[csaa-forum] UTS FASS Cultural Diversity and Communication Research Group: 26 October Colloquium

Timothy Laurie Timothy.Laurie at uts.edu.au
Mon Oct 15 14:19:11 ACST 2018


UTS FASS Cultural Diversity and Communication Research Group: 26 October Colloquium

Featuring Amy Thomas (School of Education, UTS) and Krystal Campbell (School of Communication, UTS)

Date: Friday 26/10/2018 | Time: 15:00-17:00 | Venue: CB10.02.470 (Building 10, Level 2, Room 470, Jones Street UTS)
Contact name: Timothy Laurie (timothy.laurie at uts.edu.au<mailto:timothy.laurie at uts.edu.au>) | Convened by: Dr. Bhuva Narayan and Dr. Tim Laurie

'"They think their way will work on our kids": The birth of mainstreaming in Aboriginal bilingual education 1998-99'

Amy Thomas

Bilingual schooling, introduced in the Northern Territory (NT) by the federal government in 1973, was a reality for over twenty-five schools at the height of the program. Today, however, the language-of-instruction policy in settings where Aboriginal learners have first languages other than English is an English-only approach, and only 8 schools now operate Aboriginal language bilingual programs. What happened? Overt government hostility began with an attempt to remove funding in 1998-99. This has primarily been understood as government ignorance stemming from a ‘monolingual mindset’—but arguably what remains under-explored is the connection between the 1998-99shift  and the wider trend towards ‘mainstreaming’, or neo-assimilationist policy, in Aboriginal politics and policy more generally, which has rehabilitated Protectionist and Assimilationist thinking in a neoliberal context. Through archival and interview sources focusing on the Central Desert region, this paper aims to elucidate how a mainstreaming discourse was constructed against bilingual education through the 1998-99 debate, and suggests this interpretation can help us place the bilingual program in its wider sociopolitical context, and understand the connection between issues of language justice and Australia’s settler colonial present.


'The information-seeking behaviours of First in Family students at university'

Krystal Campbell

This presentation argues that students who are the first in their families (FIF) to attend university have been overlooked in the research of information-seeking behaviour. In particular, this presentation asks: What are the information-seeking behaviours of FIF students at the university, and what implications does this have for learning and teaching, and for support services in higher education? As FIF status is an inherently intersectional one, this research is also inherently intertwined with students’ personal, psychological, social, and cultural contexts. This research is based on a series of qualitative interviews with current and former FIF students from UTS, whose narratives were able to flourish throughout this project. Despite ongoing personal, financial, and physical challenges, each of these participants has persevered through university with the help of some key influences, including engaged and supportive university staff. Taken together, the experiences of these students offer insights into the ways that existing approaches to ‘transition pedagogy’ may benefit from considering the educational background of transitioning students.
UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. Think. Green. Do. Please consider the environment before printing this email.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.cdu.edu.au/pipermail/csaa-forum/attachments/20181015/32d1cd3e/attachment.html 


More information about the csaa-forum mailing list