Exploring Transformative Learning at the Cultural Interface: Insights From Successful Aboriginal University Students

Abstract

<jats:p>Transformative learning theory articulates a process whereby students experience a change in perspectives that expands and transforms their worldview. Despite being well established and regarded within the literature relating to adult and continuing education, Mezirow's (1978) seminal education theory remains largely absent in the research relating to Indigenous higher education. This study explores the transformative impact of university learning on the student journeys of three Aboriginal graduates from a Western Australian university. Applying a collaborative auto-ethnographic approach, each author-participant's personal narrative of their student experience was exposed to comparative, thematic and critical analysis. It was found that each author had faced similar cognitive and emotional challenges at university. Significantly, it emerged that university had changed the author-participants’ identities in ways that aligned with Mezirow's transformative learning construct. The narrative data also revealed elements that appeared related to the students’ negotiation of Nakata's cultural interface. A dominant theme in the data referred to the relationships formed during university, as being integral to transformation. Furthermore, family was understood to have a paradoxical influence on their educational journey. The insights garnered from this study prompt further consideration as to how transformative learning theory might be mobilised at the cultural interface.</jats:p>

Blak, Bi+ and Borderlands: An Autoethnography on Multiplicities of Indigenous Queer Identities Using Borderland Theory

“…I am a valued and respected scholar amongst fellow Indigenous staff and have built some amazing relationships working with them on Indigenous research projects. Being accepted into the Indigenous community there helps me feel supported; a notion that has been identified in existing research which highlighted the importance of how building relationships at University is vital to success in higher education for Indigenous Australians (Hill, Winmar, & Woods, 2018).…”

Transformation at the cultural interface: Exploring the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university students

“…Indeed, a substantial body of literature deploys Nakata's theory in its analysis of the higher education sector to understand the positioning of Indigenous students within the sector, including teaching and learning, student support policy and practice. Only a small number of studies (Barney, 2013;Cameron & Robinson, 2014;Hill et al, 2020;Nakata et al, 2008;Oliver et al, 2013;Rennie, 2018) examine and engage explicitly with Indigenous students' lived experiences at the cultural interface. These studies demonstrate that the tensions Indigenous learners face at the cultural interface are multifactorial, at times paradoxical and always complex.…”

Myth-busting in an Aboriginal pre-university bridging program: Embedding transformative learning pedagogy

“…These stereotypes are often believed by Aboriginal students and can impact their academic self-efficacy and sense of belonging in educational institutions (Dandy et al, 2015). Essentialist understandings of Aboriginal identity can also lead to lateral violence within Aboriginal communities and to perceptions that Aboriginal people are "selling-out" or "turning White" by pursuing tertiary study (Hill et al, 2020).…”

“…In a collaborative autoethnographic analysis (Hill et al, 2020), three Aboriginal graduates who had transitioned through KATEC attributed their success to shifting perceptions of themselves and their world, particularly family, culture and identity. During university, they found a transformed sense of Aboriginality that was less attached to doing and more attached to being Aboriginal: You grow up thinking that Aboriginal means being poor, unemployed, not being able to look after your kids, being a drunk-it's sometimes all you see-but once you understand that this is founded in stereotypes and internalised racism, you understand that being Aboriginal is so much more-it's like you realise regardless of what you do, you're still Aboriginal.…”