Strengths-Based Approaches in Indigenous Education: Research and Practice - Paperback

by Marnee Shay (Editor), Grace Sarra (Editor)

This book brings together Indigenous thinkers and scholars with Western theories and practice frameworks to propose a theory for a strengths approach to knowledge production in Indigenous education.

The text traverses disciplines and fields that have advanced strengths-based approaches in providing practitioners, researchers, and policy makers a way of reframing problems to start from a place of strength and capital. Strengths approaches have gained traction in various contexts in Indigenous education; however, this book is the first of its kind to explore the field more broadly and consider its potential for a way forward in Indigenous education. Using existing scholarship to consider how Indigenous education has been positioned in the past and present, it puts forward compelling reasons why new approaches grounded in strengths-based approaches are necessary for reimagining the possibilities for Indigenous education.

Offering a theoretically robust framework, this is an essential resource for educators, researchers, and policy makers interested in transformative action in Indigenous education.

Author Biography

Marnee Shay is an Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. She is an Aboriginal woman whose maternal family is from the Ngen'giwumirri language group. She researches in the fields of Indigenous education, policy studies, flexi schooling, and youth studies. She advocates for strengths-based approaches and the development of Indigenous-informed evidence in advancing Indigenous education.

Grace Sarra is a Professor at the School of Education in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. She is of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage from the Bindal and Birriah clan groups of the Birrigubba nation and Torres Strait Islander heritage of Mauar, Stephen, and Murray Islands. Her research work utilises Indigenous knowledges and frameworks with theoretical frameworks to contest prevailing assumptions and stereotypes that contribute to the lack of success of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in schools.