Critical Indigenous Studies as a Framework for Decolonising Australian Initial Teacher Education

Australian initial teacher education (ITE) is required to ensure graduate teachers have understanding and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) histories, cultures and languages. The Uluru Statement from the Heart impels educators to support truth-telling about settler-colonialism in ways that these graduate standards aspire, despite the recent, unsuccessful referendum in 2023 to recognize First Australians in the Constitution (On October 14th, 2023, Australians voted on “A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?”. More than 60% of Australians voted no, with the majority of yes votes coming from capital cities and Indigenous communities (Nathanael Scott, Sydney Morning Herald, 15th October, 2023). As initial teacher educators, we ask “how do future teachers engage in truth-telling without a robust framework for doing so?” We postulate that non-Indigenous and Indigenous pre-service teachers need tools to become aware of, develop and articulate their criticality and knowledges into professional practice for an Australian curriculum which has historically ignored Indigenous knowledges. We outline Critical Race Theory (CRT), Indigenous Standpoint Theory and the Cultural Interface as underpinnings to Critical Indigenous Studies (CIS) as a way to prepare preservice teachers to be truth-tellers and future decolonisers of Australian schooling and share two vignettes of Indigenous preservice and beginning teachers leading this work from a project (McLaughlin J, Whatman S, Nielsen C, Supporting future curriculum leaders in embedding in indigenous knowledge on teaching practicum. Office for Learning and Teaching, Sydney. Australian Government, 2013) following them in their early teaching careers.