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Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Histories And Cultures Into Classroom Curriculum

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Topic: Discuss ways of incorporating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures into classroom curriculum. In your essay you may wish to develop your ideas using the Australian Curriculum conceptual framework for embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures.

Aboriginal Studies and Torres Strait Islander Studies include histories, cultures, values, beliefs, languages, lifestyles and roles of Aboriginal societies or Torres Strait Islander societies before and after invasion. This study of Torres Strait Islander people and Aboriginal people presents an accurate history of Australia.
Indigenous Studies covers both Aboriginal Studies and Torres Strait Islander Studies by definition. Torres Strait …show more content…

The roots of the 'White Australia ' policy can be outlined to the 1850s. Until the 'White Australia 's policy was abolished in the twentieth century, Australia was officially defined as white. Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people were not considered the part of White Australia, and indigenous Studies was not required in the school curriculum. This meant schooling was culturally unsuitable for indigenous students. Furthermore, the Australian students were not educated to appreciate Indigenous cultures either in past or present. Aboriginal Studies is about social justice for all Australians -- equity, human rights, a fair go and mutual respect for our fellow Australians. It is hard to define social justice but everybody knows what it is, particularly when it is missing ( Craven, 2011, p 3).

Closing the Gap progress report based on the data from the 2006 and 2011 Censuses Year 12 completion is to ‘Halve the gap for Indigenous people aged 20-24 in year 12 attainment and this target was on track (Biddle, p 4). One of the Closing the Gap targets is to ‘halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for children with in a decade’. Progress in reading, writing and numeracy had been less positive as compared to Year 12 attainment (Biddle, p 7). Very few Indigenous students achieved the national benchmarks for Reading (e.g. for Year 3, 68.3 per cent of Indigenous students versus 93.5 per cent of

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