education? Particularly, we should remember that the teaching workforce remains overwhelmingly culturally and linguistically homogenous (and largely ‘white’). Of course, we do acknowledge that there are also teachers from other backgrounds but the statistics are still telling. For example, as of the 2016 national census, approximately 2% of qualified teachers in Australia (9000 educators) identified as Indigenous, however, this is thought to be a number that is declining (Tolra, 2022). Within this context, what sort of refinements are required when invoking critical consciousness for the specifics of Aboriginal education?

Darlaston-Jones et al. (2014) observed that efforts to Indigenise the curriculum or effect deep changes in pedagogic practices, cannot be isolated from the more general project of conscientisation. For these authors, the need to deconstruct the norms of racial and social and cultural dominance is a prerequisite for any meaningful and lasting reform. They offer a critical pedagogical approach based on conscientisation that we find much to agree with. Indeed, in our own work we have outlined concerns and calls for action that resonate closely with this, arguing that a fundamental shift in thinking is required as a precursor to mindful action and resistance to coloniality (Lowe et al., 2021, p. 471). However, our thinking has also moved on from this in some respects, as questions about the merit of overthrowing one human-centric hierarchy with a view to replacing it with another, appears an increasingly hollow aspiration.

We are not claiming an interpretation of Freire and his work which is unhelpfully limited. Indeed, Freire would no doubt be alarmed at the success of neoliberalism in spreading itself as an orthodoxy across so many economies and regions with its profound effect on moral and ethical views. The struggles that he engaged with in South America (and in exile) continue to this day. As Altamirano (2016) argues, while Freire’s work can be co-opted or recuperated within mainstream discourse, his thinking about emancipation should remain true to the spirit and politics in which it was conceived. From all of the above it should be clear that we think that critical consciousness cannot be thought of as singular or seamless, with cracks in the edifice merely stemming from the ways in which the term has been taken up and applied in different contexts (Jemal, 2017). The processes of translation and translocation of theories are complex and will require ongoing thought and adjustment.

Before proceeding we will provide a brief overview of the Culturally Nourishing Schooling (CNS) project.

Culturally nourishing schooling (CNS) project: background, context and rationale

The CNS project is a multi-site whole-school approach which aims to change schooling, policies and pedagogic practices to improve Indigenous students’ success in Australia. This relies on changing teachers’ beliefs and values, and in part this entails addressing residual deficit thinking that can be both individualised and collectively internalised (Lowe et al., 2021). It is a joint endeavor involving communities, local New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Groups and is a jurisdictional collaborative partnership with the New South Wales Department of Education (NSW DoE) and eight DoE schools in urban, regional, rural and remote areas in New South Wales Australia. The project was designed to support schools and communities to co-design curricula, teaching practices and school environments that improve the educational achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners and foster strong and healthy identities for students.

The CNS project is a response to the continuous failure of schools to meet Indigenous students’ cultural, social, and educational needs in Australia (see Lowe et al., 2019; Rigney, 2020). It is a response to the long-standing outcry by Indigenous communities for an education that connects their children to community cultural knowledge, honours and values Indigenous knowledges, and centres the significance of learning on, from and with Country. The CNS project not only aligns with Aboriginal families’ aspiration for their children, but also with the NSW DoE new priority to ‘increase the proportion of Aboriginal students attaining Year 12 by 50% by 2023, while maintaining their cultural identity’, as well as the 2020 NSW School Success Model Policy and the policy and broader aims of the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Council (2019).

There are many dimensions to the reforms initiated by CNS, but all of them can be thought of in connection with efforts to decolonise Aboriginal education (Cudworth & Hobden, 2018). This locates with the contention that, as key technology of colonialism, schooling was designed with an assimilationist agenda. This agenda defined Aboriginal learners as the thing to be changed rather than the colonial system itself (Lowe et al., 2021). We do not assume, by the way, that the colonization project has remained static. It continues to hone its ability to shape and delimit Aboriginal education expectations.

One of goals of the CNS project is to generate a systemic shift in schools’ engagement with Indigenous families and teachers’ epistemic beliefs about students’ and communities’ knowledges (Lowe et al., 2021). The CNS model takes a localised approach to education where teachers co-decide, co-design and co-deliver curriculum with local Aboriginal peoples. In order to effect these aims, the project establishes a whole school iterative program of five professional learning (PL) strategies; a reference group and a ‘Blak Caucus²’ consisting of Aboriginal community members and a ‘Thought Leadership’ hub.³ CNS received four years of funding and was designed to cycle through a yearly cohort of teachers. The idea behind this was to increase the number of teachers involved in each school, and by end of the project to have reached a critical mass of teachers within each school. However, the visible and applied aspects of this work should not distract from the ambitions of the project to affect change in the hearts and minds of those involved. In this sense, it is not just cognitive and practical changes that are envisaged, and instead it is changes in the ways participants understand the purposes of schooling and their work in these environments.

Having said this, the PL strategies are clearly important as they emphasise the inclusion of cultural knowledges and practices and they provide opportunities for the participants to explore this over time. The PL strategies include, (1) Learning on, from and with Country, which foregrounds the importance of understanding learning in a place; (2) curriculum workshops – there are scaffolded collaborative curriculum planning, (3) professional learning conversations – discuss concepts related to pedagogy and curriculum choices, (4) Cultural Mentoring (CM) – support relationship-building with local communities and act as learning partners for teachers and lastly (5) Culturally Nourishing Pedagogies – facilitated pedagogical coaching (Lowe et al., 2021). The point is for the five CNS school-based strategies to challenge teachers, community members and researchers to: examine dominant education practices and policies from a critical Indigenous standpoint; establish new arrangements and agreements between schools and local Indigenous communities; and develop critically informed curricula and pedagogies that improve the educational outcomes and experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. These strategies underpin our reference to, and use of the notion of critical consciousness with participants. We argue that this critical take on conscientisation is a crucial way in.

The next section provides our conceptualisation of the concept and how it is taken up in the CNS project, particularly in relation to Country. An undertaking that has led us to thinking about and unsettling the link between liberation or emancipation of peoples, and instead to ground it in, with and on Country.

The collective idea of a change in consciousness revisited

The CNS project is rooted in decolonial thinking, and as such, we argue that the colonial system influenced the institutionalisation of education in ways which are potentially limiting and deleterious. Alternatives, which could only be realised in and through actions, would include changes such as moving to holistic understandings of relationships with the natural world. Bishop (2022) reminds us that the land now known as Australia has been home to teaching and learning for tens of thousands of years, which relied on educational systems and practices that enabled a flourishing and sustainable life, centred by relationships with Country. However, accepting and working with this understanding is intertwined with also orientating ourselves to Freirean notions of education as a positive and necessary force to undo some of the violence and harm experienced by Aboriginal people over the last 240 years in Australia. We are not defensive about invoking this principled and influential educator, and his work will continue to be relevant. However, we want to shift the emphasis from changing or empowering individuals in isolation, to one which sees conscientisation (in our project) as a collective connection to, with and on Country.

Developing a critical conscious is not simply about working towards an instrumentalist set of goals or outcomes, it is a change in a way of thinking and being. In essence, this gestures to the notion that once we reflect on, and accept, changes in our worldviews and knowledge making practices, this leads to changes in our actions in and on the world. So, for Freire, it is only by becoming aware of the conditions of the subjugated person’s conditions, that positive change can be promoted. The extent to which this conception is cross applicable to other eras and education contexts has formed part of our critical reading of Freire.

As indicated above. questions remain for us about the ways that conscientisation is intertwined with notions of emancipation, which continue to emphasise the personal or individual foundations of this undertaking, which is then linked with a collective struggle. Cudworth and Hobden (2018, pp. 19–20) discuss this line of thinking in connection with two of the more notable movements to have impacted on the world in recent decades; efforts to end slavery (particularly in the US) and the advancement of women’s rights. In these examples, the raised consciousness of individuals about the injustices of race and gender, led to the collective action to address the systems and the structures that maintained the status quo. However, as Cudworth and Hobden (2018) go on to outline, these movements were, and continue to be, far from being founded on shared and widely agreed understandings or goals. Rather, they can be thought of as achieving a critical mass of people that agree to pursue shared political agenda, and perhaps do so in ways that do not quite achieve a shared critical consciousness. We agree that just as there cannot be a shared, stable and homogenous view of emancipation, the notion or possibility of shared critical consciousness should not be regarded as a simple or linear process.

It is worth noting that the original conceptualisation of conscientisation always had an inherently collective dimension, however, perhaps this requires some refinement or expanding. As we see it, the Freirean project was to use education to get downtrodden (or oppressed) peoples to radically address and change the circumstances of their oppression. That relates to Freire’s appeal to the liberation of the masses. This has to be conceived of as a group process. The difference for our CNS project is rather than the emancipation of the masses, we are seeking to enable the sorts of structural and practical changes to schooling that allow for more than one knowledge system to rub up against each other in ways that do not reproduce knowledge hierarchies. From this perspective, Country is not an inert and objectified ‘thing’ that we learn about, and instead it is understood and engaged with as active and productive knowledge-making practices. Country makes the world – and all that is within it – known and knowable. In this line of thinking, we can then ask what does conscientisation mean or look like, when seeking to liberate and emancipate Country? Surely this would entail more than a group sharing a political agenda, and instead move towards a collective way of knowing, being and doing that genuinely and meaningfully makes space for knowledge making practices that come from outside or beyond a Western foundation and point of reference. Moreover, to address this concern meaningfully will require not only the shared agreement in support of this political project, but it will also require teachers collectively coming to know, be, and do things in quite fundamentally different ways – business as usual in classrooms is no longer viable is it? In our view, Country may be the catalyst that can enable this sort of critical consciousness to coalesce around.

Furthermore, we do not think it is helpful to set up individual critical consciousness and collective versions as an either/or, although we feel they often collapse back into one another in some discussions. Surely, one form potentially presupposes the other? What we are suggesting, in agreement with Cudworth and Hobden (2018), is that collective conscientisation conceived as merely the agglomeration of changed individuals is a weaker formulation. Instead, we advocate for the idea that new arrangements are both system-led and system-changing. Unsurprisingly, as sketched out here, this remains an abstract description, a sort of modelling rather than the ‘real thing’. Change that is both organic and evolving (and likely to stick) has to bring the theoretical into the domain of the empirical. However, this is a scoping paper, and in the future, we hope to report on the CNS project making encouraging headway.

As noted elsewhere, efforts to provide varied, broad and deep experiences learning on/from/with Country underpin all facets of the CNS project. Hence, we suggest that Country is indispensable, and it goes beyond raising the consciousness of individuals and groups of educators. It holds the potential for a collective shift that understands, accepts and commits to doing schooling differently. This should be more than an intellectual or paternalistic shift. Instead, it should be an epistemological and ontological reimagining that flows from experiencing shared interdependence in, on and with the more-than-human worlds we move through. Subsequently, acting on this epistemological and ontological move can be described as a form of collective epistemic disobedience.

Why is it important that critical conscientisation should be seen as collective from the start?

(Re)conceptualising critical consciousness collectively, as outlined above, has several potential advantages. Firstly, while it may be harder to achieve (takes more planning and more effort to win consent across different stakeholders), it is more robust in the sense that it does not rely on one or two charismatic individuals (Gramsci, 1971, p. 12). The burden of the reform is spread across many people and actions. Secondly, there is more chance for the reforms to stick and to be deepened and improved going forward. The hope is that there will be synergies created (between curriculum innovators, staff reading groups, community liaison initiatives, etc.) that will make the project greater than the sum of its parts. To put it another way, if there is change at the whole school level and there are synergies across multiple staff within different locations this promotes lasting change. If this can be made to happen, then we will have achieved a collective consciousness which the school could not easily abandon or reverse.

The relationship between individual experience and collective forms is a very old problem in social theory. One aspect of this in terms of on the ground reforms is that however meaningful reform it needs to build a collective (i.e. school community and stakeholders) will for change. Otherwise the programme/reform may fizzle out when the committed individuals exhaust themselves or leave. In the context of Aboriginal education, the need to advance this collective project relates to also recognising the structural imbalances of power which affect Aboriginal people in a white-dominated society. In order for Aboriginal voices to be heard and for genuine reform to take place and stick, the work of changing minds/beliefs must be ongoing and mutually respectful.

It is also pertinent to note that research on Aboriginal education has drawn attention to a wide collection of activities (both individual and collective), that have made worthy – albeit typically short running – impacts (Vass et al., 2023). One of the reasons that the impacts are not more widespread and sustainable, is because the colonial model of schooling regroups to protect itself. This includes the endurance of structural arrangements, and the elevation of Western knowledge-making practices that ensure their own preservation (Apple, 1978). The shared critical consciousness needs to cross this bridge – there needs to be a greater engagement from a significant number of educators that do not turn back to dominant knowledge making practices and hierarchies.

We think the CNS model can and should be adapted. Collectivity within this model requires a different conception of the individual and the nexus of relations that holds and reproduces them. This would also relate to the notion of professional practice, school curricula, and standardised assessment. Instead of building change one individual at a time, a collectivism should be deeply embedded in the idea of ‘education’. We also argue that this is much more in line with Aboriginal ways of knowing, doing, and being. People are not atomised and then drawn together to make collective action; they are already conceived of as being constituted by the collectivity in the first place.

Change requires constant vigilance, effort, self-awareness and humble attentiveness to the needs of those on the ground. Freire (1970b, 1970a) says this many times. Awareness and good intentions are not enough, one must move continuously between action and reflection and then [move] from reflection on action to reflections and on to new actions. This process is important for authentic and lasting progressive change to occur. We recognise that it is not easy to change, and it can be uncomfortable, draining and challenging emotionally and mentally.

Conclusion: an ending that is just a beginning

Throughout this paper, we have tried to differentiate our perspective on the idea of critical consciousness, which is a notion most commonly traced back to Freirean approaches. We have striven to retain those aspects of a change of hearts and minds for which the term collective conscientisation still seems appropriate. However, we also need to acknowledge that this has been working through mostly at the level of ideas and theories. Such a scoping out is necessary, but it cannot substitute for actual practice. Also, practice may change some of the shape of the processes. The CNS project is deliberately ambitious and intended to go across several sites for several years. What this will produce in practical terms and the extent to which we can subsequently provide concrete evidence of collective conscientisation is a matter for future analysis and reflection.

Additionally, we have made a case in support of an approach for changing teacher consciousness,⁴ a whole of school (if not system-wide) undertaking. We see this integrated approach as much more likely to effect desired outcomes. In a sense, our collective experiences and discussions have led us to think further about the nature of change itself, and the depth of reflection and passion required to reorientate practices. We are convinced that teachers can deepen their collective consciousness in ways that transform their engagement with students, and families, and their worldviews. The CNS project works toward this by creating sustained opportunities for educators to reflect on First Nations people’s identities, the unceded sovereignty of Australia, and the settler-colonial peoples and institutions that have impacted on these relationships. Any meaningful school reform that espouses concern with the future of this nation, and indeed the world more broadly, has to take a reckoning with this foundation.

As already implied, this rethink goes hand in hand with a frank assessment of the way in which previous approaches have not worked. The last 50 years of schooling for First Nations students demonstrates that previous practice, has done little to shift the educational outcomes for these students. Moving together is surely the only way forward, as external and top-down solutions can never really embed and endure.

Acknowledgments

The Culturally Nourishing Schooling project (CNS) acknowledges the unique contributions of each member of the team and our participating schools and their communities. We also wish to acknowledge the generous contributions from our funders, the Paul Ramsay Foundation (Grant#: 5031), the National Indigenous Australians Agency, and the New South Wales Department of Education. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The Culturally Nourishing Schooling project (CNS) is supported by the generous contributions from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, The National Indigenous Australians Agency, and the New South Wales Department of Education.

Notes on contributors

Rose Amazan

Rose Amazan is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW, Sydney. She has extensive experience working with low SES communities in Australia and internationally. Rose’s expertise resides in two strands of research: Social justice in education/pathways to educational equity and international education and development policy with an emphasis on gender. Rose’s research, teaching, and service activities are motivated by her commitment to community development and creating equitable and safe environments for marginalised and disadvantaged communities.

Julian Wood

Julian Wood teaches and researches at the University of Sydney. A sociologist by training, he has worked in the area of education and Initial teacher training for the last twenty years. He has also taught over many years in Indigenous Education units at the University of Sydney. Hi research interests are the application of social theory to complex problems and issues around the drift to precarious employment in late capitalist societies. He has collaborated with the co-authors of this paper as part of his part time engagement with the CNS Project.

Kevin Lowe

Kevin Lowe is a Gubbi Gubbi man from southeast Queensland. He is a Scientia Indigenous Fellow at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), working on a community-and school-focussed research project on developing a model of sustainable improvement in Aboriginal education. He has experience in education as a teacher, administrator, and lecturer. He is an expertise in working with Aboriginal community organisations on establishing Aboriginal language policy and school curriculum implementation. Recently, he has worked with colleagues to review research across key areas of schooling and established the Aboriginal Voices a broad-base, holistic project which is developing a new pedagogic framework for teachers.

Greg Vass

Greg Vass Greg is a Senior Lecturer with the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith university. His work draws on critical and poststructural theories linked with the sociology of education. Greg’s research interests are focused on investigating policy enactment through teaching and learning practices. Central to this research is addressing the cultural politics of schooling and knowledge making practices that shape the experiences of teacher and learner identities in the classroom. Within the CNS team, Greg has been leading the Curriculum Workshops, which has provided opportunities to visit all the learning communities participating in the project.

Notes

1. When the terms Aboriginal or ‘Indigenous’ are used (interchangeably) in this article, it refers to the First Peoples of Australia. We acknowledge that these terms arose within colonial circumstances and are the imposition of language associated with the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism.

2. The Blak Caucus refers to the group of Aboriginal educators and community members from across all the participating schools that regularly meet to discuss concerns to do with the project.

3. The Thought Leadership hub refers to the school’s administration and leadership team which includes Aboriginal educators across all the participating schools.

4. The CNS project also relates to carers and community members.