Influences on senior schooling pathway choices of first nations students from remote communities

Influences on senior schooling pathway choices of first nations students from remote communities

When preparing to enter the senior years of secondary education, Australian students choose whether to undertake a vocational or an academic pathway. For all students, this decision-making process is complex, and existing research suggests even more so for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from remote communities studying at boarding schools away from their homes and families. By drawing on critical theory to conduct this qualitative study, the voices of past students who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander were centred while investigating the senior schooling pathway choices made by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from remote communities at Queensland boarding schools. The past student experiences were triangulated with a focus group interview with select staff at a Queensland boarding school, and my own autoethnographic reflections. The findings of the thematic content analysis was further augmented through a process of descriptive statistics to summarise publicly accessible data. The key finding that emerged from this study was that First Nations students from remote communities are more likely to undertake a non-academic pathway in their senior years at boarding schools in Queensland despite the possibility that this choice does not align with their genuine pathway preferences. Historical and hegemonic constructs continue to permeate the education system, and unless change occurs at a systemic level, individual staff or school-based initiatives will not result in shifts in available opportunities for First Nations students to freely select from either an academic or a non-academic pathway.

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