Whose School ? Which Community ?

In this paper, we take up the theme, 'The School as a Centre in the Community' in light ofa research project that we conducted in a remote community in South Australia in 2001. In this project, 'Engaging Students In Education Through Community Empowerment', we set out to explore with Aboriginal parents, Aboriginal students, teachers and representatives of the various agencies operating in the area how groups within the community understood the issues of early exiting Aboriginal students.


Introduction
In this paper, we take up the theme, 'The School as a Centre in the Community' in light of a research project that we conducted in a remote community in South Australia in 2001.In this project, 'Engaging Students In Education Through Community Empowerment', we set out to explore with Aboriginal parents, Aboriginal students, teachers and representatives of the various agencies operating in the area how groups within the community understood the issues of early exiting Aboriginal students.
Among the stated aims of the project were: to identify current strengths and concems regarding the provision of meaningful, culturally inclusive schooling; to map the current knowledge/power relations among various education and support service providers and members of the Indigenous community; and, in the second stage, to develop, on the basis of these consultations and in collaboration with key community and education groups a community-based education project to improve the literacy, numeracy or technological skills of non-attendingadolescent students.
What emerged from the consultations with these diverse groups was that the ideal of 'school as community' was problematic especially for Aboriginal families in this community.
In this paper, we interrogate the conversations we had with key representatives of the different community groups.In particular, we consider how 'school as community' did (not) work to address the needs of youngAboriginal students. .We endeavour to critically analyse the diverse perspectives offered to us with the aim, not of 'laying blame' but of exploring where and how cross-cultural communication -a key construct in building 'communities'-continues to fail in the face of diverse bodies of knowledge and inequitable power relations.What does it take to be 'heard'?Whatis it to listen beyond the 'comfort zone'?Finally, we discuss a number of recommendations that emerged from this project which aim to build better relations and better school communities.

Review of policy and research literature
Establishing strong relationships between schools and the families/communities they serve has long been advocated as a necessary component for the education of the nation's children.School/family ties have been cited in many and various articles) policies and research reports as critical to the education of children.In the case of Aboriginal students, this has been extended to culture as the critical element for the successful education of Aboriginal young people.
Aboriginal peoples around Australia have historically experienced education as assimilation.
Resistance to an assimilationist education system has generated the inclusion in policy documents of references to the need to teach Aboriginal students from a cultural perspective.The desirability of a 'culturally inclusive curriculum' for Indigenous students and for Aboriginal parents to be able to intervene in the education of their children has been consistently cited in major reviews, including the most recent National Review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education (MYCEETYA, 1995) which drew on and developed previous reviews including the Aboriginal Education Policy (1989).The National Strategy for the Education of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (MYCEETYA, 1996(MYCEETYA, -2000) ) acknowledges the long-term goal of Indigenous peoples for selfdetermination in education.This report recognises the need for Indigenous involvement in education at a local, district, regional, state and territory or national level.A major priority of this report was to 'establish effective arrangements for the participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples in educational decision-making' (MYCEETA, 1995:11).Amongst the strategies suggested in this report for the participation, engagement and retention in education of Aboriginal students are: • t'.:hools establish partnerships with Indigenous communities and in particular with ,".. .ginalStudent Support Parent Association (ASSPA) committees to target participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in schools.
• that schools develop and implement programs which recognise home language background and use culturally appropriate instruction and assessment methods, where Standard Australian English is not fully understood by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, because English is their second or third language or dialect.In What Works.The Work Programme, a document which evolved out of the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Programme's Strategic Results Projects (IESIP SRP's), the authors include in the fundamentals to a good education for Indigenous students, references to respect for students and their cultures.
Cultural dispossession is a terrible thing.It ean reduce people to shadows, a state of near invisibility.In the situation oflndigenous students, the case is clear.Aspects of their cultures must be recognised, supported and integrated in the processes of education and training, notjust for their own success, but for the general quality of Australian preschools, schools and training institutions.
Of some significance is Boughton's (1997) study that analysed the complexity of the relationship between education and self-determination.Other reports cited in Boughton (2000) indicated that Indigenous students and education workers recognised the connection between education and control as a pedagogical as well as a political issue.This linking of self-determination in education with the content and delivery of curriculum matters and the improved leaming outcomes for students within an Indigenous cultural enviromnent has been discussed and documented by Duman and Boughton (1999) (cited in Boughton, 2000) and by Herbert et al (2000) and Bourke (2000).
These recommendations, particularly the recommendation supporting the recognition of home language in programme design, have particular implications for rural Indigenous communities and : ...... schools.In many schools in remote regions around Australia, English is a second and in some cases a third language.In these cases, including the school in which we did our research, an Indigenous language is spoken at home, in the community, in the schoolyard: everywhere in fact, except in the classroom.This further distances the school and the formal curriculum it is attempting to teach from Indigenous communities.
In spite of the rhetoric in policy documents, schools are structured so that there is little opportunity for parents to intervene in the formal education of their children except at a very peripheral level, in organizing sport or accompanying teachers on excursions, hearing students read, working on teacher constructed spelling programmes, working in the school canteen etc.Even participating in these activities places particular demands on Aboriginal parents who may feel that they have to 'act white' Education in Rural Australia, Vol. 13 (1) .. .44 (act 'white' or be marked 'black' is how one parent put it in a recent interview).This can involve dressing in a certain way, adopting particular manners of speech (having good English language skills or changing speech patterns \fom Aboriginal English to Standard Australian English, for instance), being prepared to be one' of very small group of Aboriginal people in a predominantly 'white' workplace and so on.There is generally very little interaction between Aboriginal parents and the teachers of their children.From the teacher perspective, it seems that Aboriginal parents are reluctant to participate in school affairs, a view derived from a discourse of deficit (Herbert et al, 2000).From the perspective of the parents, the world beyond the school fence can be seen as 'alien' territory.The Aboriginal Education Workers (AEWs) are often used as 'cultural translators' who act as intermediaries between Aboriginal parents and teachers, relieving the school of the need to construct culturally appropriate communicative structures.Kirkness andBemard (1991, cited in Herbert, 2000:11) have incorporated the cultural crossover that many children experience when moving from home to school and school to home, into the language of 'coming to: going to' educational institutions: language which suggests students enter sites where education is already structured.Students fit in -or don't.

The power relationships of schooling -whose knowledge and whose power?
Increasingly, the ways in which knowledge/power relations are socially and culturally constructed is recognised in a wide range of educational literature.That particular kinds of knowledge are deemed to be more valuable, worthy, useful or valid, over other kinds, and that only these are carried and thus endorsed by formal eurriculum and pedagogies is a way of understanding how relations of power become institutionalised within the schooling process through curriculum content and pedagogical practices.Those whose cultural, economic, community, social and symbolic forms of knowledge remain outside the mainstream, that is those whose knowledge is not 'carried' in/through formal curriculum are frequently positioned as subordinate and understood to be 'disadvantaged'.But it is the practice/experience of being positioned outside the dominant structures (an exercise of power) that creates the disadvantage -not the alternative forms of cultural, economic, social and symbolic knowledge themselves.
In interviews we did with the community who were part of this project, parents expressed the kinds of frustrations with schooling for Aboriginal children that are being expressed around the country: that there is no consistent teaching of mother tongue in the school, that cultural perspectives are not taught across the school and across subjects, that Indigenous knowledge is not acknowledged or accessed through schooling and that the skills and knowledge the children and young people bring to school is Education in Rural Australia, Vol. 13 (1) ...45 not acknowledged or utilised as a basis on which to build wider understandings and skills development.There are voices that are heard in schools and heard very clearly and there are voices that are part of a 'silenced dialogue' (Delpit, 1993:121).These differential power relations make it difficult for the school to become integrated into the community and for the various community groups that need to and want to access schools to become a part of the school.
A number of writers have discussed these power relations.Bourdieu for instance discusses the power of the school in terms of 'cultural capital'.Delpit refers to a 'culture of power' to frame her thinking ahout the power relations of schooling.Cultural capital theorists such as Bourdieu see schools as reproducing, constructing and valuing certain kinds of knowledge.This knowledge becomes social capital.The curriculum and assessment procedures for instance, in tenus of Bordieu's theorising, incorporate and construct social capital which then becomes 'symbolic' capital.Symbolic capital is a necessary condition for entrance to employment and further education and links into the preferred knowledges of the economically, socially and politically powerful (Thomson, 2002:4).Delpit's (1993:122) 'culture of power' reflects the rules of those who have power and include the teacher, who has power over students, the publisher of textbooks who has power to direct the thinking of both teachers and students, the power of the system and individuals within the system to determine 'normalcy' and 'intelligence' -both highly contested concepts.Ultimately, given the relationship between educational levels and access to work, then these power relations can have a long-term impact on life chances.
Both Aboriginal parents and Aboriginal students can have a contradictory relationship with the schooling system.That access to the skills and knowledge of the hegemonic curriculum will gain admittance to work and or further education is generally recognised by Aboriginal parents and more often tban not, by their children.However, a dilemma is created if the cost of acquiring the knowledge of one culture, the 'culture of power', means having to abandon the ways of being and the ways of knowing of their Indigenous culture.This potential contradiction is recognised in the MYCEETYA Report (1995:4) the National Strategy for the Education ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Island Peoples, which states that Indigenous Australians require an education, which enahles them to achieve their cultural and academic potential in Indigenous terms as well as in mainstream academic and technological skills.Herbert, et al., (2000:4)  This suggests an education focus on the economic needs of Western (capitalist) societies, as well as the need for predominantly mono-culturalism.
Bordieu's theorising throws light on this relationship between economic and cultural power.
Accumulated cultural power begins in early childhood when children learn the 'right' way to dress, the 'right' way to speak', particularly in responses to adults and so on, An incident, which occurred in the school we were researching, illustrates this.A girl student, about year 3, came into the library and asked the Librarian very shyly "Can 1 have a book'!"The Librarian replied "No.May [ have a Book please, Ms F ..." The researchers had heard this child speaking in her own language outside the library only a few minutes before, in very powerful ways.However, her power was completely diminished and even eliminated as soon as she entered the Library because she did not know the 'codes', that is the rules of the game.These 'codes' and rules are generally referred to in the literature as 'social capital' .
'Social capital' is defined by the Centre for Research and Learning in Regional Australia as a key component in managing change (Kilpatrick and Abbolt-Chapman, 2002).However, the acquisition of social capital depends very largely, according to the theorising of Bordieu (1977;Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1991) on the congruence of individual and institutional cultural capital.The hegemony of particular cultural capital (knowledges, language, shared values, beliefs etc) as the most desirable social capital gives symbolic power to particular socially and economically constructed groups.Much of this symbolic power is acquired through the education system, to those who come into the system with the kind of knowledge and values that are valued by the school.Those whose values/belief systems are not consistent with those of the school will have to battle against the system, to use parents' terminology, (Munns, 1998:178) or be failed by the system of education they are attempting to access.
Teachers involved in this project were aware of the dilemmas inherent in the question of 'social capital'.For example, one teacher commented: We as school teachers sort of expect, with children coming from English-speaking background or non-Aboriginal backgrounds, that they've got a lot ofskills before they come to school, a lot ofschool skills.Whereas a lot ofthese students have other

,.
There is recognition here that such 'codes' need to be taught.However, incorporated in the teaching of these 'codes' can be an ideology of obedience, of deference for anyone in authority, recognition of some knowledges as superior to others etc.For Aboriginal children, obedience to white authority may not be one of the survival or cultural skills the child has learnt through interactions with family and community.The National Review ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education (1995) suggests that learning at school is not a culturally neutral activity.If as Bordieu suggests, a function of schooling is to legitimise the dominant culture, then children coming to school from families who have and pass on to their children the required cultural capital, benefit from schooling.Such cultural capital may include a top-down model of instruction, which fosters respect for authority, the knowledge of experts, discipline and good work habits.

Leaving it at the gate -a necessary part of the cnltural crossover
For Aboriginal children to succeed at school, ways of being in the Aboriginal community may have to be "left at the gate".This creates a definitive break with community knowledge to take up the 'official' knowledge of schooling.The movement from home to school and from school to home again can have particular meanings for Aboriginal students and can illustrate the separation of school and Aboriginal community.All students bring particular things to school, i.e. family language, cultural ways of doing things, particular ways of thinking about the world and how it is constructed and where they fit into it, what happened last night or this morning.They also take home from school a variety of information and meanings.These can reinforce or contradict community or family knowledge and meanings.The many sets of skills, knowledge and meanings may converge or they may come together in a partial way or they may not come together at all.Where there is little or no convergence at all there may be resistance to socialisation into the milieu of the school.Human agency manifesting itself as resistance is recognised in The Coolangatta Statement (1993).
Aboriginal people recognise that education, whether it is rural or urban cited, is a potential source of collective empowerment.However, education structured as schooling also has the potential to deny Indigenous people their heritage.

Education in Rural Australia,VoL13 (1) ... 48
The project: some findings for discussion A primary aim of this project was to listen actively to all key stakeholders in the educational process, ,.
particularly to Indigenous parents and Elders of the Aboriginal community, and to teachers and administrators at the Area School.Additionally, a number of services are resident and/or active, or have recently been active in the area including FAVS, Centrelink, ATSIC funded services, CDEP as well as the Crime Prevention Unit of the Attorney General's Office and the Aboriginal Services Division of the Department of Human Services.The research team consulted with these agencies, with members of the Indigenous community, with a small group of teachers at the local Area school, and with other service providers in the community.
Our aim was to draw upon the expertise of these diverse groups, to acknowledge their very different cultural perspectives and to try to find the commonalities as well as the differences in order to promote a more holistic approach to addressing the problem: how might key people in the community work together to improve the educational experiences of Aboriginal students?What starting points for changing unproductive relations, processes and programs (as evidenced by the high exit rates) can be designed together so that Indigenous youth can experience education as both personally meaningful and culturally satisfying?
As part of the consultative process that was central to Stage One of this project, we sought to listen closely to different groups' responses to three key questions.Each of the groups who participated in these consultations was asked to speak about: a) what they thought worked to keep Aboriginal children and young people involved in school, (i.e., What helps Aboriginal kids learn?What's good about school?What's keeping the kids at school?); b) why so many Aboriginal young people do not engage with or participate in educational experiences, i.e., concerns about current practices; and c) ideas for improving the educational opportunities for Indigenous children and young people within the local community.Elsewhere (Sanderson & Allard, in press) we discuss the methodological issues that emerged for us as we endeavoured to listen actively.
The research process was initiated in early 2001.In June, after two consultative trips to the region, we circulated an 'Interim Report' on the preliminary findings and our analysis, and returned again to gain feedback from all participants before completing the Final Report on the project in August, 2001.
For the purpose of this paper, and in order to explore the ways that knowledge/power relations are played out in cross cultural communications, and the ways in which a sense of 'community' can Education in Rural Australia, Vol. 13 (1) .. .49operate as an exclusionary rather than a connective process, we will focus On two issues that emerged in our discussions with key participants in the project: a) the 'issue' of 'small classes'; and b) the question of how and where Aboriginal parents might participate in their children's education.
Each of these issues seem to exemplify key differences between the ways in which Aboriginal parents understood schooling practices and the ways that teachers understood these.Firstly, that of 'small groups'.Making sense of these depended on who we spoke to.For example, the following is a discussion that took place with four Aboriginal mothers in response to the question 'So what do you think the school needs to do to help kids, to give them a spurt on?' 1 think they need to assess them early like give them Cl test on their ability, so that they can read and write at a very early age.They don't do that.
They do assess them, but they don't follow through, which is not fair and they're always It might sound like we're criticizing the school but all we want is learning.
We want the support we need.
We have beenputting this across to meetings and that- [. ..j We would prefer them all in the mainstream.We should have got [names another mother} in here too because she's one ofthe mothers who has her child in special class and that child has been there so long, Every year and she is getting pretty sick and tired of it.Why is she still in that class?1: How old is she?About 9 or 10.So they should be taking her out of there and putting her into the mainstream classes now.[Interview Aboriginal mothers,March,200 I] Alternately, and in response to the question, 'What's working well for Aboriginal students?' one ofthe teachers involved in setting up this program said: One of the things that seem to be going really well as jar as getting our kids to school and the kids to interact with each other and they really enjoy that, that sort ofsmall group ofstaffand, yeah, a sense ofsort ofbelonging 1suppose and a sense ofownership, having that class instead ... The idea of the small classes, they're basically-initially it was sort of special education classes but a lot of them, the children in them, the only thing lacking is their attendance since early years and that's why they are so Jar behind.So they sort of do more intensive literacy, numeracy ...And last year, Jour or five oJ our students who had been in a [small] class in the 6 to 9 (age group) actually went back into mainstream.So they had sort ofcaught up, you know, a fair bit in that time with the intensive thing ... [. ..] flooked at some statistics only a couple ofweeks ago on children in [small classes] f made a statement in the school report that fJelt that the small classes had certainly had an impact on the attendance and the principal said 'Well, I'll need statistics' so 1 looked upfive or so children.And one who'd had 90 unexplained absences for the year before had gone down to 14 [absences].And there were five children who had a very similar pattern.There was one child flooked at who'd-hers was not as good but there were lots oJfamily sort oJ issues going on with that particular child so ... (Interview with teacher, March, 2001).
Two different conversations concerning the same topic seem to be happening here, How do we 'make sense' of these very different narratives?How do we 'read' these different interpretations of what is (not) working for Aboriginal children as regards 'small classes'?
The very different views concerning 'small classes' presented by the Aboriginal mothers compared to that of the teacher is suggestive to us of a lack of cross-cultural communication, The main purpose of the 'small classes' according to the teacher seemed to be to give the Aboriginal children a 'sense of belonging' and of 'identification' in order for them to feel comfortable enough to want to attend school, Keeping the Aboriginal children together in small groups, rather than 'spreading' them across mainstream classes was a means of helping them 'adjust' to schooling, Intensive work on literacy and numeracy was part of these classes but not the main reason for their existence.That the small classes

and
Education in Rural Australia, Vat 13 (1) ... 43• Implement culturally sensitive teaching methodologies, which are based upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' preferred ways of leaming as well as explicitly teaching them strategies from mainstream schooling.
recognise the socialising intent of compulsory education.In this historical context, State controlled schools were expected to transmit the beliefs and values of mainstream Education in Rural Australia, VoJ. 13 (1) ",46 f,.culture.It was recognised that legislation making education compulsory gave the State through schooling, 'access not just to children, but also to working class families through the schooling oftheir children.' skills but not necessarily [those] related to school...So they start offsort ofbehind Educationin Rural Australia,VoL 13 (1) ... 47 the eight ball but they've got a lot ofother things to offer.And even just things like being able to understand what classroom rules are and things like that, it will take them longer to adapt to classroom situations ...
putting them in special classes which we do not want our children in the special class.I don't know why they have the special class in the beginning.They thin them out.They don't put them in mainstream classes.1: Right.Why do they have the 'special classes '? Special classes like for those children to catch up, but the special classes offers them more activities rather than giving them curriculum work-all the English and Maths and all that kind ofstuff-education work.[. ..} A special class for me, like when 1 was going to school in [names regional city).they were the children that had a disability problem, not children that, you know, that's what you call a 'special class ', But today, they're just putting children in special classes just so they can-i-their education-it's too low.The kids are only going thatfar -ifthey can do what they want.They have more free time rather than getting down to the serious business ofeducation.[ ...J Education in Rural Australia,Vo!.13 (1) ... 50 They've got two big girls in the class and all the little ones sitting in it.Year 8s and 9s and primary school kids.Grade 3 and 4.
of being just one or two or three students in another class.[The small classes} are their classes so they've got a sense ofidentification.A lot of these students have other skills but not necessarily related to school.Like some of them have never seen, you know, maybe haven't got any books and things at home.So they Education in Rural Australia, Vol. 13 (1) ... 51 start offsort of behind the eight ball but they've got a lot oJ other things to offer.Even just things like being able to understand what classroom rules are and things like that, you know, that will often take [hem longer to adapt to classroom situations...we do sort of lots oJ small group work with 'the Aboriginal students.