Roger Bourne

MPhil(SpEduc)(Sydney) PhD candidate

Email: Phone: +61 2 9351  6355 Fax: +61 2 9351  2606 Building.Room: A35.532

Keywords

Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, Indigenous Education, sociology of education, Literacy

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Research project description

Roger Bourne plans to continue to collect the educational life stories of Australian Aboriginal people to be informed about their experience of education and Aboriginality.

The qualitative methodology of Emancipatory Research allows the researcher to adopt a reflexive gaze on the data and to enter into the shoes of the other. This process has given Roger an insight into their perspective on education and the socializing influences of post colonial Australian education.

Talking with Aboriginal people has convinced Roger that his educational intentions have been devoid of an awareness of their experience and perspective. Just as British colonial policy declared Australia to be empty of occupants (terra nullius) and moved into the country and land as if into unpopulated space, so Roger is beginning to realise he has approached Aboriginal people as if they live in a cultural vacuum that needs to be filled with the educational outcomes and objectives sanctioned by our educational system.

Roger's benevolent intentions and ignorance of their life experiences and culture has been challenged by adopting a reflexive position toward the Aboriginal people that he has been privileged to interview.

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Thesis work

Project title	Degree	Supervisor
An ethnomethodological and conversational analysis of the aboriginal episteme and its impact on education.	PhD	Professor Peter Freebody

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