Abstract

This talk will be focusing on Indigenous educational disadvantage in Australia. The speaker’s research builds on an initial intention to convey to some extent what it is like being an Indigenous student at an Australian high school in New South Wales. While still at tentative stage, the presentation seeks to highlight some of the key points that emerged from interviews with Indigenous students who signify a site of disjuncture between policy discourse framing the educational ‘gap’ between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians and the experience of those who potentially inhabit it. Lilly asserts that Indigenous ‘disadvantage’ has been positioned in a way that disconnects it from its historical inception and situates it as external to the social universe of non-Indigenous Australians. She will also briefly touch upon some of the methodological challenges she has encountered so far, particularly relating to the complexities and responsibilities that characterize her own position as an Indigenous researcher in education undertaking research with Indigenous students.