This thesis examines issues of power, culture and schooling as they apply
to an indigenous community located on Saibai Island in the Torres Strait
of northern Australia. The thesis combines literature research with
ethnography to consider Saibaian schooling in various contexts. These
include the history of schooling in the region, the relevant educational
literature and the actual physical and social contexts of schooling on
Saibai. Early chapters deal with methodology, history and educational
literature. Later chapters deal with ethnographic material using the
themes of separation, culture and collaborative decision-making to
organise the data. The work of Michel Foucault informs the analytical
approach to issues of power. Hence power is considered to be ubiquitous,
productive and linked to issues of knowledge and culture. School
principals are identified as key figures in schooling and therefore play a
major role in the thesis. As the principals are all men of non-Islander
(anglo) backgrounds, this thesis represents a significant break from works
within the realm of indigenous education that are heavily influenced by
cultural anthropology and tend to focus only on the Aboriginal or Islander
participants as objects of study.
The thesis considers how Saibaian people are excluded from schooling
through various techniques and practices that tend to place the principal in
a position of autocracy vis a vis the school. Furthermore, I show how
various schooling practices that aim to include community members in
schooling are shaped and transformed such that they actually serve to
entrench the principal in his position of control over schooling. This
applies even in the way that cultural activities are incorporated into the
school illustrating that no aspect of schooling is immune to relations of
power. Indeed, the notion of Saibaian Islanders belonging to a unique
cultural group is used by some principals to argue that they are unsuited to
roles within the school's decision-making process. Ultimately, then, this
thesis is about relations between school principals and community
members in the context of schooling on Saibai Island.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218721 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Davis, Jenny, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Professional & Community Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Jenny Davis |
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