Jindaola, an Aboriginal way for curriculum development

Introduction

At a political level, the fact that Indigenous Australia has not yet experienced any constitutional or treaty recognition makes it difficult to imagine how reconciliation between the cultural realities of its Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples may be achieved. And while it has been recognized that Australia’s educational system plays a critical role in this process, attempts to reconcile the curriculum within academic institutions continue to pose complex challenges. From an Aboriginal perspective, the Australian higher education curriculum is steeped in British colonialism – dominated by Anglo-perspectives and Western academic values. This is despite the fact that the curriculum is located on Aboriginal Country and a continent with the longest surviving sustainable human history. Commonly, approaches to embedding Indigenous Knowledges and perspectives into curricula tend to be achieved through prescribed cultural competency frameworks or predefined modules of content...