Teaching in and of itself is a difficult task fraught with obstacles to classroom success. For those who teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students these obstacles are compounded by a political atmosphere that colours every decision made within the school and indeed within education departments.

As classroom teachers it is easy to say that politics has nothing to do with teaching and pretend that it is not an issue. As convenient as this attitude may be, it is denying the facts. Indeed all teachers involved in Indigenous education must accept that their role is political. They must see that part of their task is to overcome years of institutional policy and attitude that have contributed significantly to poor educational performances for Indigenous students in Australia.

Territory-wide the government, through its Department of Education, has the unenviably difficult task of maintaining and providing education which is both equitable and accessible to a cohort of students who represent a third of its student population. While their common qualifier is that these students are ‘Indigenous,’ their disparate worldviews often only share some common features. It seems that in recent years, rather than meet these diverse needs the department has determined that the only way around the difficulty is to apply a relatively prescriptive curriculum to its remote Indigenous schools. This is evidenced by the Intensive English, Foundation and General Studies programs now in place for secondary aged students. Many (including Indigenous) educators argue that perhaps this is the only pragmatic answer.

Jo Lampert's (1996) research discussed in her article Indigenous Australian perspectives in teaching at the University of Queensland speaks volumes about the challenges of attempting to make university curricula inclusive of Indigenous Australian perspectives. She documents the often ambivalent attitudes of academics towards opening up the curriculum to Indigenous Australians. The research discussed here seeks to add to our understanding of this process, focussing this time on the response of students to the introduction of Australian Indigenous perspectives into a single unit within a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Teaching program. The impetus to reflect on the process came with the shock of reading student papers, written at the end of the unit, and finding that effective communication about the educational needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples did not seem to have taken place, making a closer analysis of the teaching/learning process imperative. This investigation will address questions abouthowuniversities can communicate effectively about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

There is growing interest and respect in the world regarding the knowledge and experience of Indigenous peoples. This is particularly so in industrialised ‘post-colonial’ societies such as Australia, which see themselves as committed to principles of equity and social justice.

There is a new political, economic and social context in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural knowledge is widely recognised and valued, even if not properly understood. In the search for a more precisely articulated national identity, Indigenous identity is claimed by many as integral to Australian identity. Coupled with this is a revised sense of coming to terms with the past, a recognition of what has been left out of histories taught from non-Indigenous perspectives. The cold war of invasion and resistance goes on but there are signs of an end in view.

This project was designed to enhance the academic success and profiles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) through increased proficiency and awareness of computer technology. The program attempted to establish a community of practice with technology, that focused on teaching and mentoring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students by supporting their use of computer technology. Prior to this project, there was no sound base of support for encouraging the use of technology with this group of students in the university and thus they were reluctant and apprehensive about its use in their studies.

Initially, we focused on the development of the students' proficiency in word processing so that they could apply their newly learned skills directly to their coursework and assessment in the specific degree that they were studying. Secondly, we introduced the students to the Internet and finally we assisted them with the location of information in the Library and from other sources. Consequently, the key notions of the project related primarily to improving the students' skills in writing, communications, and searching and accessing information.

This paper looks at the issue of culture and identity formation in the context of Aboriginal education. The paper provides a brief overview of traditional understandings of the word ‘culture’ before it examines current notions and the ways those understandings impact on the formation of identity. The paper concludes with a look at some of the implications of such understandings for the policy and practice of Aboriginal education.

Cultures of poverty represent a worldwide phenomenon of considerable topical interest. The term designates a social grouping with low socioeconomic and cultural levels (viewed from the dominant culture's perspective), and scant social and economic status. Consequently families in disadvantaged environments are subjected to adverse factors such as poverty, cultural and geograpical isolation, membership of a non-technological cultural group, physical deficiencies, and the high mobility and uprooting of families caused by migrant labour and rapid industrialisation and resultant urbanisation. Although the various social groups in cultures of poverty may differ worldwide in certain respects, they do share some of the following common indicators: low economic and social status, a low level of education, poor housing, limited privacy, insufficient or unsuitable food, inferior occupations or unemployment, limited community involvement, and a limited potential for upward social mobility. These characteristics are indicative of social groups that are caught up in a spiral or syndrome of poverty, deprivation and cultural destitution because of their disadvantaged milieu and psychosocial impediments. For this reason they are seriously handicapped in their efforts to achieve optimal self-actualisation, to improve their chances in life, and to make an invaluable, meaningful and constructive contribution to a dynamic technocratic society.