Faculty of Education

... University of Wollongong Thesis Collection. Title. A descriptive analysis of aboriginal participation and equity issues in New South Wales higher education - a participant observer's view. Author.Nerida Blair, University of Wollongong. Year. 1990. Degree Name. ...

Lilyology contributes to what Denzin & Lincoln refer to as a new and vibrant theorising space, (2005, p. 20) and as such, it is an act of intellectual self-determination (Battiste M., 2002, p. 4) which develops new analyses and methodologies to decolonise the author, communities and institutions that impact on all of our daily lives.
Indigenous Knowings are fundamentally different to Western Knowledges and many Indigenous researchers/educators struggle in finding their place within the framework of Western Knowledge. At the same time, non-Indigenous researchers/educators are challenged to understand, and contextualise Indigenous Knowings as ontologies and epistemologies in their own right. This book, Lilyology, hypothesizes this difference by navigating a space of colliding trajectories urging forward the author and other Indigenous researchers/educators to pursue alternate ways to express, operate within and find ways to play in this space. This book uses metaphor, story and imaging to embodying the author’s own Knowing through the crafting of Lilyology; waterlilys, sweet potatoes, spiders and brick walls and thus reclaiming and re-positioning Indigenous Knowings as a path ahead which makes sustainable and good choices (Youngblood Henderson, 2000, p. 274).
A webpage accompanies this book creating and giving dimension and depth to the linear, Western framework.

Australian Aboriginal Knowings are fundamentally different to Western Knowledges. Different, not inferior and not superior. This chapter will Story these differences. It will Story these differences using metaphor; a Brick wall for Western Knowledge and a Waterlily for Australian Aboriginal Knowings. It will explore the contested space between these two worlds; the space that Aboriginal educators exist and operate within. It will explore the domain of Aboriginal expressions of Knowing through performative mediums. It is in this space that we see the most powerfully communicated understandings and expressions of Aboriginal Knowings.
This chapter is not about content. It is about process. It is about philosophically understanding the depth of the most ancient cultures and peoples, and our Storys. It is about finding, accepting and strategising the discomfort; the zone of colliding trajectories, (Nakata, 2007) the contested zone – the zone between Aboriginal Knowings and Western Knowledges.
Chapter in Engaging First Peoples in Arts-Based Service Learning. Springer

Abstract: The article outlines the aspects of the research design that engage with teachers in schools and discusses some of the challenges and affordances that the relationships (between the teachers, the schools, the research partners and the researchers) experienced in the ...

Critical literacy approaches to English teaching have existed in Australia for more than two decades.  Despite this, they continue to be criticised by the media, especially during times of perceived ‘literacy crisis’ and curriculum review.  In addition, teachers and academics continue to explore their worth and meaning for English teaching contexts.  This paper discusses the findings of the research project Critical literacy in Australia: affordances, tensions and hybridizations which investigated constructions of critical literacy in secondary school English curricula and teacher discourse in Australia.  Three major themes emerged from the data which provided insights into the state of critical literacy in Australia today.  These themes related to the following areas - curriculum affordances of and teacher engagement with critical literacy; the impact of critical literacy discourses on teachers' ideological becoming and hybridization of critical literacy; and tensions arising from critical literacy pedagogies.