About this guide

‘Indigenous education’, also sometimes referred to as ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education’ or ‘First Nations education’ has two aspects as taught in teaching degrees at QUT:

• strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students
• strategies for embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge and perspectives in curriculum.

These are inter-related in that culturally safe classrooms are evidenced by respectful incorporation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content and perspectives, enabling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to ‘see’ themselves in the learning content and processes, facilitating engagement and learning.

This Course Guide has four sections.

1. Extending your knowledge: This section has resources that provide background information about First Nations people and ways of knowing, being and doing, Australian history and contemporary First Nations lifeways.
2. Your teaching practice: These resources are specifically about teaching and learning practice in First Nations education.
3. Classroom resources: These are some of the best First Nations resources that you can use in your teaching practice.
4. Frameworks for knowing: This section is for study that requires theoretical framing.

Wherever possible, resources have been selected to privilege First Nations voices, giving expression to their experiences and knowledge in their own words and ways.

A key pedagogy in First Nations education is relational learning; we recognise we are on a learning journey together, as people engaging with the knowledge presented by authors. For this reason, it is important to know that this list was compiled by Alison Quin, a First Nations lecturer in Indigenous education in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, and she has provided the guiding text to the resources. This resource was created with library staff members Helen Batchelor and Denise Frost.