Aboriginal Stereotypes

Even though attitudes towards the social well being of Aboriginal communities have changed by the implementation of Integration policies in the 1970s and ‘Closing the gap’ policy in 2008, there is a lot more to cover in terms of bringing equality in education for Aboriginal community. Hunter and Jordan (2010, p. 244, 251-255, 260-261) suggest how government policies have failed to recognise the diversity in Indigenous cultures and aspirations. The closest link that Aboriginal students find is a mention of some of the struggled histories of their past in the educational textbooks. These bits of information reinforce the stereotypes against Aboriginal communities causing the dominant society to pity them as victims. The curriculum which is

113-115; Foley, 2013, p. 153-154).The teachers may have a non biased approach towards these students at the start but it tends to wear away as their individual teaching styles are tested and challenged by the failure of these students. They are influenced or discouraged by the biased / racist subjectivities of their experienced cohorts. Saltmarsh and Youdell (2004, p. 361) cites how teachers can justify and influence the success or failure of existing teaching practices. Students are blamed for their contrary or alternative beliefs. Eventually teachers give heed to these underlying beliefs / stereotypes and lose hope for students of ethnic, Indigenous or disadvantaged communities. Students of disadvantaged communities are deemed as ‘hopeless’. Hewitt (2000) cites how the ‘blame the victim’ (p. 114) approach prevalent in the current education system has made it easier for most of the teachers to escape from their responsibility of providing for a culturally rich pedagogy. This approach leads to low expectations which in turn limit students’ academic ability. O’Flynn and Petersen (2007, p. 461, 465-466, 471) suggest in their research that teachers’ perception about students’ ability can have a considerable

96-97). The first and foremost thing they need is to learn and spread awareness of students belonging to the disadvantaged communities like Aboriginal, ethnic and immigrant. They need to challenge themselves by critically analysing their own views and beliefs about students of the ‘other’ community (Aveling, 2006, p. 261-262). School leaders can help achieve this by engaging the experienced as well as beginner teachers in an ongoing training programme. This training programme can not only help educate teachers about the contemporary issues of Aboriginal or ethnic students but also assist them in applying research based practices. These research based practices like Dr Chris Sara’s Stronger Smarter kid programme (Lyons, & Janca, 2012, p. 14-15) and the Turn-Around Pedagogies (Kambler, & Comber, 2005, p. 122-124) can help bridge the gap in the academic performances of non Indigenous and Indigenous students. This would in turn help bring about the changes in attitudes and expectations, and discourage the stereotypes like low intelligence associated with students of a particular community. The Turn-Around Pedagogies and the Stronger Smarter kid programme advocate the use of collaborative based consortium that aims to delve into the students’ world by learning about their preferences, styles and cultures (Kambler, & Comber, 2005, p. 122-123). Some of the techniques