From Attendance Crisis to Participation Crisis
Reframing the Indigenous Attendance Problem
Ian Mackie
Assistant Director General
Indigenous Education and Training Futures
The Need for Innovation
The Equilibrium
The Four Pillars of Innovation
• Dynamics of Recognition
• Connectedness
• Principles of Persuasion for
Principals
• The Service Guarantee
Where are we?
Data show us Indigenous education has been in a longterm equilibrium.
This equilibrium has been marked by:
– low expectations and aspirations among students,
communities and teachers
– low student achievement
– low student attendance
– high student and community marginalisation, suffering
and poverty.
Attendance
Year
Indigenous
Non-Indigenous
Gap
2006
86.0
92.6
6.6
2007
85.4
92.3
6.9
2008
84.4
91.7
7.3
2009
83.9
91.3
7.4
2010
84.8
91.5
6.8
2011
84.5
91.4
7.0
Regimes of punishment
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Exclusion
811
804
943
931
1030
Cancellation
327
367
529
816
1114
Long
suspension
4926
5819
6794
7390
7086
Queensland Department of Education
Training and Employment
Data warehouse www.deta.qld.gov.au
Why attendance is important
Indigenous Education Achievement
Reasons for Attendance Crisis
•
Poor or hostile parental and carer attitudes towards school
•
Poor societal support or an insufficient valuing of education
•
Poor teaching & inconsistent attitudes and policies towards non-attendance
•
Poor Governmental support in terms of lenient application of the law;
unsuitable curriculum and little provision for alternative schooling arrangements
•
Poor attitudes among the children in terms of the presence of bullying, peer pressure
to skip school, poor self-esteem and lack of career aspirations
•
Poor jurisdictional strategies and policies
•
Poverty and unemployment and economic stagnation
•
Culture gap between boys and girls, rise of sub-cultures
•
Problems in research – little evidence of what works (Adapted from Purdie & Buckley,
2010, p. 3).
Truancy in NSW; Iemma Govt 2008
Part Two Innovation & Dynamics of Recognition
Recognition &
Identity
The Differentiated Other
Same
Other
Trace Resource Exotic Comical Pitiable Resented Feared/Despised
•Consumer Producer Fascinating Erotic
The Feared/Despised Other
The Resented Other
We now have a situation where a type of
reverse racism is applied to
mainstream Australians by those who
promote political correctness and
those who control the various taxpayer
funded "industries" that flourish in our
society servicing Aboriginals,
multiculturalists and a host of other
minority groups. In response to my call
for equality for all Australians, the most
noisy criticism came from the fat cats,
bureaucrats and the do-gooders.
Pauline Hanson Maiden Speech – Hansard
The Pitiable Other
Comical Other
The Exotic/Erotic Other
Other as resource
Other as Trace
The Other as Resource & The shape of
Australia
Indigenous Australia
Bernard Salt: The Australian May 26, 2011
• Net overseas migration… peaked at a historic
316,000 in the year to December 2009
• Dropped to 177,000 the following (election) year.
• The net overseas migration assumption required
to deliver the big Australia 180,000.
• We seem to have settled on a trajectory that will
deliver the big Australia's 36 million by midcentury.
David Uren: The Australian, May 06, 2011
If Australia stopped all migration, its population would still
grow by 1.1 million over the next 10 years from natural
growth:
•The numbers of working age would rise by only 21,000.
•The numbers aged 65 and over would rise by 944,000.
Part Three
Connectedness
Defining Connectedness
The extent to which community, family, & students feel
personally:
• accepted,
• respected,
• included and
• supported
by others in the school environment (based on Goodenow,
1993, p. 80)
The Connectedness Paradigm
Build the connected:
Student
Family
•
•
•
•
Child
Family
School
Community
School
Community
What’s so good about Connectedness?
Helps with students’:
Helps Prevent:
•Violence
•academic motivation, academic
achievement,
•Alcohol & drug abuse
•quality retention,
•Risk behaviours
•emotional & mental health
Part Four
Principals of
Persuasion
Principal as Persuader/ Compliance Professional
Architects of Nudge Theory:
Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein
Nudge Defined
A nudge is any aspect of the choice architecture that
alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way
Automatic System (Humans)
Is rapid and feels instinctive
• Gives us:
• Gut reactions
– the power of inertia
– The tyranny of the
default setting
Reflective system (Econs)
•
More deliberate and self
conscious;
•
E.g. converting speed of
delivery in metric into
imperial measure;
•
Speaking a foreign language
(Reflective);
•
Speaking native language
(Automatic);
Choice Architect
A choice architect has the
responsibility for organizing
the context in which people
make decisions
Loss adverse
We are loss adverse
•
People are twice as keen to keep
something than they are to gain the
same thing.
•
E.g. UK Govt back down on
privatisation of forests. People didn’t
want to lose their forests.
•
Can we persuade parents & students
that schooling is something they own
and so should not lose?
•
One day of schooling is worth about
$60. Don’t lose it.
Sinful goods
• Immediate benefit
• Later costs
Standard non-attendance letter
This letter:
Approved by lawyers
Threatens a fine
Is disconnected from
the psychology of
change
Language is complex
Compliance value?
Possible nudges: Loss adverseness
Ian has lost 10 days of his
schooling this term.
Lee’s attendance is above the
state average.
If he loses a lot of days then he
will probably lose the chance
to get a good job.
Well done.

Every day counts.
.

Every day counts
From the Mackie Persuasion Matrix
Reciprocity:
be the first to
give
Authority/
Source
Credibilitylook
professional
Consistency/
get them to
commit
publicly
Relativity:
Of coffins &
Hearing Aids
Scarcity
Liking
Get them to
like you
Social Norms
Everyone is
saying ‘yes”: I
must too.
Ego
In the Marriott Narrative
Hotel
transportation
Part Five Innovation & the Service guarantee
LEL
The Toxic Pipe Line
Disconnected→ Dropout→Prison
By the time they are in their 30s
some 52% of Afro-Americans
have been in jail.
http://www.aclu.org/schoolprison-pipeline-game
The Virtuous Pipeline
Connected→ Retained → Educated →
Job
Which Future-in the Present?
From Hattie 1:What we need
• Remove any disparities between schools and between
ethnicity achievements
• Ensure all have adequate resources and teaching to
attain appropriate outcomes
• Further reduce competition between schools. Encourage
sharing
• Allow schools to become the major unit of evaluation
• Measure success more in terms of teaching & learning
effects
From Hattie 2: What good teachers do
• Establish clear learning
intentions
• Provide challenging
success criteria
• Employ a range of
learning strategies
• Know when students are
not progressing
• Provide feedback
• Visibly learn themselves
From Hattie 3: Such that students…
• Understand what the
learning intentions are
• Are challenged by success
criteria
• Develop a range of
learning strategies
• Know when they are not
progressing
• Seek feedback
• Visibly teach themselves