Why does education continue to dominate key priority areas in state and federal policy making directed at Indigenous disadvantage? What is Indigenous Studies and who is it for? This course provides an introduction to the discipline area of Indigenous education in Australia. Indigenous Education develops an understanding of how discourses of culture, identity and difference have shaped Australian education systems. Emerging from this understanding, contemporary pedagogy and curricula approaches in Indigenous education and historical ‘continuities and discontinuities’ are examined. Through structured intellectual engagements students are encouraged to evaluate the principles, scope and aims of past and present models in relation to prevailing concerns dominating this field. Students are able to focus their assessment work in an area of professional interest. Taken with 'ATSI2014 Indigenous People and Policy' students are given an opportunity to consider the impact of colonisation at two sites of convergence and how they rupture continuity and connection to knowledge systems that have evolved over thousands of years.