Purpose

Self-determination policies and the expansion of bilingual schooling across Australia's Northern Territory (NT) in the 1970s and 1980s provided opportunities for Aboriginal educators and communities to take control over schooling. This paper demonstrates how this occurred at Shepherdson College, a mission school turned government bilingual school, at Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island in North East, Arnhem Land, in the early years of the policies between 1972 and 1983. Yolŋu staff developed a syncretic vision for a Yolŋu-controlled space of education that prioritised Yolŋu knowledges and aimed to sustain Yolŋu existence.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses archival data as well as oral histories, focusing on those with a close involvement with Shepherdson College, to elucidate the development of a Yolŋu vision for schooling.

Findings

Many Yolŋu school staff and their supporters, encouraged by promises of the era, pushed for greater Yolŋu control over staffing, curriculum, school spaces and governance. The budgetary and administrative control of the NT and federal governments acted to hinder possibilities. Yet despite these bureaucratic challenges, by the time of the shift towards neoliberal constraints in the early 1980s, Yolŋu educators and their supporters had envisioned and achieved, in a nascent way, a Yolŋu schooling system.

Originality/value

Previous scholarship on bilingual schooling has not closely examined the potent link between self-determination and bilingual schooling, largely focusing on pedagogical debates. Instead, this paper argues that Yolŋu embraced the “way in” offered by bilingual schooling to develop a new vision for community control through control of schooling.

中文翻译：

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1972 年至 1983 年，Shepherdson 学院的双语教育、土著自决和 Yolŋu 控制

目的

自决政策和 1970 年代和 1980 年代澳大利亚北领地 (NT) 的双语教育扩展为土著教育工作者和社区提供了控制学校教育的机会。本文展示了在 1972 年至 1983 年政策实施初期，Shepherdson College 是如何发生在阿纳姆地东北部 Elcho 岛 Galiwin'ku 的教会学校转变为政府双语学校的。 Yolŋu 员工制定了一个融合的愿景为 Yolŋu 控制的教育空间，优先考虑 Yolŋu 知识并旨在维持 Yolŋu 的存在。

设计/方法/方法

本文使用档案数据和口述历史，重点关注与谢泼德森学院密切相关的人，阐明 Yolŋu 学校教育愿景的发展。

发现

许多 Yolŋu 学校工作人员及其支持者受到时代承诺的鼓舞，推动 Yolŋu 加强对人员配备、课程、学校空间和治理的控制。北领地和联邦政府的预算和行政控制阻碍了可能性。然而，尽管存在这些官僚主义挑战，到 1980 年代初转向新自由主义约束时，Yolŋu 教育家及其支持者已经以新生的方式设想并实现了 Yolŋu 学校教育系统。

原创性/价值

以前关于双语教育的奖学金并没有仔细研究自决和双语教育之间的有效联系，主要集中在教学辩论上。相反，本文认为 Yolŋu 接受了双语教育提供的“进入方式”，以通过控制学校教育来开发社区控制的新愿景。