Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Ad Borsboom
- Contents
- Maradjiri and Mamurrng: Ad Borsboom and Me
- Conversations with Mostapha: Learning about Islamic Law in a Bookshop in Rabat
- Education in Eighteenth Century Polynesia
- From Knowledge to Consciousness: Teachers, Teachings, and the Transmission of Healing
- When ‘Natives’ Use What Anthropologists Wrote: The Case of Dutch Rif Berbers
- The Experience of the Elders: Learning Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Netherlands
- On Hermeneutics, Ad’s Antennas and the Wholly Other
- Bontius in Batavia: Early Steps in Intercultural Communication
- Ceremonies of Learning and Status in Jordan
- Al Amien: A Modern Variant of an Age-Old Educational Institution
- Yolngu and Anthropological Learning Styles in Ritual Contexts
- Learning to Be White in Guadeloupe
- Learning from ‘the Other’, Writing about ‘the Other’
- Maori Styles of Teaching and Learning
- Tutorials as Integration into a Study Environment
- The Transmission of Kinship Knowledge
- Fieldwork in Manus, Papua New Guinea: On Change, Exchange and Anthropological Knowledge
- Bodily Learning: The Case of Pilgrimage by Foot to Santiago de Compostela
- Just Humming: The Consequence of the Decline of Learning Contexts among the Warlpiri
- A Note on Observation
- Fragments of Transmission of Kamoro Culture (South-West Coast, West Papua), Culled from Fieldnotes, 1952-1954
- Getting Answers May Take Some Time… The Kugaaruk (Pelly Bay) Workshop on the Transfer of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit from Elders to Youths, June 20 - 27, 2004
- Conflict in the Classroom: Values and Educational Success
- The Teachings of Tokunupei
- Consulting the Old Lady
- A Chain of Transitional Rites: Teachings beyond Boundaries
- ‘That Tour Guide – Im Gotta Know Everything’: Tourism as a Stage for Teaching ‘Culture’ in Aboriginal Australia
- The Old Fashioned Funeral: Transmission of Cultural Knowledge
Conflict in the Classroom: Values and Educational Success
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 January 2021
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Ad Borsboom
- Contents
- Maradjiri and Mamurrng: Ad Borsboom and Me
- Conversations with Mostapha: Learning about Islamic Law in a Bookshop in Rabat
- Education in Eighteenth Century Polynesia
- From Knowledge to Consciousness: Teachers, Teachings, and the Transmission of Healing
- When ‘Natives’ Use What Anthropologists Wrote: The Case of Dutch Rif Berbers
- The Experience of the Elders: Learning Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Netherlands
- On Hermeneutics, Ad’s Antennas and the Wholly Other
- Bontius in Batavia: Early Steps in Intercultural Communication
- Ceremonies of Learning and Status in Jordan
- Al Amien: A Modern Variant of an Age-Old Educational Institution
- Yolngu and Anthropological Learning Styles in Ritual Contexts
- Learning to Be White in Guadeloupe
- Learning from ‘the Other’, Writing about ‘the Other’
- Maori Styles of Teaching and Learning
- Tutorials as Integration into a Study Environment
- The Transmission of Kinship Knowledge
- Fieldwork in Manus, Papua New Guinea: On Change, Exchange and Anthropological Knowledge
- Bodily Learning: The Case of Pilgrimage by Foot to Santiago de Compostela
- Just Humming: The Consequence of the Decline of Learning Contexts among the Warlpiri
- A Note on Observation
- Fragments of Transmission of Kamoro Culture (South-West Coast, West Papua), Culled from Fieldnotes, 1952-1954
- Getting Answers May Take Some Time… The Kugaaruk (Pelly Bay) Workshop on the Transfer of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit from Elders to Youths, June 20 - 27, 2004
- Conflict in the Classroom: Values and Educational Success
- The Teachings of Tokunupei
- Consulting the Old Lady
- A Chain of Transitional Rites: Teachings beyond Boundaries
- ‘That Tour Guide – Im Gotta Know Everything’: Tourism as a Stage for Teaching ‘Culture’ in Aboriginal Australia
- The Old Fashioned Funeral: Transmission of Cultural Knowledge
Summary
In 2004 I conducted fieldwork in a Central Australian Aboriginal community. The decision to complete my degree in cultural anthropology by means of research in Australia was inspired by the enthusiasm with which Ad Borsboom had always lectured about the Pacific. Under Borsboom's supervision, I examined why the educational results of Indigenous Australian children at ‘remote’ community schools still fall behind those achieved by their non-Aboriginal peers of the same age. Several studies, carried out by Australian governments and scholars, have concluded that the achievement of equitable and appropriate educational outcomes still has a long way to go (MCEETYA 2001).
Researchers have produced several theories to explain impediments to Aboriginal school success. These theories range from distinctive learning styles (Christie 1986; Hughes 2004) to Aboriginal resistance (Folds 1987). Other scholars have held the supposed supremacy of Western values over values of Indigenous children responsible for Indigenous children's poor performance at school (Hewitson 1982).
This paper considers a different and frequently disregarded dimension of value conflicts in Aboriginal classrooms. Instead of examining the negative influence of Western values underlying the curriculum on Indigenous students, I focus on non-Indigenous teachers’ experiences of and responses to value conflicts. I contend that value conflicts affect non-Indigenous teaching staff to such an extent, that their ability to teach is effectively constrained. As a consequence, Indigenous children's school results are negatively influenced.
Values in the Classroom
The Aboriginal school for primary and secondary education where I conducted my fieldwork between October and December 2004 had fifty-two children enrolled at the time. These students were divided over four classes. Although the school's staff included four Aboriginal Education Assistants and one Aboriginal teacher, non-Indigenous teachers taught the majority of lessons. Before discussing the interaction between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal values in the school's classrooms, I will define the concept of values. In my thesis I employ Aspin's (2002: 16) definition of values. He states that:
Values are those ideas, conventions, principles, rules, objects, products, activities, procedures or judgments that people accept, agree to, treasure, cherish, prefer, incline towards, see as important and indeed act upon. Such things they make objects of admiration, high levels of aspiration, standards of judgment, prescriptions for action, norms of conduct or goals of endeavor in their lives and commend them so to others.
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- Cultural Styles of Knowledge TransmissionEssays in Honour of Ad Borsboom, pp. 133 - 138Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2009