Indigenous education, wellbeing and resilience – A systemic approach

Schools and other educational institutions are embraced as ideal sites for resilience intervention research because they are places where students spend so much time, and thus provide practicable intervention points to shape their opportunities and influence quality of life into the future. But schools commonly focus resilience efforts on enhancing the ability of individual students to cope and ‘bounce back’ after encountering a negative life event; these expectations can do more harm than good. Rather,schools need to take account of the need to prepare their cultures and broader environments and educators for students. Resilience interventions must be context-dependent, accounting for individuals’ attributes and the cultural, social, environmental and historical contexts in which they developed and exist. They also must ascribe significance to ethics and a power analysis as a context-sensitive point of departure. This chapter examines the concept of how resilience can be built systemically, using the case example of the transitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through the Australian education system.