Education Commons^™

Professional Pathways Of Aboriginal Early Childhood Teachers: Intersections Of Community, Indigeneity, And Complexity, Alma Fleet, Kerrie Wechmann, Ryan Whitworth

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Little information is available about the employment trajectories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander peoples pursuing university professional qualifications. This article describes a context in which cultural space, issues of identity, pragmatics of employment, family and community and a bureaucratic regulatory environment intersect to create scenarios that are multi-facetted and layered in complexity. As has been demonstrated clearly in other arenas (Richardson & Watt, 2006), the move towards professional teacher education qualification is not linear or straightforward. To add to the knowledge base in this area, the focus in this study is on university graduates of a teacher education degree …