Indigenising the Curriculum: Cross-disciplinary communities of practice

Building the capacity of tertiary academic and professional staff to safely and appropriately infuse Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content, perspectives and knowledges in their curricula.

Tertiary institutions across Australia are increasingly prioritising the meaningful infusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, content, and knowledges into their curricula. This work aims not only to improve Indigenous student success and progression, but also to foster culturally responsive graduates and promote strengths-based narratives that counter deficit discourses. A key strategy supporting this priority is the provision of professional development for academics and course teams to build capacity in Indigenising their curricula. Universities Australia’s Indigenous Strategy 2022–2025 emphasises recognising the value of Indigenous peoples and knowledges within universities and embedding Indigenous value systems across teaching and research. This process—often described as “Indigenising the curriculum”—has gained significant momentum and requires culturally safe practice and appropriate consultation with Indigenous academics, researchers, communities, and organisations. Such engagement is essential to ensuring the accuracy, integrity, and long-term impact of Indigenous curriculum infusion across the higher education sector.

The Process

Specific strategies designed to increase this engagement and the efficacy of actions arising from it, has been reflected in Edith Cowan University’s facilitation of a series of communities of practice as supervised by Senior Learning Designer, Ruby-Jean Hindley. These sessions were designed to complement a micro-credential offered by the Centre for Learning and Teaching which staff complete individually. However, these communities of practice were specifically designed to increase buy-in and accountability by working with course teams who were required to submit expressions of interest to signal their collective desire to engage in the sessions that were structured accordingly:

• Session 1: Goal Setting and Barriers/Enablers of Change
• Session 2: Microaggressions, Cultural Appropriation and Tokenism
• Session 3: Respectful Professional Relationships, Networking and Collaboration
• Session 4: Designing Pedagogical Approaches
• Session 5: Presentation of drafted proposed infusions (for feedback)
• Session 6: Presentation of proposed infusions and Summary

The Outcomes

As part of their engagement in the sessions, course teams were also required to complete a case study of their infusions, aimed to capture several aspects of the process including student response and reaction to the infused content. In addition, course teams were also required to present on these infusions at the following ECUlture Conference. ECUlture 2025 was the first time many of these course teams presented on their work since completing the training, emphasizing a variety of strategies, approaches and interpretation of infusion that will hopefully emphasise transferability across the university as well as across similar schools, disciplines and faculties across the state and country.

From the facilitation of the Community of Practice is has become clear how much support is required to infuse Indigenous content, knowledges and perspectives as Course Teams were extremely willing to engage with and complete the work required yet felt paralysed by fear of getting it wrong due to the identified importance of the work. This paralysis was also caused by not wanting to cause offence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics and students. Yet, through completing this work, confidence grew in individual, course team and school ability to appropriately and respectfully continue this work. Ultimately, continued commitment to refining the infusions and improving based on ongoing student, peer and key stakeholder input will continue to lift the profile of Indigenous curriculum transformation here at ECU and across the higher education sector.

About Ruby-Jean

Ruby-Jean, a Noongar and Yamatji woman with a background in secondary education and cultural responsiveness training, works in ECU’s Centre for Learning and Teaching to help course teams embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content, perspectives, and knowledges meaningfully into curriculum and learning environments.