Education Policies in the United States and Australia: Are They Helping Indigenous Peoples? — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Education Policies in the United States and Australia: Are They Helping Indigenous Peoples?

Name: Kristen Hairston
Major: Political Science, Public Relations
Hometown: Haslett, Michigan
Faculty Sponsor: Jeffrey Roberg
Other Sponsors: Jerald Mast
Type of research: Senior thesis

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the education policies towards indigenous communities in both Australia and the United States to see if they are helping the indigenous peoples meet educational standards. This will be done by looking at education policies in both countries, education policies specifically for indigenous people, the histories of these indigenous communities, and looking at other factors that may affect their educational outcome. In the past, these populations have severely lagged behind the rest of the general populations in education.

This thesis concluded that there are still consistent gaps between these indigenous communities and general populations. The education policies proved to be inadequate based on comparing graduation rates between the indigenous groups and the overall graduation rate in each country. Education has a perception, which is its ability to help people move in socioeconomic status. Though that may not be the case, especially for these indigenous communities it seems that socioeconomic status is stagnant with the combination in lack of quality education, high unemployment and mass incarceration rates.

Poster file