The promotion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures as a cross-curriculum priority in the new Australian Curriculum provides both a challenge and an opportunity for teachers and teacher educators. The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages contains authentic language materials which can assist in resourcing and supporting teachers to meet this challenge across all areas of the curriculum, and to encourage connections with Indigenous cultural authorities.
{"title":"Using authentic language resources to incorporate Indigenous knowledges across the Australian Curriculum","authors":"C. Bow","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.20.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.20.03","url":null,"abstract":"The promotion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures as a cross-curriculum priority in the new Australian Curriculum provides both a challenge and an opportunity for teachers and teacher educators. The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages contains authentic language materials which can assist in resourcing and supporting teachers to meet this challenge across all areas of the curriculum, and to encourage connections with Indigenous cultural authorities.","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78613218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Place, Workplace, and Mindful Movement","authors":"S. Smith, E. Barnes, Jon Mason, Julia Broome","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.20.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.20.02","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73163227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Online learning is an integral component of higher education delivery at Charles Darwin University, a regional university located in the Northern Territory, Australia. This paper draws on data obtained through the conversational method of ‘yarning’ (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010) with five Indigenous teacher education students about their experiences in online learning at CDU. Analysis of the data revealed their experiences were impacted by issues related to access and mode of study and the advantages of online learning were offset by a sense of isolation when studying fully online. This paper draws from data obtained from a broader Educational Design Research study that explored the experiences of Indigenous higher education students across a range of disciplines and the implications of these experiences for the design of online learning environments.
{"title":"Online learning and teacher education: The experiences of Indigenous teacher education students","authors":"A. Reedy, Heleana Wauchope Gulwa","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.20.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.20.04","url":null,"abstract":"Online learning is an integral component of higher education delivery at Charles Darwin University, a regional university located in the Northern Territory, Australia. This paper draws on data obtained through the conversational method of ‘yarning’ (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010) with five Indigenous teacher education students about their experiences in online learning at CDU. Analysis of the data revealed their experiences were impacted by issues related to access and mode of study and the advantages of online learning were offset by a sense of isolation when studying fully online. This paper draws from data obtained from a broader Educational Design Research study that explored the experiences of Indigenous higher education students across a range of disciplines and the implications of these experiences for the design of online learning environments.","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73346511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
T. Billany, Joshua . Barnes, B. Boitshwarelo, A. Reedy, S. Watson
{"title":"Developing teacher educators in the era of the ‘smart worker’","authors":"T. Billany, Joshua . Barnes, B. Boitshwarelo, A. Reedy, S. Watson","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.20.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.20.05","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84636578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper offers the research story of my artistic and analytic practices in a remote Indigenous teacher education setting in Central Australia. In this hybrid arts-based research text (Barone & Eisner 1997), I use portrait painting, narrative and analysis to explore my encounters, as both teacher educator and visual artist, with the people of the school, and examine the impact of shifting between these identities on my pedagogical practices as a teacher educator. I explore the ways in which operating as an artist problematised my educator identity: how it embodied my knowledge of the dynamic, social and multiple nature of identity (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011) and challenged the tacit knowledge and perspectives I brought to the remote setting and to my interactions with staff, children and families. The three pairs of paintings and narrative fragments presented derive from a portraiture project undertaken in 2014. The pairs and commentary present a range of perspectives on the complexity of professional identity and practice, and offer insights into the experience of thinking differently through arts-based research practices. I draw out three dimensions of thinking differently – looking differently, seeing differently and being differently – and highlight the value of foregrounding such perceptual and ontological questioning practices in our work as teacher educators. Learning Communities | Special Issue: New Connections in Education Research | Number 20 – October 2016
{"title":"The people of the school: Problematising remote teacher educator identity, reflexivity and place","authors":"Al Strangeways","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.20.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.20.07","url":null,"abstract":"This paper offers the research story of my artistic and analytic practices in a remote Indigenous teacher education setting in Central Australia. In this hybrid arts-based research text (Barone & Eisner 1997), I use portrait painting, narrative and analysis to explore my encounters, as both teacher educator and visual artist, with the people of the school, and examine the impact of shifting between these identities on my pedagogical practices as a teacher educator. I explore the ways in which operating as an artist problematised my educator identity: how it embodied my knowledge of the dynamic, social and multiple nature of identity (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011) and challenged the tacit knowledge and perspectives I brought to the remote setting and to my interactions with staff, children and families. The three pairs of paintings and narrative fragments presented derive from a portraiture project undertaken in 2014. The pairs and commentary present a range of perspectives on the complexity of professional identity and practice, and offer insights into the experience of thinking differently through arts-based research practices. I draw out three dimensions of thinking differently – looking differently, seeing differently and being differently – and highlight the value of foregrounding such perceptual and ontological questioning practices in our work as teacher educators. Learning Communities | Special Issue: New Connections in Education Research | Number 20 – October 2016","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78849535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beginning teacher experiences in Lao PDR: From research to the development of a professional development program","authors":"Sivilay Phommachanh, M. Willsher","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.20.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.20.06","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81741338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Young peoples’ worlds are valid and authentic spheres of knowing that communicate a range of issues. Through little aesthetics the artistic work in this project engages with what HickeyMoody (2014) terms ‘little publics spheres’ (p. 117). Artistic expression is one way for adults to engage with children’s little public spheres. Situated within the larger field of public pedagogy little publics acknowledge the civic, social, economic, political worlds of young people. Through artistic re-presentations, we position little publics as a way to foster intercultural understanding and expression of self. The international collaboration between Gallery Sunshine Everywhere and Eritrean Australian Humanitarian Aid draws on the relational worlds of children through art. Drawings from two schools in Kassala, East Sudan were given to students at Flemington Primary School, Melbourne, who wrote evocative stories in response to the drawings. These little public expressions invite adult worlds into the intellectual presence of young people’s perceptions and re-locate the roles of learner and teacher within and beyond structures of formal schooling. The concept of little publics validates children as important producers of culture, knowledge and learning contexts. Learning Communities | Special Issue: New Connections in Education Research | Number 20 – October 2016
{"title":"Little Learning in Big Worlds","authors":"Jayson Cooper, Maureen Ryan","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.20.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.20.08","url":null,"abstract":"Young peoples’ worlds are valid and authentic spheres of knowing that communicate a range of issues. Through little aesthetics the artistic work in this project engages with what HickeyMoody (2014) terms ‘little publics spheres’ (p. 117). Artistic expression is one way for adults to engage with children’s little public spheres. Situated within the larger field of public pedagogy little publics acknowledge the civic, social, economic, political worlds of young people. Through artistic re-presentations, we position little publics as a way to foster intercultural understanding and expression of self. The international collaboration between Gallery Sunshine Everywhere and Eritrean Australian Humanitarian Aid draws on the relational worlds of children through art. Drawings from two schools in Kassala, East Sudan were given to students at Flemington Primary School, Melbourne, who wrote evocative stories in response to the drawings. These little public expressions invite adult worlds into the intellectual presence of young people’s perceptions and re-locate the roles of learner and teacher within and beyond structures of formal schooling. The concept of little publics validates children as important producers of culture, knowledge and learning contexts. Learning Communities | Special Issue: New Connections in Education Research | Number 20 – October 2016","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78520949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Attempts to establish horticultural businesses in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have seldom experienced sustained success. Various reasons have been proposed – inadequate technical and business expertise, insufficient planning and consultation, limited local demand for products and long distances to external markets, harsh seasonal conditions adverse to farming, limited irrigation water availability, competing community interests, and the laborious nature of the work under arduous conditions. This paper proposes a further reason and explores a new approach as an alternative to horticulture. Enrichment planting is a strategy involving the establishment of plants for food, medicine or other uses, in a landscape that is otherwise natural and largely undisturbed. The establishment of enrichment plantings of bush food and medicinal plants in bushland settings complements wild harvest, and yet as an alternative to the agricultural farming approach, it accommodates the important social and cultural interactions of value to Aboriginal people in collecting bush food and traditional medicines, while also generating a source of income. Through a review of the limited published information available and documentation of the current status in Australia, the use of enrichment planting is examined in the global context and its application to bush food and traditional medicine production for remote Aboriginal communities is explored.
{"title":"Enrichment plantings as a means of enhanced bush food and bush medicine plant production in remote arid regions – a review and status report","authors":"L. Lee, K. Courtenay","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.19.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.19.05","url":null,"abstract":"Attempts to establish horticultural businesses in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have seldom experienced sustained success. Various reasons have been proposed – inadequate technical and business expertise, insufficient planning and consultation, limited local demand for products and long distances to external markets, harsh seasonal conditions adverse to farming, limited irrigation water availability, competing community interests, and the laborious nature of the work under arduous conditions. This paper proposes a further reason and explores a new approach as an alternative to horticulture. Enrichment planting is a strategy involving the establishment of plants for food, medicine or other uses, in a landscape that is otherwise natural and largely undisturbed. The establishment of enrichment plantings of bush food and medicinal plants in bushland settings complements wild harvest, and yet as an alternative to the agricultural farming approach, it accommodates the important social and cultural interactions of value to Aboriginal people in collecting bush food and traditional medicines, while also generating a source of income. Through a review of the limited published information available and documentation of the current status in Australia, the use of enrichment planting is examined in the global context and its application to bush food and traditional medicine production for remote Aboriginal communities is explored.","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79570893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent years, Community Learning Centres have emerged as a new community partnership model providing adult education in remote Indigenous communities in Australia, and in four Warlpiri Communities, funded locally by the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust. They are showing success by meeting local individual and community adult learning aspirations, and pathways to employment. This paper presents a reflective case-study of one such centre, the Warlpiri Triangle College Adult Learning Centre at Yuendumu in Central Australia. The study draws on an account of learning that is broad, diverse and situated in meaningful activity, which is responsive to the social, economic and learning needs of remote settings like Yuendumu. It draws out key elements operating at the Learning Centre in Yuendumu that allow for responsive and sustainable learning and training, with important implications for policy development in community development, education, training and employment in remote Australia. Introduction: Adult learning in Australian remote Indigenous communities & the Yuendumu Learning Centre A significant body of qualitative research has identified non-formal learning and informal learning1 as important means to engage or re-engage learners with poor literacy and numeracy skills, negative experiences of schooling and/or little confidence in, or little need for formal learning, and serve a number of community and individual goals, such as pathways into employment (Adult Learning Australia, 2014, pp. 4-5; Beddie & Halliday-Wynes, 2009; Birch, Kenyon, Koshy, & Wills-Johnson, 2003; Clemans, 2010; Kral & Schwab, 2012). In remote Indigenous contexts in the Northern Territory, secondary education completion rates are low, as are post-primary academic achievement rates (Wilson, 2013, p. 22 and p. 139). While formal training suits the employment and learning needs of some adults in these communities, non-formal learning programs for young people and adults emerge as both important and effective in a number of recent studies (Guenther, McRae-Williams, & Kilgariff, 2014; Kral & Heath, 2013; Kral & Schwab, 2012; Kral & Schwab, to appear; Shaw, 2015). A common thread through the literature is their scope to offer meaningful and responsive models of learning, education and training that resonate with local realities and meet local aspirations. 1. We use non-formal learning to refer to any intentional unaccredited learning, broadly following Adult Learning Australia (2014, p. 5). Learning Communities | Special Issue: Synthesis & Integration | Number 19 – April 2016
{"title":"A Place to Learn and Work: Yuendumu Learning Centre","authors":"Samantha Dosbray, Ros Bauer","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.19.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.19.03","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, Community Learning Centres have emerged as a new community partnership model providing adult education in remote Indigenous communities in Australia, and in four Warlpiri Communities, funded locally by the Warlpiri Education and Training Trust. They are showing success by meeting local individual and community adult learning aspirations, and pathways to employment. This paper presents a reflective case-study of one such centre, the Warlpiri Triangle College Adult Learning Centre at Yuendumu in Central Australia. The study draws on an account of learning that is broad, diverse and situated in meaningful activity, which is responsive to the social, economic and learning needs of remote settings like Yuendumu. It draws out key elements operating at the Learning Centre in Yuendumu that allow for responsive and sustainable learning and training, with important implications for policy development in community development, education, training and employment in remote Australia. Introduction: Adult learning in Australian remote Indigenous communities & the Yuendumu Learning Centre A significant body of qualitative research has identified non-formal learning and informal learning1 as important means to engage or re-engage learners with poor literacy and numeracy skills, negative experiences of schooling and/or little confidence in, or little need for formal learning, and serve a number of community and individual goals, such as pathways into employment (Adult Learning Australia, 2014, pp. 4-5; Beddie & Halliday-Wynes, 2009; Birch, Kenyon, Koshy, & Wills-Johnson, 2003; Clemans, 2010; Kral & Schwab, 2012). In remote Indigenous contexts in the Northern Territory, secondary education completion rates are low, as are post-primary academic achievement rates (Wilson, 2013, p. 22 and p. 139). While formal training suits the employment and learning needs of some adults in these communities, non-formal learning programs for young people and adults emerge as both important and effective in a number of recent studies (Guenther, McRae-Williams, & Kilgariff, 2014; Kral & Heath, 2013; Kral & Schwab, 2012; Kral & Schwab, to appear; Shaw, 2015). A common thread through the literature is their scope to offer meaningful and responsive models of learning, education and training that resonate with local realities and meet local aspirations. 1. We use non-formal learning to refer to any intentional unaccredited learning, broadly following Adult Learning Australia (2014, p. 5). Learning Communities | Special Issue: Synthesis & Integration | Number 19 – April 2016","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91144442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Enduring Community Value from Mining is an important outcome for mining in regional and remote locations around the world, an initiative lead by the national and global peak mining bodies. This article tracks the connections between mine production, employment and populations in very remote areas of the Northern Territory and South Australia. Mining is an important industry activity in these locations and the results suggest, in the main, these locations are highly dependent on mining for maintaining population levels through employment, not just in mining but in other industrial sectors that indirectly rely on mining. Leigh Creek has recently experienced declining coal production and so its population and workforce, while highly mobile, have been in decline. In contrast, until recently, production at Olympic Dam has been on the increase, with similarly highly mobile population and workforce that has experienced growth. While mining brings jobs during productive times, it can also bring dwindling populations through increased mobile work practices. These remote locations therefore face an uphill battle in ensuring enduring community value from mining. However, a range of policies can help ensure a better transfer of enduring value to remote mine dependent towns including being open to non-mine residents, unrestricted access in land and property markets, an ability of residents to have locally responsible and accountable local governments, and early and shared strategic planning by government, mining companies, and communities around how to manage the peaks and troughs of the various avenues for returns to community. Finally, while each case location is different in its own way, the most different is Yuendumu and it therefore requires careful consideration of how to deliver lasting benefit. Introduction Resource abundance is often proposed as the beacon of hope for improving the conditions of less well-off communities (Dietsche, Stevens, Emsley, & Östensson, 2009; Daniels, 2012; Otto et al., 2006), however the evidence that it reaps benefits is less than favourable. (Freudenburg & Wilson, 2002; Humphreys, Sachs, & Stiglitz, 2007; Sachs & Warner, 2001; van der Ploeg & Venables, 2012). For developing economies the general evidence is mining has not helped communities. However, there are counter arguments which show ‘rich countries’ such as Canada, Norway and Germany have benefited from natural resource wealth due to welldesigned public policy and strong institutions and institutional frameworks (Brunnschweiler, 2008; Brunnschweiler & Bulte, 2008; Davis & Tilton, 2005; Larsen, 2005). Although public policy analysts and prominent economists (Deloitte, 2010; Edwards, 2011; Taylor, Bradley, Dobbs, Thompson, & Clifton, 2012) argue that Australia has not been a victim of Dutch Disease or the Learning Communities | Special Issue: Synthesis & Integration | Number 19 – April 2016
{"title":"Enduring value for remote communities from mining: Synthesising production, employment, populations, and reform opportunities","authors":"B. Blackwell, Stuart Robertson","doi":"10.18793/LCJ2016.19.08","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18793/LCJ2016.19.08","url":null,"abstract":"Enduring Community Value from Mining is an important outcome for mining in regional and remote locations around the world, an initiative lead by the national and global peak mining bodies. This article tracks the connections between mine production, employment and populations in very remote areas of the Northern Territory and South Australia. Mining is an important industry activity in these locations and the results suggest, in the main, these locations are highly dependent on mining for maintaining population levels through employment, not just in mining but in other industrial sectors that indirectly rely on mining. Leigh Creek has recently experienced declining coal production and so its population and workforce, while highly mobile, have been in decline. In contrast, until recently, production at Olympic Dam has been on the increase, with similarly highly mobile population and workforce that has experienced growth. While mining brings jobs during productive times, it can also bring dwindling populations through increased mobile work practices. These remote locations therefore face an uphill battle in ensuring enduring community value from mining. However, a range of policies can help ensure a better transfer of enduring value to remote mine dependent towns including being open to non-mine residents, unrestricted access in land and property markets, an ability of residents to have locally responsible and accountable local governments, and early and shared strategic planning by government, mining companies, and communities around how to manage the peaks and troughs of the various avenues for returns to community. Finally, while each case location is different in its own way, the most different is Yuendumu and it therefore requires careful consideration of how to deliver lasting benefit. Introduction Resource abundance is often proposed as the beacon of hope for improving the conditions of less well-off communities (Dietsche, Stevens, Emsley, & Östensson, 2009; Daniels, 2012; Otto et al., 2006), however the evidence that it reaps benefits is less than favourable. (Freudenburg & Wilson, 2002; Humphreys, Sachs, & Stiglitz, 2007; Sachs & Warner, 2001; van der Ploeg & Venables, 2012). For developing economies the general evidence is mining has not helped communities. However, there are counter arguments which show ‘rich countries’ such as Canada, Norway and Germany have benefited from natural resource wealth due to welldesigned public policy and strong institutions and institutional frameworks (Brunnschweiler, 2008; Brunnschweiler & Bulte, 2008; Davis & Tilton, 2005; Larsen, 2005). Although public policy analysts and prominent economists (Deloitte, 2010; Edwards, 2011; Taylor, Bradley, Dobbs, Thompson, & Clifton, 2012) argue that Australia has not been a victim of Dutch Disease or the Learning Communities | Special Issue: Synthesis & Integration | Number 19 – April 2016","PeriodicalId":43860,"journal":{"name":"Learning Communities-International Journal of Learning in Social Contexts","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2016-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82516583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}