Scholarlink

<p>Most universities run outreach camps that bring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school students onto university campuses to demystify university and build and sustain student engagement with university. However, there are varying perspectives on how ‘success’ should be defined and measured in relation to these programs. The staff who run outreach camps are often under pressure from university leadership and/or sponsors to set specific targets on the numbers of Indigenous students transitioning to that specific university where the camp occurred. This highlights the ongoing tensions and juxtapositions between widening participation and university marketing agendas. In addition, there has been little published evidence drawing on the voices of Indigenous students themselves in relation to how they articulate the successes of such programs. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore: How do Indigenous students and staff who run outreach camps view ‘success’ in relation to outreach programs? And what might this mean for the evaluation of outreach programs? Drawing on findings from an Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (formerly NCSEHE) funded Equity Fellowship, this article identifies student, staff and parent/caregiver perspectives on what ‘success’ means in relation to outreach programs for Indigenous high school students. We draw on interviews with Indigenous university students who had participated in outreach programs while at school, staff who work on outreach programs, and parents/carers of students who had participated in outreach programs to explore how they articulate ‘success’ in relation to outreach programs and the need to develop more broader ‘measures of success’ for outreach programs. We argue that the markers of ‘success’ of outreach programs are multi-dimensional and should extend beyond (only) a focus on transition to university enrolment to include a fuller picture of the potential multiple ‘successes’ to include other understandings of success such as students building a sense of community with their peers and affirming and connecting to their own cultural identities.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Re-defining ‘success’ in relation to outreach programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students: centering the voices of students, staff and caregivers

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2025年2月21日

查看全文
  • Katelyn Barney,
  • Hayley Williams

摘要

Most universities run outreach camps that bring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school students onto university campuses to demystify university and build and sustain student engagement with university. However, there are varying perspectives on how ‘success’ should be defined and measured in relation to these programs. The staff who run outreach camps are often under pressure from university leadership and/or sponsors to set specific targets on the numbers of Indigenous students transitioning to that specific university where the camp occurred. This highlights the ongoing tensions and juxtapositions between widening participation and university marketing agendas. In addition, there has been little published evidence drawing on the voices of Indigenous students themselves in relation to how they articulate the successes of such programs. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore: How do Indigenous students and staff who run outreach camps view ‘success’ in relation to outreach programs? And what might this mean for the evaluation of outreach programs? Drawing on findings from an Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (formerly NCSEHE) funded Equity Fellowship, this article identifies student, staff and parent/caregiver perspectives on what ‘success’ means in relation to outreach programs for Indigenous high school students. We draw on interviews with Indigenous university students who had participated in outreach programs while at school, staff who work on outreach programs, and parents/carers of students who had participated in outreach programs to explore how they articulate ‘success’ in relation to outreach programs and the need to develop more broader ‘measures of success’ for outreach programs. We argue that the markers of ‘success’ of outreach programs are multi-dimensional and should extend beyond (only) a focus on transition to university enrolment to include a fuller picture of the potential multiple ‘successes’ to include other understandings of success such as students building a sense of community with their peers and affirming and connecting to their own cultural identities.