Keywords

Introduction

Leadership values,Footnote 1 understandings, and practices are not universal across cultures and contexts. Western notions of educational leadership pervade Australian schooling, where leadership is hierarchical and earned, and role-based respect is expected. By contrast, Aboriginal notions of leadership often focus on collective practice, and community visions of self-determination, governance, and agency that are inclusive of all. We believe that, to move towards a world worth living in for all, Australian schools need to be founded on deep listening and engagement with Aboriginal voices, and in a relationship with Country.Footnote 2 If school is a microcosm of society, to live well in the world of school is to create a world worth living in for all children, their families, and communities. An integral part of creating this is proposing an alternative view of leading practices and gathering empirical evidence that contests Western transformational leadership research.

This chapter uses the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis et al., 2014; for a brief introduction, see Chap. 2 in this volume) to explore how different kinds of arrangements in a site, which together form practice architectures, shape people’s practices. We see leading as a practice. This perspective contrasts with a distanced systems approach to leadership, and with individualist and instrumentalist approaches. No longer focussed upon the subjective attributes of leaders, a focus on the practices of leading explores the “happeningness” of leading within a site (Wilkinson, 2020, p. 1). A practice perspective enables us to make sense of social interactions in schools and to understand what makes new practices possible. While we acknowledge that leaders in schools have role titles, these roles also bring with them a responsibility to learn and to work with community. At the same time, we see it as necessary that leading be a shared and respectful practice between students, teachers, Aboriginal Elders, and role-titled leaders. This is part of an essential practice of respecting and connecting with community. Aboriginal voice is enabled through these deep listening practices.

The theory of practice architectures also suggests how changed arrangements, in changed practice architectures, can transform practices. The literature of transformational leadership research has some merit in its determination to change circumstances and is often touted as a key factor in educational reform (Leithwood & Jantzi, 1999). The fundamental issue with transformational leadership that limits its capacity for success in Aboriginal contexts and therefore in Australian education contexts more broadly, is its emphasis on the leader being transformational, with their followers merely following, and on speaking over listening. Adjectival leadership theories inadequately describe the practices within and between people by ignoring the practices expected of followers and by assuming that individuals can be transformational in isolation from the involvement of others who play a key role in the transformation. Further, leadership attribution theory relies on interpretations of dispositions, environment, and human behaviours which often reveal personal and cultural biases (Martinko et al., 2007). In a systematic review on leadership in Aboriginal settings,Trimmer et al. (2019) note that principals who worked collaboratively with their local Aboriginal community in relationships of trust were more likely to improve the educational learning experiences and outcomes of their students. Moreover, they observe that intercultural and collective approaches to leadership are more effective than adjectival, transformational models, because of the need to listen to Aboriginal voices and share power and authority.

This chapter explores the role of listening as a leading practice from an Indigenous standpoint within the holistic nature of working with Aboriginal peoples and communities in Country. Indigenous leading practices focus on ways of being—ontologies—where values and respect must come before knowing and doing. An ontological approach can align with the ‘being’ of practices in the theory of practice architectures. This chapter begins an exploration of how leadership practices and ontologies can be recast. Since the theory of practice architectures has previously been researched largely from a non-Indigenous perspective in Australia, we hope this exploration will also contribute an Indigenous ontological approach to the theory.

We also draw upon The Culturally Nourishing Schooling Project (CNS). This provides an empirical dimension of innovation and change. In the CNS project, the process of authentic collaboration and co-leading with Aboriginal families supports cultural identity and uses relational curriculum and pedagogical practices through Aboriginal-led teacher professional learning. The CNS research referred to in this chapter emerged from the Aboriginal Voices Project (Lowe et al., 2019a) that involved interviews and focus groups about effective schooling for Aboriginal students with Aboriginal students, parents, community members, Aboriginal Education Officers, and teachers/principals. Eleven systematic reviews analysing over 13,000 research studies in various aspects of Aboriginal education informed the CNS Project, which involves six case study schools. These schools are currently implementing whole-school reform by listening to Aboriginal community voices to develop a localised culturally nourishing schooling model focussed on Aboriginal students, families, and their communities through the project. Its purpose is to deliver improved educational, cultural, and social outcomes for all students that come from new leading practices and alternative social-political and cultural-discursive arrangements in the school sites.

The theory of practice architectures offers an avenue for exploring leadership in Aboriginal contexts that moves away from inadequate adjectival theories of leadership. It might also combat the cultural biases of attribution theory by viewing leading as a practice that happens in the intersubjective spaces between people, not just within those holding school leadership roles and titles. This opens up new possibilities for solidarity, identity, and purpose, which feature in the CNS conceptual model where Aboriginal cultural mentors, for instance, will lead culturally responsive teaching practices in classrooms. Asking what leading practices are culturally nourishing, and for whom (who leads and who participates), and what the possibilities can be in Australian schools in ongoing relationships of respect, is leading by listening.

When we mention leading practices, we are referring to practices that we see as quite distinct from the routine practices of school leaders today: where leading practices change from speaking to listening and from directing to reflecting. When we think of leading, we are exploring possibilities for turn taking by people with knowledge and cultural authority in the social spaces of the school, thus adjusting the social-political and cultural-discursive arrangements between people. Repositioning leading as practice, with listening foregrounded as an essential element, enables multiple participants in a school site to lead respectfully, including students, teachers, titled leaders, and community members. Collaborative school-community meetings that occurred prior to implementing the CNS project discussed leading practices as shared, power-equal, and informed by Aboriginal community educational aspirations for their children. Listening, respect, and reciprocity are integral to this process, and these enabling elements continue throughout the project.

Educational leadership theory and practice need to resonate with Aboriginal peoples’ understandings, aspirations, experiences, and respectful connections to community, place, and space. The ontological basis for this book project comes from the language of the Wiradjuri Australian Aboriginal people of central New South Wales: Yindyamara Winhanga-nha, a Wiradjuri phrase meaning, the wisdom of respectfully knowing how to live well in a world worth living in. This phrase, creating a world worth living in, is at the heart of research, teaching, and community collaborations at Charles Sturt University (Charles Sturt University, 2021), in a spirit of respect for the knowledge of the Wiradjuri Elders. Connecting the work of the Pedagogy, Education and Praxis international research network to the CNS project provides an opportunity to listen to Aboriginal voices to lead change, acknowledging that, in general, Australian schooling practices have not recognised the potential of Indigenous practices. The purpose of this chapter is to suggest ways in which leading practices in Australian schools can reflect Yindyamarra Winhanganha not as tokenism, but through leading by listening practices that enable respect for Aboriginal language and voices. We believe that learning from these Indigenous practices can strengthen the practice of leading at every level in Australian schooling, as well as the relationships between schools and Indigenous communities.

Author Positioning

We are non-Aboriginal academics/researchers committed to reshaping power relationships through collaborating with local Aboriginal communities to improve Aboriginal student learning experiences, community engagement, and teacher effectiveness. Catherine Burgess is a non-Aboriginal educator involved in Aboriginal education for over 35 years, as well as a parent of Aboriginal children involved in local Aboriginal community activities where this project is situated. Christine Grice is also a non-Aboriginal educator who has worked with Aboriginal colleagues on two research projects, and who also has distant Aboriginal family connections and appreciates that she is a learner and a listener in this space. Julian Wood has taught in Indigenous Education for over a decade and has also worked with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal colleagues on research into various areas in schooling and curriculum.

We are aware of our White privilege and cultural biases and so are guided by Aboriginal family, colleagues, and friends in this lifelong commitment to social justice. Positioning ourselves in research contexts is important as it acknowledges the power dynamics inherent in research settings (Shay, 2019). We acknowledge that Aboriginal sovereignty has never been ceded. As we work on Gadigal land, we believe that this place should be the focus of our efforts to reshape power relations by listening to and acknowledging that Country itself can teach us in our role as learners.

Some Contrasts Between Western and Aboriginal Perspectives on Leading

A Western View of Leadership and Leading

Western views of leadership and leading are frequently supported by a discourse of ‘hierarchy’, ‘roles’, ‘authority’, and the like. As such, the institutions of schooling reflect and operate within Western hegemonic values based on a hierarchical organisational philosophy (Ma Rhea, 2018). Western practices of leading are shaped by these cultural-discursive arrangements and by material-economic arrangements and set-ups of material objects. Material set-ups include such things as the principal’s office, the offices—frequently shared—of other staff, a shared staffroom, and the array of classrooms in which much of teaching practice occurs. These material-economic arrangements prefigure the ways different kinds of work are done, when, where, and by whom, in the school. Various kinds of social-political arrangements also shape Western practices of leading, like the hierarchical role relationships between leaders and those they are intended to lead; these role relationships are expressed in patterns of relationships of power and solidarity which prefigure the ways people relate to one another in the school.

Such arrangements together form practice architectures which prefigure the way practices of leading will be enacted in a school. They shape what people speak and think about in relation to leading (sayings), what they do in their work (doings), and how they relate to one another (relatings). Practice architectures of this kind prefigure practices of leading as reciprocal practices of directing by leaders and being directed by those who are meant to be ‘led’ (although these people who are meant to follow directions may also contest or resist or oppose directions).

School structures are organised via an alignment of power that has consistently privileged principals, teachers, and school practices over the aspirations of Aboriginal students and their communities (Burgess & Lowe, 2020). This is amplified through current policies dominated by neoliberal values of individualism, competition, and market forces which have manifested in increasing standardisation, regulation, and accountability in a culture of surveillance (Lingard et al., 2012; Reid, 2019; Stacey, 2016). This view of leading as directing is also underpinned by Western individualism. It embodies implicit expectations that leadership is performed through oratory skill, a commanding style, and a directing presence. But these expectations are not left to chance or to the fragile performances of individual leaders. They are bolstered by extensive measures formulated by governments and educational policymakers. For example, it is implicitly understood that all Australian principals are expected to have managerial oversight of government education policy, or as the Australian Professional Standard for Principals states, specifically “influencing, developing and delivering on community expectations and government policy” (AITSL, 2011, p. 6). These imperatives are not without tensions and contradictions, however. Part of the community expectation of Australian principals includes working with “members of the school community to ensure a knowledge and understanding of the traditional rights, beliefs and culture of Australia’s Indigenous peoples” (AITSL, 2011, p. 9). ‘Delivering’ policy, in this case, does not mean directing. Instead, it invites practices that are quite different from Western leadership expectations, where Indigenous knowledge and understanding are central, not peripheral.

The tendency of Western leadership to a one-size-fits-all approach often adopts vague rhetorical statements acknowledging diversity, equity, and justice. It assumes that institutional policies, structures, and practices (including leading and school decision-making) benefit all schools and all students. Yet this assumption is problematic for culturally diverse, marginalised, and ‘othered’ students (Trimmer et al., 2019) like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Ma Rhea (2018, p. 120) identifies the concept of the “colonial mind” as a way in which to examine educational leadership in terms of how leaders envision, plan, enact, and reflect on their work. This hierarchical, ‘done to’, colonial approach urgently needs to be supplemented with an alternative approach to educational leadership in Australia. What is needed is an approach that prioritises the needs of all communities to achieve intended goals. This can be achieved through approaches to leading that enable others—and leading with others—through listening and respect.

An Aboriginal View of Leadership and Leading

In Aboriginal contexts, leadership is often a collaborative process of leading by listening rather than a Western meritocratic privileging of individual attributes and notions of success. In this chapter, we use the theory of practice architectures to explore leading by listening as a practice. The theory of practice architectures has already been used to explore leading as a practice (e.g., Kemmis et al., 2014; Wilkinson & Kemmis, 2015). It explores how practices of leading are shaped by practice architectures found in or brought to a site; that is, by the particular combinations of cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements that enable and constrain the way that practices can unfold there.

Importantly, the theory of practice architectures asserts that practices are enacted in three-dimensional intersubjective space. This is the space in which people encounter one another, through their sayings, as interlocutors in semantic space; through their doings, as embodied persons in physical space–time, and, through their relatings, as social beings in social space. The theory rejects the individualist presupposition that individuals encounter one another and the world across an empty void; on the contrary, it takes the view that people encounter one another and the world in intersubjective spaces that are always already preformed to some extent, in each of these three dimensions. The theory of practice architectures does away with the dualistic opposition of the individual and the social, or the individual and the collective, and instead sees those poles in dialectical terms, in which each is bound to the other in a relationship of mutual constitution: the individual is a product of the collective, and the collective is a product of the actions of individuals.

It is a particular strength of most Aboriginal worldviews that they do not privilege the individual over the collective, or even the collective over the individual. These two poles are held together in collective practice, for example in community visions of self-determination, governance, and agency that are inclusive of all. We believe that, to move towards a world worth living in for all, Australian schools need to be founded on deep listening and engagement with Aboriginal voices, and in a relationship with Country. If school is a microcosm of society, to live well in the world of school is to create a world worth living in for all children, their families, and communities. An integral part of creating this is proposing an alternative view of leading practices and gathering empirical evidence that contests Western transformational leadership research. We will return to this perspective below, but to show that this perspective is urgently needed in Australian schooling, we first examine some consequences of not attending to Aboriginal ways of being, namely, the failure of Australia’s ‘Closing the Gap’ policy, which aims to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous outcomes in education, life expectancy, health, incarceration, and other measures.

The Failure of the ‘Closing the Gap’ Policy: The Failure of a Deficit Discourse

The Australian Government’s ‘Closing the Gap’ strategy is aimed at reducing the disparity between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal outcomes. Its ongoing failure highlights the limitations of mainstream policies and practices for addressing Aboriginal student underachievement, and signposts the urgent need for another approach (Moodie et al., in press). Whilst governments continue to prioritise Aboriginal education largely via literacy, numeracy, and attendance strategies to close the achievement gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, the underlying beliefs of Aboriginal families and communities about the purpose of schooling, and their views of what counts as success, continue to be ignored. The long running Closing the Gap policy narrative influences what knowledge and values become important. However, the values themselves, once established, are rarely questioned and this itself can stymie government-led reform (Burgess & Lowe, 2020). Leading needs to look different in schools if we are to make a difference for Aboriginal students and their communities. This can then align with the stated policy aim that “all students in all communities, including Indigenous…communities, across metropolitan, rural, regional, and remote Australia, have the right to an education that ensures they become creative, confident, active, informed learners and citizens” (AITSL, 2011, p. 9). Educators need to start leading by listening in order to close their own knowledge gaps. Changes in practice that demonstrate a different model of collaboration and success could in turn influence education policy. This is the purpose of the Culturally Nourishing School project.

As research has already shown, old deficit notions in the Aboriginal policy space continue to infect the framework. Deficit discourses about Aboriginal students’ cultures and communities are infused through the assimilatory nature of neoliberal policy contexts, and they continue to marginalise and disengage people (Buxton, 2017; Lingard et al., 2012; Patrick & Moodie, 2016). For example, cultural-discursive arrangements in schools can manifest low expectations by positioning Aboriginal students and their cultures as ‘problems to be fixed’. Consequently, emerging discourses of responsibilisation deem Aboriginal peoples as largely culpable for their circumstances rather than the institutions that create the circumstances in the first place.Vass (2012) suggests that the discursive positioning of Aboriginal students as disadvantaged renders them as a special interest group and consequently they become objects of policy in a disrespectful way. This policy approach of embedding and legitimatising deficit discourses within the school underpins community mistrust of, and resistance to, schooling, creating significant challenges for principals and schools attempting to make a difference for Aboriginal students and their families (Burgess & Lowe, 2020).

By contrast, where school principals have employed local Elders to deliver language and cultural programs that were well resourced, supported, and advocated for in the wider school community, deeper connections between the school and community ensued. This fostered a sense of belonging for Aboriginal students (Trimmer et al., 2019). For example, in the Principals as Literacy Leaders with Indigenous Communities (PALLIC) project, research found that when positive working relationships and shared leadership between principals and Indigenous community leaders occurred, student engagement increased and literacy rates improved (Riley & Webster, 2016). Moreover, the positive impact of affirming Aboriginal identity increased confidence and engagement in their learning (Lowe et al., 2019b). These open and welcoming listening practices by leaders enable shared leadership responsibilities between school leaders and Elders which benefits Aboriginal students.

The Theory of Practice Architectures and Indigenous Methodology

The theory of practice architectures has informed Indigenous research in Canada (Blue et al., 2015), research on race and racism in Australia and Finland (Wilkinson & Kaukko, 2020), and the Culturally Nourishing Schools project (Lowe et al., 2020), which examines the ontology and epistemology of the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis et al., 2014) in relation to critical and Indigenous methodologies used to date. Theorists exploring leading practices in education globally have considered democratic forms of leading to be an important part of improved conceptions of leadership work (Edwards-Groves, 2020). Democracy is a noble ideal perhaps but also one that comes freighted with certain Western assumptions, at least in the domain of politics. Indigenous ways of leading are not reducible to Western conceptions of democracy (to say nothing of the fact that White Australia has not always been democratic about including Aboriginal people) in the education project.

The theory of practice architectures recognises that people are formed and transformed in action in history (in practice). Their thoughts and talk (sayings) are shaped among the cultural-discursive arrangements they encounter in the various sites they inhabit. Their actions (doings) are shaped among the material-economic arrangements in those sites. And their relationships with others and the world (relatings) are shaped by the social-political arrangements they encounter. Practice architectures formed by combinations of these arrangements shape people’s practices. Thus, for example, practices of speaking and listening—who speaks (and who does not), when, and how often, and to whom (and who listens)—are shaped very differently by the practice architectures of Western institutional settings like schools than by the practice architectures familiar in many Aboriginal communities.

In sites shaped by the practice architectures of Western institutions like the school, the content of language—what is talked about—is shaped by the discourses of schools and schooling. The content of the activities undertaken in those settings is shaped by Western arrangements for the work of schools and schooling. The content of the relationships people endure or enjoy in those settings is shaped by Western patterns of (for example) expectations about appropriate role relationships between the people involved (e.g., teachers, leaders, students). These practice architectures influence such things as the way leading is practised in a school, the ways its relationships with its community are practised, and the ways teaching is practised. Site-based research acknowledges cultural context and is integral to understanding education in diverse Aboriginal contexts where the place is central.

Schools are specific sites, but they are not siloed from society at large. The practice traditions of a school are enabled and constrained by the practice architectures inside and outside of schools, such as policy, leadership structures, school decisions, and the actions of individuals. Leading practices are also influenced by happenings inside and outside the control of educators such as accreditation and standards regimes, system-wide role descriptions, infrastructure requirements and community incidents. Awareness of these factors through the analysis of practices and the practice architectures that make them possible can help leaders understand the what and the how of change.

Aboriginal practices of listening to Country, Elders, and community may enable a change in leading practices in schools. Practices of leading in Aboriginal communities are generally collective practices, not matters for an individual leader alone. Leading as a collective practice privileges collective Aboriginal voices through cultural and historical narratives of place. Leading as a collective practice is enabled by practices of listening, respecting, and connecting. This marks a significant shift from Western knowledge and practices of leading and paves the way for decolonising schooling by questioning and disrupting the taken-for-granted Western power dynamics of schooling. The focus on practice helps us identify what needs to be mobilised to create contexts for further decolonisation.

Leading Concepts and Practices in Indigenous Contexts

Relationships and Respect

In a comprehensive systematic review on school leadership in Indigenous contexts, Trimmer et al. (2019) found that principals and schools who divested power to other stakeholders, such as their local Aboriginal communities, were more likely to affect significant within-school change. While most educational leadership research inevitably focuses on non-Aboriginal principals, given the very small number of Aboriginal principals in Australian schools, Kamara’s (2009) study of five female Indigenous principals found that they were more attuned to Indigenous epistemologies, beliefs, and value systems and therefore purposefully advocated for their communities through shared leadership arrangements. Regardless of principal identity, building strong relationships with parents and key local Indigenous organisations deepens trust and builds a higher level of respect between teachers and the community (Burgess & Lowe, 2020). Therefore, leading in these contexts requires a collective, co-constructed effort to empower community leaders (Trimmer et al., 2019).

Where Aboriginal community members are provided opportunities to lead through school-initiated projects, authentic engagement through shared relationships leads to ‘both-ways’ leadership (Keddie, 2014) between principals and Aboriginal communities, often referred to as shared or collaborative leadership. This is noted by Priest et al. (2008) as an “ideal ‘both ways’ environment (which) places equal value and respect on quality practices from both … non-Aboriginal and … Aboriginal cultures” (p. 118, emphasis in original). In such ‘both ways’ intercultural settings, participants construct intersubjective spaces in which members of both cultures listen and learn from each other. This is critical for culturally relevant conversations and the development of collaborative trusting community relationships (Lovett et al., 2014). Where principals demonstrate a deep knowledge of the local cultural context, make visible efforts to meet community needs and aspirations, and include Aboriginal people in decision-making collaborations, trusting community relationships result in Aboriginal family's willingness to engage with the school (Lowe et al., 2019b). This demonstrates how the situated role of the principal as a leader enables or constrains leading practices within the community. We argue that if leading was conceptualised differently in Australian schools, and community responsibilities were shared among teams of educators, many existing barriers and deficits to intercultural understanding, interaction, and solidarity could be reduced. Through cultural contiguity, leading practices can change, and participants can change the practice architectures that make practices possible, so schools and schooling can change to represent a place worth learning in for all.

The leading practices of principals in engaging students and influencing participation and achievement are not only critical for student outcomes but also for gaining local Aboriginal community trust. In the Trimmer et al. (2019) systematic review, most studies described targeted approaches in remote Australian settings, noting that the more successful programs acknowledged the importance of culturally respectful environments in promoting positive cultural identity to increase student potential for achievement (Keddie, 2014). Thus, key levers for principals aiming to make a difference for Aboriginal students’ learning experiences include acknowledging and understanding the surrounding social-political arrangements, including the role of colonial contexts in excluding Aboriginal students from educational success, and preparedness to embark upon a shared, ‘both ways’ (Lovett & Fluckiger, 2014) leadership journey. This also requires changing cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements to put in place programs, policies, and processes that will fulfil Aboriginal family and community perceptions, aspirations, and expectations for the success of Aboriginal students in and beyond school. To achieve these aims, school leaders need to change their practices of leading to include school communities, to model and enact shared leadership that recognises and respects people’s own cultural positioning, lived experiences, and identities.

Solidarity and Decolonisation

Given the subjective nature of experiences of leadership, and the different contexts we are connected to, a focus on practices rather than individuals or roles opens possibilities to consider new forms of leadership and leading. The theory of practice architectures focuses on leading, not leadership (Edwards-Groves, 2020). Despite the hierarchical nature of many Western systems, organisations, and institutions, the theory recognises that lifeworld relationships of recognition and respect always exist alongside such hierarchies. The theory thus acknowledges the complementarity of, and the tensions between, power and solidarity, between power over and power with. It opens possibilities for the co-construction and sharing of practices of leading grounded in the promise of solidarity: power with. The literature of educational leadership in Australia and elsewhere has too often been limited by Western beliefs and schooling structures, in both policy and practice. Despite references to language and respect for a world worth living in for all, Aboriginal ways of leading have not been adequately explored in an Australian empirical research project using the theory of practice architectures.

There are, however, examples of research recognising the co-constructed nature of leadership and opposing normative hierarchical notions of leadership (Edwards-Groves, 2020). This alternative strand of research advocates enabling solidarity and emancipation from the limitations of the hierarchical worldview. In this view, leading is a political act and links to the social and relational nature of leading for solidarity, and, as some researchers put it, to perceived subversive acts of pedagogical love (Wilkinson & Kaukko, 2020). This aligns with Aboriginal ways and possibilities for living in both-ways worlds of schooling. However, many Aboriginal people view solidarity as both resistance to colonisation and resilience against oppression, and as a way of maintaining identity and standing together against assimilatory educational policies and practices that continue to be racist, ignorant, and profoundly damaging to them. This form of solidarity is a form of protection against the undemocratic and damaging practices of schooling in Australia over many years, including high rates of suspensions, expulsions, and unequal access to educational opportunities. Establishing a genuine solidarity with Aboriginal peoples will take a seismic shift in practices of leading in Australian schools if schools are to play a part in addressing the historical wrongs of the past, including the harms done by Western schooling itself.

Analysing practices may support educators to reimagine what leading is for, and for whom. Laying bare the practices and their contradictions, and the influences and influencers of practice, enables the potential for practice to change in context, where leading practices are influential. The following suggestions are drawn from the literature on Aboriginal leading practices in the Culturally Nourishing Schools project. The four inseparable arrangements of practices central to the Culturally Nourishing Schools project are: community and family, language and culture, Country and kinship, and Indigenous identity. These all connect with the notion of leading by listening.

Listening as a Leading Practice

Listening in Aboriginal contexts is an essential reflexive practice that evokes cultural humility, critical personal positioning, and openness. When working with Aboriginal people and communities, listening is an essential methodological approach that foregrounds axiology (values) and ontology (a sense of being) over epistemology (cognitive knowledge). This signifies a significant shift from Western hierarchical processes that focus on knowledge [re]production (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020). Emmanouil (2017) describes this as an ontological openness which enables “recognition of Indigenous forms of knowledge production” (p. 88) through learning with Country. Patience, non-judgemental observation, cultural humility, deference, and a willingness to decentre humans as primary knowledge holders, sustains connections between Country and people. This larger repositioning leads to “relationships of care where mutual recognition and communicative engagement [are] … also being performed” (Emmanouil, 2017, p. 90).

This reminds us of Freire’s (2000) assertion of the importance of educators having critical consciousness and a willingness to unlearn, challenge, and destabilise oppressive education and political practices. Aboriginal communication protocols such as deep listening, non-judgemental observation, yarning and open-mindedness (Atkinson, 2002) are ways of enacting and achieving conscientisation. Freire (2000) also notes the importance of liberatory educational praxis for social justice, which is also drawn on by Gruenewald (2003). Freire’s seminal work integrated the fields of critical pedagogy, ‘reinhabitation’, decolonisation, and place-based pedagogies into a critical pedagogy of place (Scully, 2012). ‘Reinhabitation’ involves identifying, recovering, and creating “material spaces and places that teach us how to live well in our total environments” (Gruenewald, 2003, p. 9). This occurs alongside decolonisation processes which challenge hegemonic Western educational practices that exploit and harm Aboriginal peoples. Concurrently, processes for centring Aboriginal communities’ social, ecological, cultural and political contexts are embarked upon to effect educational change. Listening to Aboriginal voices and building Country-centred relationships are therefore key practices for creating contexts and leading decolonisation.

Conscientisation inevitably involves processing and embracing uncomfortable, often difficult, knowledge as Aboriginal counternarratives of tragedy, trauma, and colonised lived experiences become fully heard. For members of the dominant system responsible for these experiences, a loss of agency and identity dissonance can occur, hindering ontological openness and calls to action. In response, the idea of conscientisation can be mobilised to aid in challenging and rejecting deficit discourses. Eley and Berryman (2018) see this as the key to developing culturally responsive and sustainable teaching and leadership practices in Indigenous communities. Persistent deficit stereotyping and positioning of Aboriginal peoples have been evident in government policies and practices. These are also often reinforced through media representations (Bodkin-Andrews & Carlson, 2014). Consequently, where Aboriginal students are excluded from gaining the cultural capital required to achieve in Western education systems, it becomes the case that their cultural background and associated identity itself are held responsible for failure. Rejecting previous deficit discourses through deep listening to counternarratives is one way to embark upon critically analysing a personal position.

Deep Listening, Contemplation, and Reflection as Leading Practices

Deep listening is an increasingly respected methodological concept in Indigenous research and in education practices when working with and for Aboriginal peoples and communities. Referred to as Dadirri in the Daly River region of Australia’s Northern Territory, it is described by its author, Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann (Healing Foundation, 2014) as:

A special quality. A unique gift of the Aboriginal people is inner deep listening and quiet still awareness. Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. It is something like what you call contemplation. The contemplative way of Dadirri spreads over our whole life. It renews us and brings us peace. It makes us feel whole again (p. 139).

In applying Dadirri in their research, West et al. (2012) also draw on the work of Freire who positions the wisdom and reality of oppressed peoples’ lives as impetus for credible and ethically real actions to empower individuals and communities. They use Dadirri as a methodological approach to prioritise deep listening, acceptance, humanising Aboriginal experiences and therefore engaging in change together. Atkinson (2002) also highlights the role of Dadirri in consciousness raising which requires responsibility to “get the story—the information—right and to be in the right relationship” (p. 16). Dadirri is therefore a process of listening, reflecting, observing feelings and actions, reflecting and learning; processes which involve re-listening at deeper levels of understanding and knowledge-building. Furthermore, Atkinson (2002) notes that knowledge changes over time through the cyclical and reciprocal relationship between listening and storying, so that pain can be acknowledged and healing begin.

The practices of deep listening that lead to connecting and reflecting enable a change in leading practices for school leaders. To see a change in practices, leading involves modelling the practices that build relationships with the community. However, Western educators need to learn new, possibly uncomfortable, practices that are a way of life for Aboriginal people. As Atkinson (2002, p. 17) notes, “dadirri is not a research methodology in the traditional Western scientific tradition, but a way of life. It gathers information in quiet observation and deep listening, builds knowledge through awareness and contemplation or reflection, which informs action” (emphasis in the original). This encompasses practices that recognise the crucial role of the community and reciprocity where participants share with each other something of themselves to build trust; as Atkinson (2002) notes, “Dadirri means listening to and observing the self as well as, and in relationship with, others” (p. 19). Therefore, this involves both practice and praxis in deeply considering self and others.

Distinct from other practice theories, the theory of practice architectures is a praxis-based ontology where belief and action are intertwined, and being is simultaneously saying, doing, and relating. The way you lead is not only who you are, but who your school is in terms of the associated practice architectures that shape people’s sayings, doings, and relatings in and around the school. Deeply analysing both individual and collective practices using the theory of practice architectures could in part connect with notions of Dadirri in its commitment to an ontology where analysis is conscious and Dadirri is implicit.

Reciprocal Leading Practices in Country

Reciprocal leading suggests a range of possibilities for listening, contemplation, and reflection as key methodological tools for leading, such as knowing when to listen, engage, observe, be quiet, and be in the moment. McMahon and McKnight (2021) articulate this in terms of reciprocal interdependencies using the metaphor of a community of trees. Here, knowing when to lead, when to follow, and when to be in-between is required for effective functioning as a community of Country-connected leaders, aligned with a shared philosophy of leading and leading as practice. Notably, Yunkaporta and Shillingsworth’s (2020) metaphors for understanding and practising from an Indigenous standpoint invert the common Western methodological process of leading from an epistemological standpoint with a predetermined agenda. Rather, they identify ethical protocols or values (axiology) as the starting point for engaging with Aboriginal peoples, communities, and Country. Respecting Aboriginal values and protocols are critical before further engagement can take place and so deep listening, critical consciousness, and reflexivity are essential skills to begin this journey if a world worth living in is to commence in our schools.

Yunkaporta and Shillingsworth (2020) emphasise the roles of the ethical process of respecting, the relational process of connecting, the intellectual process of reflecting, and the operational process of directing in Aboriginal values and protocols. They say:

… Respect is aligned with values and protocols of introduction, setting rules and boundaries. This is the work of your spirit, your gut.

… Connect, is about establishing strong relationships and routines of exchange that are equal for all involved. Your way of being is your way of relating, because all things only exist in relationship to other things. This is the work of your heart.

… Reflect, is about thinking as part of the group and collectively establishing a shared body of knowledge to inform what you will do. This is the work of the head.

… Direct, is about acting on that shared knowledge in ways that are negotiated by all. This is the work of the hands. (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020, p. 11–12)

Consequently, listening is about regard for the other through practices of respecting, connecting, and reflecting, and it is only when regard for the other is demonstrated, that directing can occur. Leading from this standpoint also requires genuine power sharing and employing a shared knowledge approach to leading (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020). This takes time and an adjustment of expectations with less emphasis on the product and more on the process. This invokes ontology as a way of being and connecting; a relational process for building relationships and belonging that creates the potential for a more grounded Indigenous-conscious knowledge [re]production.

Listening Practices on Country Through the Lens of Practice Architectures

The theory of practice architecture provides an opportunity for making visible the taken-for-granted or invisible arrangements in the intersubjective spaces between people at the cultural interface in a school site. By analysing people’s practices in terms of the sayings, doings, and relatings that compose them, along with the practice architectures to be found in school sites, we are able to explore the effects of various leading practices in schools, providing empirical evidence of policy-practice gaps in particular sites and the reasons for these gaps. This unmasking may then open possibilities “for participants to demonstrate forms of agency that are more radical or emphatic” (Kemmis et al., 2017, p. 249).

The cultural-discursive arrangements that exist in a site may result in sayings and, importantly, listenings, where participants encounter ongoing moments of silence, yarning conversations, and non-linear and counter narratives. There may be true listening from the heart and the spirit, which is the core of Aboriginal spirituality (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020). These sayings and listenings may increase agency and replace deficit discourses about Aboriginal people and enable shared deep knowledge of trauma and tragedy, and cultural practices and healing through humour and storytelling.

At the same time, listening is a form of relating. Deep listening involves a cyclical process of listening, re-listening, reflecting and re-reflecting, thus moving towards deeper levels of understanding and knowledge-building, for example through storying. These ontological, epistemological, and axiological practices enable respecting and connecting. As Phillips et al. (2018) note,

For Aboriginal peoples, story and storytelling commenced at the beginning. Stories are embodied acts of intertextualised, transgenerational law and life spoken across and through time and place. In and of the everyday and everytime, stories—whether those that told of our origin or of our being now—all carry meaning: a theorised understanding that communicates the world. (p. 8)

Truth telling seeks to alter the social-political arrangements in a site and invite new forms of relatings between schools and communities, which is central to leading schooling in connecting, building solidarity, reciprocity, agency, and trust both within Aboriginal communities and in schooling and society. These things also need to be supported by adequate material-economic arrangements and conditions that will in turn support cultural humility, contemplation, and consciousness raising (Atkinson, 2002). As Australian educators respect and honour Aboriginal world views, values, and beliefs, redress poor practices, and move towards decolonising schooling by co-producing knowledge, reclaiming epistemology, and mediating social, political, and cultural concepts through Indigenous knowledge (Welsh & Burgess, 2021), we can move towards healing. Healing can only occur through deep listening to and respect for Aboriginal counternarratives about the reality of lived experiences through colonisation. When pain is acknowledged, healing can occur.

Leading that comes from reciprocal relationships creates reciprocal interdependencies as mentioned in McMahon and McKnight’s (2021) community of trees. As such, we suggest that reconceptualising leading practices may enable a greater understanding about leading, following, and being in-between in the intersubjective spaces of people, community, and Country. Therefore, we need to approach established (Western) traditions of leadership and social theory with epistemological caution, including our approach to the theory of practice architectures. For example, Western and Aboriginal conceptions of leadership and leading often presuppose different arrangements (practice architectures) for leadership and power sharing, including differing cultural assumptions about individuals and groups, collectivity, and mutual responsibility. Western and Aboriginal standpoints might yield different critiques of claims about leadership, social change, and social justice, for example. Without clearly acknowledging cultural bias and assumptions, there is more scope for error or for a colonial overwriting of Indigenous views, and less chance of a mutually beneficial dialogue and theoretical/political advance. Connecting Indigenous ontology with the theory of practice architectures deeply connects Aboriginal voice and purpose to imagining new and equitable leading practices. The theory of ecologies of practices (Kemmis et al., 2012) which displays how arrangements are like interconnected living systems that hang together in symbiotic relationships, illustrates how praxis and practice enable connectedness, materiality, subjectivity and morally informed action that is deeply embedded in context (Kemmis & Smith, 2008). This bears some resemblances to Indigenous onto-epistemological foundations in Country which include human and non-human ecologies of practice, providing relational connections between leading, learning, teaching, and pedagogy.

The Culturally Nourishing Schooling Project: An Example of Leading by Listening

The Culturally Nourishing Schools (CNS) project (Lowe et al., 2020) seeks to examine the beliefs, understandings, artefacts, and actions that influence leading in schools and support school leaders in specific sites to do likewise. In this project teachers and leaders have committed to leading culturally nourishing practices with their students and communities. This project maps the symbiotic relationships between such leading practices in the site of the social and explores the practices and arrangements that enable connectedness through listening, the deep connections between space and place in Indigenous knowledge. This praxis-oriented perspective for understanding Aboriginal aspirations, experiences, and learning is essential given that the suppression of cultural practices and languages have long been integral to the denial of Indigenous sovereignty. Laying bare the enablers and constrainers of leading practices, and the complexities and contradictions that arise within sites, is critical to understanding the extent to which colonisation has excluded or, at best, tolerated, Aboriginal voices.

This project provides opportunities to challenge the arrangements that have in the past marginalised Aboriginal students. For instance, by shifting cultural-discursive practices from problem-focussed discussions about Aboriginal student underachievement, to respecting and listening to Country through Aboriginal voices and acknowledging community cultural wealth, new strength-based commitments to leading Aboriginal student success emerge. This requires new social-political arrangements as leading practices become two-way exchanges between the school and community, enacted in a shared space between the teachers, Aboriginal cultural mentors, Aboriginal school staff, local Elders, and community members. Material-economic structures support these arrangements by embedding the CNS project into participating schools’ three-year strategic plans, thus committing significant policy and financial resources to the project. These arrangements demonstrate how practices that place Aboriginal voices front and centre of schooling can effect change for Aboriginal students and their families’ educational aspirations.

Voice from, and within, Country is an integral purpose of the CNS project. We address the question of Country as an entity itself by analysing the intersubjective spaces within and between people and Country. From an Indigenous standpoint, mobilising Indigenous knowledge, language and culture learning, identity affirmation, shared decision-making, and Country-informed quality teaching are ‘common sense’ responses to the dominant Western system (Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020).

In 2021, the six NSW high schools currently involved in the CNS project represent diverse demographic populations in the inner city, regional, and remote areas. All schools serve substantial numbers of Aboriginal students and are situated within resilient local Aboriginal communities that have long-established—though not necessarily productive—relationships with these schools. To privilege and operationalise Aboriginal voices, the four pillars identified in the culturally nourishing model: learning from Country, cultural inclusion, epistemic mentoring, and teacher professional change (Lowe et al., 2020) are embedded into each school’s strategic plan, centring their local community, Country, and culture as integral to the school’s identity and practices. Here, a targeted group of schoolteachers and leaders participate in Aboriginal community-led learning from Country place-based experiences in their local community and apply this new knowledge and learning to their curriculum, pedagogy, and daily school practices. They are supported in the classroom by Aboriginal cultural mentors and pedagogical coaches to observe and reflect on culturally responsive teaching and learning practices to improve student engagement and learning experiences. These practices are supported by a structured program of professional reading and conversations about how these may apply to their current context.

Analysing practices (Kemmis et al., 2014) enables researchers, community members, teachers, and leaders to see more clearly the practices and arrangements that silence, exclude, or privilege voice from the sayings, doings, and relatings and facilitate the arrangements that connect collective actions to individual ones. This analysis will provide evidence of actual practice over intended practice within each CNS school site over the next four years. In recognising what enables and constrains leading practices (by revealing and understanding the practice arrangements), those arrangements can be strengthened and/or restructured to ensure Aboriginal voices and Country continue to inform culturally nourishing schooling practices.

Conclusion

As suggested above, the practices outlined in leading through listening are about being more than doing. Practices that help us to be in the moment, taking the time to attend and to listen deeply demonstrate what we truly value. If leading is a practice for all, then participants in sites can do better at leading by listening and learning to listen through contemplation and reflection on Country. The profound silence of listening is in stark contrast to our current educational leadership practices that are driven by rapid performativity, the noisiness of policy and speech delivery, and an administrative leadership entwined with bureaucracy. This often means that leaders are too busy to develop the deep relationships needed to enact a shared leadership approach. Educational leading with praxis is not about rescuing or defending, but consciously changing practices to enable Aboriginal Elders and community members to lead their communities.

In Australian education today, we need to stop and ask to whom we are listening and why. Listening is a changing practice that will bring us closer to our praxis intentions and to policy goals for all young Australians. This is a different conception of closing the gap. It will be seen in our hearing and understanding and in our openness to real change. It will be characterised by slow, careful, listening, by contemplation and reflection, and by practices that sustain the Country that sustains us all.