Examining remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boarding through capital theory lenses

Year: 2017

Author: Guenther, John, Fogarty, William

Type of paper: Abstract refereed

Abstract:
Boarding schools and residential facilities for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have long been part of the educational landscape in Australia. More recently, policy settings are giving considerably more attention to boarding schools and residential colleges as secondary schooling options for Indigenous students, particularly for those students from remote areas. Coupled with this, the contemporary Indigenous education milieu is seeing increased investment in scholarship programs, provision of transition support services and the establishment of national boarding standards.

There is an emerging body of qualitative evidence about the experiences and outcomes of boarding for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. However, in Australia there are no publicly available studies showing quantitative impacts of boarding and there has been little attention applied to domestic or international experiences.

In this paper, the authors consider boarding using three capital theory lenses: social/cultural capital (based on Bourdieu), human capital (based on Becker), and identity capital (based on Erikson). What light do these different theoretical perspectives shed on the development of boarding school policies and the operationalisation of processes designed to take young people away from their homes and communities for schooling? How do these theoretical lenses magnify, distort or clarify the assumptions that underpin boarding processes? Using these lenses we intend to go beyond an understanding of impact on individuals towards a more nuanced consideration of the possible social, cultural, health and wellbeing consequences of pursuing boarding as a strategic policy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in Australia.

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