Health Professions Education

Dutta N., Stewart N., Singh P.

Educating students about global citizenship remains a critical challenge for educators, particularly in Australia. Introducing and navigating curricula content considered too “sensitive” or “controversial” for open classroom discussions is part of this critical pedagogic challenge. We argue for the enactment of a critical pedagogy for Global Citizenship Education (GCE) through the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) curriculum in a primary school serving a culturally and linguistically diverse, disadvantaged community in Australia. We draw on three key concepts developed by Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak—sanctioned ignorance, subaltern, and marginality to explore challenges around GCE practices. We suggest that in selecting topics for discussion teachers may attempt to protect students from troubling experiences of perceived and real past traumas. This may unintentionally close down classroom discussions, silence some student voices and limit the production of classroom knowledge. Data generation involved a series of reflective conversations between two teacher-researchers. We conclude by discussing the implications of understanding the relation between theory and practice for teacher education, and current policy initiatives which define classroom readiness in narrow, restrictive ways. We propose that initial teacher education courses need to ensure that pre-service teachers grapple with the complex ideas proposed by postcolonial scholars in developing socially critical pedagogies for GCE.

Coff K.

This chapter seeks to identify and document the shift in how non-Indigenous classroom teachers see the world from a Western Worldview to an Indigenous Relational Worldview, and how this shift informs their teaching practice. As teachers make this shift in their worldview, and then their practice, this creates ways for First Nations children to thrive, not just survive mainstream schooling. Drawing on teachings from my Ancestors, Country and Community, I use the metaphor of conglomerate rock to make visible the ways that that Western Worldviews and an Indigenous Relational Worldview can come together to create change in pedagogical practices to ensure that First Nations students (and all students) thrive in education systems. To decolonise the ways in which teachers work, through the Indigenous Lens and worldview. I only reference First Nations peoples in my research to amplify their voices in this space, and the research itself is from our worldview. I have inversed the way in which research generally occurs. We cannot keep doing the same thing expecting a different result, we urgently need change to occur within the education system.

Hattam R.

This chapter provides an account, partly autobiographical, of my engagement as a white settler in the working for anti-racists or decolonial education. As such I discuss various dilemmas for whitefella educators who are committed to working in and on the contact zone in colonial Australia. I comment of my own unlearning of colonisation or at least to think past the ways that schooling [re]produces social stratifications of various kinds. Unlearning in my case demanded coming to terms to my own ignorance of the impact of settler colonial governing on the country. I grew up on, Ngarrindjeri country; working through the ways that I was implicated in the ways schooling produces social stratification; learning some theory of settler colonisation. Central to unlearning colonisation has been realising that colonisation is by nature, a monologue and hence a decolonial education must be experimenting with pedagogies as dialogic encounters. Decolonisation then is antithetical to claims of the what works paradigm that asserts more explicit instruction.

Oliveira G., Te Maro P., Tweed B.

This chapter discusses the redevelopment of Massey University’s initial teacher education programme in Aotearoa New Zealand intended to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi). It details indigenising/decolonising initiatives to embody Te Tiriti in the key aspects of selection, assessment, and course work to create a culturally-sustaining and inclusive kaupapa (vision). We understand indigenisation and decolonisation as complementary processes, often occurring simultaneously, which are necessary to achieve courses, programmes and institutions which honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The chapter begins by summarising the collective journey of redesigning the existing programme, from the creation of our tūāpapa (pedagogical and philosophical foundation) to the new curricula and tikanga (protocols) for course entry and delivery. It then discusses a wānanga process that indigenised selection interviews of prospective ākonga (learners), drawing from kaupapa Māori praxis and manaakitanga (ethic of care). A focus on grading or not grading of assessments follows, showing how issues about systems invoked deeper challenges implicit in indigenising and decolonising work. The final section covers initiatives to prepare teachers to implement the newly created Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories curriculum, which encourages new teachers to incorporate the mana ōrite mō te mātauranga principle (Western and Māori epistemological parity) into their practices.

Brennan M., Zipin L.

As non-indigenous educators, we argue that educators across all Australian sectors must learn to become fit to act as allies of First Nations peoples. We must learn to listen to First Nation voices—directly and from storying media—to build knowledge and understanding so we can work respectfully with indigenous colleagues, communities and students, and educate non-indigenous students and colleagues about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. We tell two stories of our learning as teacher-educators working with First Nations colleagues. In analysing our stories, we consider strategies for culturally responsive teacher-education practice and list further resources to support such practice. We see capacitating younger generations to learn to live justly with one another and the planet as a core responsibility of education professionals, which should underpin our work with colleagues, students, and people in community spaces where students live. Non-indigenous teachers, as beneficiaries of colonialism’s historical legacies, owe responsibility to build current and future teacher understandings that support reparations for landgrabs and associated genocidal actions that make ‘settler-colonial’ Australia possible. Our chapter takes on this ethical responsibility to contribute towards inter-generationally-informed and socially-just citizenry—in the process changing our subjectivities, practices, relations and institutions.

Singh P., Bargallie D., Tapia Parada C.

In this final chapter of the book, we argue that decolonial work in initial teacher education (ITE) needs to address three challenges, namely: (1) the incommensurability of speaking and listening positions; (2) countermoves by the colonial apparatus to maintain the current status quo / global colonial matrix of power (CMP); and (3) recognising the threshold of disciplinary knowledge, and the deconstruction and reconstruction of disciplinary knowledges. To address these three challenges, we take up Lesley Le Grange’s (Curricul J 34:8–21, 2023) point about the importance of constructing curriculum as a complicated conversation. We propose, however, that the term conversation suggests equal and ongoing speaking and listening positions. But colonialisms and colonial legacies have been built on unequal power/knowledge hierarchies which have constructed binaries between Western (Northern) and Other (Southern) knowledges. The former is constructed as hierarchically superior, the latter inferior. Such knowledge hierarchies persist in most university curriculum, and specifically in ITE curriculum. Finally, we consider the im/possibilities of curriculum as a difficult conversation, and the countermoves used by colonial institutions, including universities, to maintain existing power/knowledge hierarchies and work practices.

Campbell J.L.

Systemic racism within educational policies, procedures and structures has prevented access and imposed barriers to progression for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in research institutions. Universities must address systemic racism and support initiatives that move beyond tokenism to authentically support the needs and strengths of students. This paper employs the lenses of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Decolonising Race Theory (DRT), to explore racism in the context of undergraduate research. First, we explore how CRT and DRT can help to understand how racism impacts Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students participating in the Kungullanji Program, a co-designed undergraduate research program that decolonises research experiences. Second, by examining counter stories shared through cultural sharing practices of yarning we understand the impacts of systemic racism on the students’ participation in higher education and access to undergraduate research experiences. Third, we explore how students were empowered to navigate the cultural interface to challenge disciplinary knowledge and methods. Finally, we examine how the program sustainability and continuation was impacted by institutional pressures through the CRT principle of interest convergence and divergence. The application of CRT to understand the phenomenon of the Kungullanji Program helped identify areas where we could lead changes to decolonise university research experiences. Participation in undergraduate research and making new spaces for students to design and lead their own projects can contribute to changing the current paradigm and amplifying the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers.

Whatman S., McLaughlin J.M.

Australian initial teacher education (ITE) is required to ensure graduate teachers have understanding and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) histories, cultures and languages. The Uluru Statement from the Heart impels educators to support truth-telling about settler-colonialism in ways that these graduate standards aspire, despite the recent, unsuccessful referendum in 2023 to recognize First Australians in the Constitution (On October 14th, 2023, Australians voted on “A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?”. More than 60% of Australians voted no, with the majority of yes votes coming from capital cities and Indigenous communities (Nathanael Scott, Sydney Morning Herald, 15th October, 2023). As initial teacher educators, we ask “how do future teachers engage in truth-telling without a robust framework for doing so?” We postulate that non-Indigenous and Indigenous pre-service teachers need tools to become aware of, develop and articulate their criticality and knowledges into professional practice for an Australian curriculum which has historically ignored Indigenous knowledges. We outline Critical Race Theory (CRT), Indigenous Standpoint Theory and the Cultural Interface as underpinnings to Critical Indigenous Studies (CIS) as a way to prepare preservice teachers to be truth-tellers and future decolonisers of Australian schooling and share two vignettes of Indigenous preservice and beginning teachers leading this work from a project (McLaughlin J, Whatman S, Nielsen C, Supporting future curriculum leaders in embedding in indigenous knowledge on teaching practicum. Office for Learning and Teaching, Sydney. Australian Government, 2013) following them in their early teaching careers.

Singh P., Heck D., Heimans S., Ambrosetti A.

As educators, it is crucial for us to understand the complex ways that colonialism(s) have shaped educational institutions and practices. It is important also for us to understand the work that has been undertaken by scholars and practitioners to resist, challenge and change the legacies of colonialism(s) as well as contest the emergence of new modes of colonial control. The prologue chapter delves into some of the key debates and intellectual trajectories that have shaped the fields of decoloniality studies, including earlier work on postcolonialism. The trajectories of debate emanate from different geographic places, such as Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East; and are rooted within different intellectual traditions such as psychoanalytic studies; Black British cultural studies; critical Indigenous studies; critical race theories; postcolonial feminisms; Orientalisms; Islamophobia; and Black studies of slavery. Despite this vast and rich disciplinary terrain, we identified several key concerns within the literature: (1) L/land, Lore, and Country and Relationality of Epistemology-Ontology-Axiology; (2) Racisms/Sexisms against the resurgence of white western supremacy; and (3) Modes of activism and activist research alliances to challenge colonialisms, such as contingent collaborations, solidarity movements and partisan universalisms. The three parts within the book take a deeper dive into these topics and we provide a summary of papers for each section: (1) defining decoloniality and strategies for decoloniality in teacher education (TE) programs; (2) Australian Indigenous scholarship; and (3) possibilities and implications of incorporating Indigenous knowledges in ITE, when work is well-resourced and supported by national policy agendas.

Sanjigadu S., Mudaly R.

Indigenous knowledge is one epistemology that has been marginalised by oppressive policies worldwide. Post-apartheid South Africa sought to address this by proposing a multitude of changes to craft a curriculum that addressed the social justice agenda. More recently, an overt call specifically for the decolonisation of education in South Africa emerged as a response to the exclusion of black African people and their knowledges. We seized this curriculum moment to buttress contestations of the hegemony of the global North by tapping into indigenous knowledge from the African continent as one source of Southern theory. We explored how teachers could practically work towards the decolonisation of a unit of work in the Life Sciences Grade 11 school curriculum, based on the topic Tuberculosis, a disease that continues to manifest as an enormous burden in the global South. Two black African teachers and an indigenous spiritual healer (Isangoma) were purposively selected to participate in this qualitative study. Data from document analysis, teacher reflections, interviews, and observations, were analysed thematically using concepts of mourning, dreaming, and commitment, as constructed by Chilisa, as part of the decolonisation process. This study is significant to policymakers and educators who work towards disrupting the single epistemic underpinnings of science education.

Van Issum H., Meston T., Riley T.

Settler colonialism layers the intentional displacement, subjugation, and genocide of Indigenous Peoples by means of physical control over land, sea, rivers, and material resources. While functioning as a profoundly violent and exploitative system, settler colonialism also serves as a theatre of enduring resistance and activism. As schools operate in this socio-political context, they are not without intent or design. This chapter focuses on the use of critical arts-based assessments as tools to strategically grow learners’ criticality and reposition the act of teaching in dominant spaces in Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Utilising a multi-theoretical lens derived from Critical Race Theory and decolonial thought, we carefully unspool our approach to teaching, where pedagogy, content, and assessment are deployed as deliberate acts of resistance and activism. We use this foundation to engage with culturally-responsive pedagogical strategies, returning them to their theoretical roots, as deliberate tactics to counter the limiting factors we raise in this discussion. Our chapter is intended to draw attention to schools’ role in settler-colonial societies like Australia. It offers strategies that enable future teachers to advance their agency as educational leaders in dominant spaces.

Ocriciano M.

This chapter is both an account of the process and an attempt at ‘thinking from a southern point of view’ in an initial teacher education course in Brisbane, Australia where I incorporated Southern Theory into my teaching. As a Brazilian migrant living in Australia for many years, I deliberately reveal my most Southern self to help me navigate the uneasy and often conflicting neoliberal waters of an Australian initial teacher education program. First, this chapter locates both Postcolonial and Decolonial thought by highlighting two central works: Edward W. Said’s Orientalism (1979/2019) and Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1963/2004). This is followed by a brief history of the development of the concept of Global South which in turn leads to how Southern Theory is conceptualized in the chapter: as a pedagogical project. Doing Southern Theory is the second section where I briefly justify the use of Southern Theory in education as a possibility for pursuing epistemic justice. I then introduce the concept of a pedagogical political project as an example of a product of Southern thought and describe how I adapted its guiding principles to redevelop and adjust an initial teacher education course for secondary pre-service teachers at an Australian university.

Kim E.A., Ziebell A.

Science education is undergoing a paradigm shift towards decolonisation and inclusion of Indigenous knowledges. However, many non-Indigenous educators encounter challenges in enacting decolonial pedagogies due to limited understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing and systemic barriers. This chapter presents reflections from two non-Indigenous science educators in Australia on their learning journey towards decolonial science teaching. Through a metaphorical dinner conversation between different conceptual stances, we demonstrate the importance of first reflecting on one’s positioning regarding Indigenous knowledges. We then share experiences collaborating with Indigenous communities across Australia and Canada to develop curricula incorporating Indigenous science. Key lessons learned include: the need for authentic partnership and consensus-building with communities, embracing relationality, and transparently conveying the process of learning and growth as non-Indigenous educators. This chapter offers insights for non-Indigenous educators beginning the journey towards decolonial science teaching, highlighting the significance of critical self-reflection, ethical community engagement, and embracing learning as interrelated processes. The experiences conveyed elucidate possible pathways forward in decolonising science education through respectful, thoughtful co-learning.

Heinrichs D.H., Díaz A.

In-country experiences have long been valued in the context of languages teacher education. This is particularly true in the Australian context. The COVID-19 crisis and its disruptive impact not only put many of these schemes on hold, but it also highlighted their inequitable and unsustainable nature. This chapter turns to everyday languaging practices of secondary school teachers of Spanish on social media to highlight how these practices can be reimagined as reflexive (personal/professional) learning opportunities in the context of international (im)mobility. Three illustrative examples critically examined through a decolonial lens reveal the potential of these languaging practices to resist and challenge persistent binaries that drive colonial, Western onto-epistemological values in (languages) education (e.g., mobility/immobility, personal/professional, informal/formal learning, individuality/relationality). These otherwise marginalised practices steeped in relationality, music and politics emerge as clear attempts of ontological disobedience, through which languages teachers can redefine the contours of being/becoming in the world, and, in so doing, expose the complex and contradictory nature of international mobility as a traditionally essential component of continuing education. This chapter concludes by exploring potential reconfiguration of the goals and modes of continuing education for languages teachers in the Australian context.

Domínguez M.

Any discussion of colonial tensions, including in the context of schooling, teaching, and learning, necessarily invokes the geographic; asking us to reflect on the tensions between the global north and global south, the epistemic construction of the “West,” in our curriculum, and the ways in which our pedagogies and classrooms literally demarcate and shape our relationality with marginalized youth in schools. Teacher education particularly has long been defined by its colonial geography, encouraging novice educators to stay on well-worn paths of “what works” rather than venturing into the unknown, or charting new paths towards unfamiliar practices or relational understandings. Yet moving beyond the ways in which our institutions are dominated by coloniality requires re-thinking and re-mediating these geographies that educators and youth find themselves in together. By exploring an example of teacher education praxis involving novice educators and youth participating together in decolonial sensemaking, this chapter suggests that doing the work of southern theory involves positioning ourselves as teacher educators, and our novices, as decolonial cartographers, charting routes into important, but unfamiliar terrain, and imagining new, more liberatory possibilities for schooling. This work requires imagination and disobedience, but is critical to decolonizing schooling, and producing a more humanizing world.