Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander School Teachers and Australian Settler Colonialism: A History

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Kay Whitehead

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander School Teachers and Australian Settler Colonialism

A History

Kay Whitehead

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Hardback

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English

Routledge
11 September 2025

Social & cultural history; Colonialism & imperialism; Indigenous peoples; Anthropology; Moral & social purpose of education

Series: Routledge Studies in Educational History and Development in Asia

This book addresses the gap in our historical knowledge about the roles Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers have played in Australia's history of school education. To date, there are few references to schooling in histories of Indigenous Australians, and Australian histories of Indigenous education and teacher education omit Indigenous teachers until systemic initiatives were introduced to recruit and qualify them in the 1970s. This book reinstates and honours Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who worked as school teachers from invasion to contemporary state school systems.

The book is structured chronologically to explore Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers' lives and work in relation to settler colonial policies of segregation and protection, assimilation and self-determination; and education policy and practice. The chapters span the nineteenth century to contemporary times and show the systemic challenges Indigenous people faced in becoming qualified teachers and joining the profession. Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers from different geographic regions, communities and historical periods foreground their agency including their political activism and take account of localised cultural and education contexts.

This insightful book is recommended for upper-level undergraduates and academics in Indigenous education, history of education, teacher education and teachers' work. It will also appeal to readers with a general interest in Australian Indigenous history.

By: Kay Whitehead
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 570g
ISBN: 9781032441054
ISBN 10: 1032441054
Series: Routledge Studies in Educational History and Development in Asia
Pages: 218
Publication Date: 11 September 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Table of Contents Acknowledgements 1. ‘Yet we hear little about ... Indigenous teachers’ 2. Indigenous teachers around the British Empire 3. Reinstating Aboriginal school teachers in mid-nineteenth century settler colonial Australia 4. Eliminating Aboriginal teachers in late nineteenth century settler state school systems 5. Multilingual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers in northern Australia during the protection era 6. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers in the assimilation era 7. One thousand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers in a white profession by 1990 8. ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school teachers in the twenty-first century Index

Kay Whitehead is a historian of education whose research focus has been teachers’ lives and work for more than three decades. She has published prolifically on Australian, Canadian and British teachers from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.