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Spaces for learning: policy and practice for indigenous languages in a remote context

Disbray, Samantha (2016). Spaces for learning: policy and practice for indigenous languages in a remote context. Language and Education,30(4):317-336.

Document type: Journal Article
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IRMA ID 84278914xPUB51
Title Spaces for learning: policy and practice for indigenous languages in a remote context
Author Disbray, Samantha
Journal Name Language and Education
Publication Date 2016
Volume Number 30
Issue Number 4
ISSN 0950-0782   (check CDU catalogue  open catalogue search in new window)
Scopus ID 2-s2.0-84949553356
Start Page 317
End Page 336
Total Pages 20
Place of Publication United Kingdom
Publisher Routledge
Field of Research 130301 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education
HERDC Category C1 - Journal Article (DIISR)
Abstract Bilingual and Indigenous language and culture programmes have run in remote Australian schools with significant and continuing local support. Developments such as the new national Indigenous languages curriculum offer a further opportunity to broaden and sustain Indigenous language teaching and learning activities in these schools. However, over the last two decades, increasing government attention to poor outcomes on national standardised literacy and numeracy assessments has markedly restricted the scope for Indigenous languages. This paper draws on a model of ideological and implementational spaces to discuss competing discourses in top-down and bottom-up policy. Data from an ethnographic study on education stakeholders in remote locations in Australia's Northern Territory revealed incongruities between local discourses that emphasise bi- and multilingualism, local identity and knowledge and community language maintenance and institutional discourses, which foreground a uniform model of education, with English literacy the dominant measure of educational success. The study also revealed that principals, teachers, and community members in some schools work together to develop vibrant, though often fragile, programmes. In addition to this, community members outside school systems are increasingly finding and taking up the spaces that allow innovative Indigenous language and cultural teaching and learning.
Keywords Indigenous languages
Indigenous education
bilingual education
language policy
ethnography of language policy
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2015.1114629   (check subscription with CDU E-Gateway service for CDU Staff and Students  check subscription with CDU E-Gateway in new window)
 
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Created: Tue, 26 Jul 2016, 13:01:14 CST