Students' social backgrounds, their cognitive development at school and its assessment are three inter-related educational issues. They apply as much to mathematics as any other subject. The history of mathematics education has been largely one of formal pedagogies justified by decontextualised knowledge and skills. This presents a significant challenge for educators who advocate learner-directed pedagogies which contextualise knowledge and skill. This is also a major issue for Aboriginal education, where students' social backgrounds engender unique educational needs. The following article reflects on some recent research and identifies some specific implications for an Aboriginal homework centre.

In general, education in Australia is dominated by an out-of-date worldview that encourages fragmentation and actively excludes the philosophical views of its Aboriginal Australian students. Despite growing support for the principles and practice of equal opportunity and multi-culturalism, for Aboriginal Australians to benefit from education they are left with little choice but to participate in teaching programs that devalue or ignore their cultural identity. To meet the needs of students, education must undergo a philosophical transformation that makes the structure and content of academic programs more culturally sensitive and flexible. All students need to develop cross-cultural skills, including ways of thinking in terms of interconnectedness and cultural relativity within the dominant culture. Students need to be prepared to work within differing cultural paradigms and to have an understanding of the philosophical diversity of Australia's cultural context.

This paper discusses the importance of examining the behaviours of non-Aboriginal educators, rather than Aboriginal students, when attempting to evaluate the performance of Aboriginal students in urban secondary schools. It acknowledges that endemic problems exist and that the perceptions and actions of non-Aboriginal educators may be contributing factors. The paper considers some established discourse in this area and refers to two specific programs which commenced operation in a Darwin secondary school in 1994, and in which the author was directly involved.

This paper addresses issues related to the conflicting paradigms of Western systems of knowledge and Indigenous systems of knowledge within the context of teaching about gender and music in Indigenous Australian women's performance practice. I will first describe the subject which I am currently teaching at the University of Queensland. I will then discuss the theoretical concerns related to teaching about gender and music in terms of the differences between Western and Indigenous ways of knowing about these concepts. I will then examine the conflicts which arise in the context of teaching Indigenous studies within a non-Indigenous framework. Finally, conclusions will be drawn in regard to the reconciling the differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing and the implications for teaching this type of curriculum on an international scale.

Since the 1970s considerable human effort and fiscal resources have been expended on improving the provision of education for Australian Indigenous peoples. The success or failure of such efforts and resources allocations is not clear and requires research. What is clear is that there has been an impact on the educational outcomes of Australian Indigenous peoples duringthis time. Indeed, there have been enormous advances in some areas and minor in other.