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This paper examines the personal and professional experiences of the five arts leaders who co-wrote the foundation document for Australia's first national curriculum in the Arts. Their personal and professional backgrounds, which were explored during in depth interviews, drove the complex collaborative process that informed the first iteration of the "Australian Curriculum: The Arts." Though each couched their responses in the context of their background and arts discipline, they shared an awareness of the important role of the Arts in providing the analytical tools for children and young people to identify and subsequently challenge social injustice. The findings, which are presented as a group narrative using a Narrative Inquiry approach, reveal how the five arts leaders' individual lived experience, disciplinary experience and expertise, and commitment to collaborative leadership informed their approach. It was one driven by their shared belief that all Australian students, regardless of their background, are entitled to a quality arts education.

In an uncertain labour market, the questions around the employability of graduate students take on a new urgency. Fears about the graduate market in the coming years are acute and are compounded by a sense that there is a large disconnect between a university education and what is expected in the workplace. Australian labour market trends clearly demonstrate that the skills most in demand by Australian graduate employers are precisely the transferrable skills which are honed by doing a HASS degree at the university. However, HASS academics do not usually talk about the skills and attributes students are gaining during their university studies and how this is useful in the workplace. Creating this awareness in both staff and students is immensely important for future graduates to survive and excel beyond university. Based on focus groups, interviews, and student-led projects over the last three years, this paper explores how to balance the need to engage with deep disciplinary knowledge with the understanding that this knowledge is only useful in the real world if accompanied by explicit skills. By using a case study, this paper showcases how to articulate skills and knowledge to HASS students to prepare for workforce. Furthermore, it focusses on how graduate attributes and learning outcomes can be connected from assessment tasks to classroom teaching.

The main objective of research is to ascertain the existing situation of STEAM education research over three decades based on the Scopus database. The entire documents are 256 findings globally data shorted by year, region, and highest cited to 100 documents. The analysis technique used VOSViewer, Microsoft Excel and word cloud generator. The result of document type article is ranks first in Global and conference paper rank first in South East Asia. The sources that have published the top cited papers are "Journal of Small Business Management" in global and the "Education Sciences" in South East Asia. Meanwhile, the author with the most citations is Jeon M from the U.S.A. Specifically, the country with the most publications is US with 31 articles and 2553 citations. Whereas the majority of Southeast Asian countries have 9 articles and 10 citations. Supported the visualization analysis, VOSViewer's global region is divided into 4 clusters and 62 keywords to assist with the visualization analysis. A pair of clusters containing 14 keywords each for the South Asia region. The terms program, project, environment, model, and implication are frequently used in STEAM throughout the world. The keyword STEAM education appears in analyses conducted in South-East Asia. The outcome of this research can serve as a resource for scholars interested in STEAM and education. Further research into STEAM education trends can be conducted by focusing on a single region or on more specific issues.

This paper introduces the life and work of art educator and designer Kurt Rowland (1920-1980) who authored the first set of textbooks on visual education and played a role in the shifting world of art and design education in post-war Britian. We detail the foundational experiences of his extraordinary life in the first half of the 20th century including surviving the Spanish Civil War and "La Retirada," being a 'friendly enemy alien', and becoming one of the Dunera boys forced into Australian internment camps. He later went on to develop a new aspect of art and design education he called visual education. We explore Rowland's notion of a visual education, explicating its features, appraising its import, and situating Rowland's ideas to those of his contemporaries. We explore his motivations and how his work advanced art pedagogy. Finally, we argue that Kurt Rowland has been absent in recent literature on art and design education and that his work, which contains elements that have continued relevance today, should not be overlooked.

Dewey (1938) once wrote that the most effective forms of learning connect intellectual processes with emotion, which is able to inspire curiosity and excite the learner. This paper adds to the body of research that attests to the transformative role of affect in teacher education, which is able to be cultivated through arts-based service-learning experiences. Pre-service teachers at two universities in Sydney, Australia were placed in service-learning settings that were based around participatory experiences in drama and storytelling, music, dance or visual art. The pre-service teachers' reflections on the placement revealed a transformative experience which combined emotional learning with critical analysis of social justice issues as they relate to education. As part of their placement, they experienced arts engagement that utilised affect and emotion as a transformative pedagogy. They broadened their understanding of the role of teachers, both in an institution and in society. These emerging understandings led them to find voice as advocates, investigate arts education and community projects as alternative career paths and re-evaluate their own perceptions of quality teaching. Some participants continued engaging with the community arts projects after the placement had concluded, and others became advocates for the arts in education and society. Finally, they adopted a critical stance on social justice issues, and shed light on the ways that arts learning service-learning placements can become deeper engagements, leading to sustainable benefits for all parties.

Background: Mental health concerns prevent positive well-being and are key challenges for Australian children and young people. Arts organisations play a role in enhancing the positive mental health of children and young people. This paper describes the involvement of young people and their parents in the development of a resource for arts organisation's intentional support of social and emotional well-being. Methods: Six focus groups were conducted with 19 young people who participate in dance, drama, and circus programs, and 17 of their parents. Questions explored how the arts currently, and potentially, support their social and emotional well-being. Results: Three overarching themes: "Connecting with Others;" "Being Myself;" and "Teaching Methods," plus 14 sub-themes were identified. Conclusion: A framework of well-being factors and pedagogies was developed to guide the creation of a resource to help support the social and emotional well-being of young people participating in arts programs.

Capacity to teach the arts is a problem reported by many teachers in primary (elementary) school settings in Australia. This paper reports on research which explored how to build primary school teachers' capacity in arts-based pedagogy. It outlines the design and development of a co-mentoring program between arts mentor practitioners and generalist primary school teachers which used an Arts Immersion approach. The findings of this research reveal the effectiveness of co-mentoring as an approach to support professional learning in arts education, and the use of an Arts Immersion approach to improve teachers' capacity in planning, facilitating, and assessing authentic arts experiences.

Despite the increasing levels of cultural and linguistic diversity represented in Australian classrooms, many universities do not adequately prepare teachers to teach English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D). Moreover, in neoliberal educational regimes, teaching tends to remain steadfastly focused on monolingual conceptions of literacy development, and 'evidence-based' practices tend to reflect this stance. In this paper, we argue that due to the diversity and complexity of EAL/D learner cohorts, and current systemic constraints, teacher-researcher collaborations can be one avenue available to teachers to develop their knowledge and skills whilst simultaneously guiding future research. Drawing on 'identity texts' and arts-based approaches, through this case study, we describe our teacher-researcher collaboration in a super-diverse primary school classroom setting to illustrate the 'messiness' of classroom research, the challenges, and the considerable opportunities to effectively respond to EAL/D learner needs whilst valuing and embracing their diverse linguistic repertoires.

Recognition of the inherent value of the Creative Arts in society seldom extends beyond rhetoric to meaningful action. The powerful ways the Creative Arts are positioned within curriculum documents, for example, stand in contrast to entrenched problems such as poor teacher attitudes, disengaging teaching practices and low status. Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs and preservice teachers are essential to the long-term improvement of Creative Arts education. Creative Arts in ITE is also an interesting context in which to examine the divide between Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK) and Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) that has influenced both educational research and policy. This paper reports on a mixed methods case study of 24 preservice teachers' Creative Arts teaching efficacy beliefs and perceptions as they completed an evidence-based, discipline-focussed creative arts subject. The Likert scale efficacy data, collected via the CATEBI-B, modified from the established STEBI-B (Enochs & Riggs, 1990), were analysed via MANOVA with repeated measures and T-tests. These analyses were complemented by thematic analysis of qualitative survey data. Results showed statistically significant increases in participants' personal Creative Arts teaching efficacy upon completion of the subject. The significance of Creative Arts teaching outcome expectancy increases was questionable and the qualitative results were somewhat mixed despite being mostly positive. Implications of these findings and directions for further research in this space are discussed.

This paper draws from a cross-cultural study of young children's arts curricula. The initial phase of the original study consisted of a comparison of the intended arts curriculum for 5--6 year old children in China and Australia. This was followed by a survey in Beijing exploring 88 contemporary early childhood educators' beliefs about children's arts education. A case study of the enacted curriculum took place across three kindergartens in Beijing. The data was coded and analysed using grounded theory methodology. The research presented in this paper reported a diverse understanding of children's creativity among the participant EC educators; it revealed that a pedagogical dilemma of demonstration remains as a challenge to early childhood arts educators. This study provided qualitative descriptions and examples of Chinese Beijing children's arts education in this era of globalisation. Utilising Foucault's (1991. "Governmentality." In "The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality," edited by G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller, translated by R. Braidotti, 87-104. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf) theory of governmentality as a critical lens to view the issues in this field, the study broadened perspectives regarding the education philosophy and practices of early childhood arts curriculum, in particular, for the cultivation of young children's creativity.

There is a critical need to consider ways to enrich the educational experiences and well-being of adolescents when the lack of empathy in the world is high. This paper presents the concepts of "Artful Empathy" and "Artful and Empathic Learning Ecology." The concepts are exemplified from a multi-site case study within Australian secondary visual art studio classrooms. The article demonstrates how learning and making art in an artfully empathic ecology can support the legitimacy of diverse and marginalized voices. Arts-based performative approaches may facilitate empathic knowing across disciplines with global traction.

This paper explores the role of the Senior Project Officer: The Arts for the Australian Curriculum Assessment Reporting Authority (ACARA) in facilitating the writing of the foundation "Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts" (2011) paper for the national curriculum, with a particular focus on the discipline area of music. The collaboration between the five arts specialists was underpinned by an acknowledgement that each Australian student was entitled to a high-quality arts education involving each of the five arts forms of Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts. As it was for the other arts forms, the music curriculum needed to cater simultaneously for music specialists, primary generalist teachers and secondary teachers across a variety of school contexts. This balancing act was further problematised by that fact that each of the States and Territories adhered to particular approaches to music education that were often incompatible. The researchers have used a Collaborative Autoethnography approach (CAE) to explore the Senior Project Officer's experiences with the arts, particularly music at school, and her later involvement in the arts through her professional career with a focus on the role of the Senior Project Officer: The Arts. Two major themes emerged from the CAE: the impact of schooling experiences and diversity in pedagogical approaches. These themes highlighted the social justice principles of equity and accessibility which underpin the "Australian Curriculum: The Arts."

This paper will explore the key findings identified in the five arts discipline-specific papers which comprise this special theme issue. Each of the participant researchers have situated Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts within the context of the "Australian Curriculum: The Arts" and what they characterise as its social justice imperatives. A narrative phenomenological approach has been adopted to enable the participant researchers to socially co-construct an analysis of their experiences working with the "Australian Curriculum: The Arts" including challenges, implications and the future for their respective discipline areas and the Arts overall. The three key themes from these collective voices revealed a quality arts education is an entitlement for every child and young person; the Arts provide important opportunities for children and young people from diverse backgrounds and cultures to demonstrate their learning, express themselves and participate; and arts educators and the Arts industry need to work together to strengthen community understanding about the value of the Arts in education. This process provided important insights into how exposure and engagement with the Arts shape the ways in which children and young people make meaning in their lives, enhance their overall wellbeing, increase their sense of social responsibility and contribute to a socially-just society.

Ten years have passed since the first meetings of Arts advisors to start identifying the priorities and approaches that the Arts may take when formalised into a national curriculum structure. Now the time has come for reviewing the past to inform the future. Now is the time for reviewing, interrogating and challenging the "Australian Curriculum: The Arts" for a socially just world. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the process of positioning Visual Arts in the curriculum and the role of Visual Arts to meet social justice imperatives. The paper presents a critical discussion of the Arts and a critical consideration of my role in the writing of the shaping papers. This approach allows an identification of some highlights and challenges along the way. The more philosophical part of the discussion addresses the politics of curriculum and the politics of knowledge through Visual Arts, as it situates the underpinning principles of aesthetics and meaning-making through the Arts. The paper shows how acts of hospitality disrupt practices of domination and marginalisation; and how such acts activate ethical practices of social justice in the Arts, and Visual Arts in particular. The paper claims that Visual Arts as a learning area has a potent role in reflecting and shaping attitudes to social justice, and that education in Visual Arts may contribute to authenticating and legitimising one's place in the world based upon credible ethical foundations.

This paper re-visits the Media Arts curriculum 10 years after initial discussions within the Australian Media Education community helped to shape the content and contexts for teaching about media in Australian schools. 10 years is a long time in media history, particularly with the rise of social media and digital platforms as major venues for entertainment, information dispersal and social, cultural and political discourse. Media Arts was developed towards the end of the 2000s, when the focus in media literacy research was on 'participatory culture'--the idea that digital media allowed almost anyone to be a media producer and consumer. In this context, Media Arts' focus was on identifying the knowledge and skills young Australians required to creatively and productively participate in media culture. The use of digital media in society in the 2010s, however, drew attention to many of the problematic consequences of digital participation, including the ambiguous role of the digital platforms in mediating social and culture discourse. This paper investigates what should be updated in future versions of the Media Arts curriculum, particularly to respond to challenges such as disinformation, the media industries' shift in power from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, and the impact of algorithmic culture on creative participation. The paper argues that while is it important for young people to develop creative and practical skills to make their own media, it is just as important for them to think critically about the technological contexts of digital media production, distribution and use, and its impacts on society and individuals.

This paper was delivered as a response to a presentation by Jan Kronberg MLC, Chair of the Education and Training Committee, Parliament of Victoria that published a report of the "Inquiry into the Extent, Benefits and Potential of Music Education in Victorian Schools." Her presentation and this response were part of a forum conducted by the School Music Advocacy Group at the University of Melbourne on 5 December 2013.

Purpose: Responding to increasing external pressure, universities are developing new strategies to illustrate the impact of their degrees on graduate employability. This paper investigates how alumni regard the development of their professional networks during their tertiary education in relation to employability and the associated pedagogical implications. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with 18 business and arts alumni from a regional university. Findings: The findings reveal the importance of developing a professional network by cultivating social capital while at university. Alumni identify all forms of work-integrated learning (WIL), connectedness through social media, the role of university staff and volunteering as concrete ways to develop a professional network and enhance employability. Research limitations/implications: This paper has pedagogical implications to develop graduate employability and WIL. Universities should draw from alumni networks to help develop students' bridging capital through industry-facing WIL projects. Educators should design assessment tasks in which students develop contacts and networking capabilities with alumni and other professionals using various platforms (e.g. social media). In addition, educators should promote the benefits of voluntary work and invite alumni and other industry stakeholders to co-design and co-teach areas of curriculum. Originality/value: Drawing from the experiences of alumni re-routes the channel of communication from institutions expressing the importance of professional networks in relation to employability, to credible industry alumni confirming this importance. Few previous studies have taken this "outside-in approach" to emphasise and validate the importance of developing professional networks in relation to employability, particularly at regional universities.

Improving Indigenous students' literacy is a major priority area for the Australian Government, receiving significant funding to address below benchmark English literacy standardised test results. Despite this, recent benchmark tests suggest Indigenous students continue to achieve well below the national average. This systematic review discusses peer-reviewed and evidence-based publications that report on significant literacy programmes to investigate which aspects of literacy are their focus, which are identified as successful, conditions needed for success, barriers to success and measures of success. While most programs reported significant literacy improvements, all identified barriers to success and/or sustainability as outlined in this paper. This review also utilises the four resources literacy model and multiliteracies theories to map literacy gaps. When considering decades of literacy research, there were significant gaps in the represented literacy skills, with the dominant focus on codebreaking, and very few programs addressing critical literacies, multiliteracies or creativity skills. The review of the papers highlighted the need for consideration of ways to design balanced and place-based literacy programs; school-community literacy partnerships; access to training and resources for schools and communities around literacy and school/community research projects and agency for teacher and school leaders to be professional context-based decision-makers.

Purpose: This paper focuses on the donation in 1888 of a Sèvres Vase to the Education Department of Victoria after the International Exhibition in Melbourne. Using the vase as its focus the paper reflects on what this donation may be able to tell us about the impact, primarily on education, of a series of International Exhibitions held both in Australia and internationally between 1851 and 1900. The life of the Sèvres vase highlights the potential of the Exhibitions for the exchange of ideas internationally, the influence of the International Exhibition movement on education and the links between a 19th-century gift and the teaching of Art in 1930s Melbourne. Design/methodology/approach: The paper examines one object in relation to education in its wider historical context through a reading of the archival records relating to the Melbourne Teacher's Training College and Melbourne High School. Findings: The influence of the educational exhibits of the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition held in Melbourne are shown to have had an impact on the design of the Melbourne Teachers Training College. Originality/value: This paper provides a new and original perspective on the Melbourne Teachers Training College and its foundation through its library and museum collections.

The aim of this study was to determine the examination of the researches about the use of technology by fine arts teachers. The study was conducted according to the content and citation analysis model. In this context, Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection indexes were included. In the document scanning in the WOS environment, the keywords 'Fine arts', 'Teachers' and 'Technology' were searched. In total, 169 documents were examined and analysed one by one. They were analysed according to year, document type, WOS content category, country, source title, organisation and citation, authors, publication language and categories. As a result of this research, the first study was conducted in 2004, while the most studies were conducted in 2016. It was concluded that the published studies had the most Proceedings papers as the document type. The area where the studies of fine arts teachers on the use of technology are mostly carried out is Education Educational Research, according to the Web of Science content category. The most researched title in the distribution according to the Source Title field is 'International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conferences on Social Sciences and Arts.' The university with the most studies is Kazan Federal University. The 19 authors who conducted the studies have a large number of studies in this field. It was concluded that other authors had only one study in the field. Again, when we look at the distribution of the countries and documents according to the language of writing, the country with the most studies is China and the language of the documents is English. The area continues to evolve.

This paper examines Karagiozis--Greek shadow puppet theatre for children--as a way to explore how the Arts might support socially just education in the early years. As authors from diverse cultural backgrounds with different experiences of arriving and residing in Australia, we consider themes of social justice identified in a Karagiozis play and an interview with a Greek-Australian Karagiozis puppeteer, drawing on Nussbaum's (2000) Capability Approach. Layered analysis of the data provides a basis for examining: (1) the potential of Karagiozis for exploring social justice themes with young children; and (2) intersections between social justice themes identified in Karagiozis and circumstances for multicultural groups in the Australian context. This paper builds awareness about the value of employing the Capability Approach as a framework for exploring matters of social justice and contributes to dialogue about the value of the Arts in opening possibilities for young children's learning and meaning-making about social justice matters in local and global contexts.

This paper reports the findings of a project that investigated uses of electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) in the creative and performing arts at four Australian universities and raises four significant areas for discussion: engaging technologies as an ongoing requirement of planning, delivery and evaluation of teaching and learning in higher education; ePortfolios and their implications for curriculum planning; the influence of ePortfolios on learning, self-awareness and reflection; and differences in ePortfolio expectations and uses between the varying specializations of music study in higher education. Identifying marked differences between the four higher education institutions in this project and their applications of ePortfolio work, our discussion supports the hypothesis that ePortfolios cannot be applied generically across the arts; rather the ePortfolio requires qualification in expectations, roles, applications and theorisations. The paper makes recommendations for higher arts educators and highlights some of the strategies that heighten the development of professional practice and related learning.

Reflection is an essential part of students' critically reflective development within experiential-learning contexts; it is arguably even more important when working cross-culturally. This paper reports from a national, arts-based service-learning project in which students in creative arts, media and journalism, and preservice teachers worked with Aboriginal people in urban and rural areas of Australia. The paper uses Ryan and Ryan's (2010) "4Rs model of reflective thinking" for reflective learning and assessment in higher education to ascertain the effectiveness of the project work toward engendering a reflective mindset. The paper discusses how students learned to engage in critical self-monitoring as they attended to their learning experiences, and it describes how they "wrote" their experiences and shaped their professional identities as they developed and refined the philosophy that related to their developing careers. Examples taken from the narratives of students, community partners and academic team members illustrate the principal finding, which is that through a process of guided reflection, students learned to reflect in three stages: a preliminary drawing out of existing attitudes and expectations; a midway focus on learning from and relating to past experiences; and a final focus on reciprocal learning, change and future practice. The three stages were apparent regardless of program duration. Thus, program phase rather than academic year level emerged as the most important consideration when designing the supports that promote and scaffold reflection.

This paper explores the relationship between early career teachers' (ECTs) work identities, neoliberal education assemblages, and mandated professional standards. The task of supporting and retaining beginning teachers has received considerable attention in recent years in the face of alarming rates of teacher attrition internationally. The study, undertaken in Western Australia, explores how ECTs construct identities in response to competitive educational discourses, high levels of individual stress, insecure employment, excessive work-loads and limited formal support. The Australian Professional Standards are an example of 'organisational learning' that aims to support ECTs. However, our research suggests that in practice a managerial 'tick the box' approach to addressing the Standards renders them ineffective. We consider how embodied teacher identities are moulded in neoliberal secondary schools through concepts of performativity. This paper concludes that the performing arts can offer creative, collaborative and impassioned approaches to encouraging authentic teacher identities to support and retain ECTs.

With global conflict currently riding at its highest levels in the past 30 years, the international community has recognised the importance of engaging young women and men in shaping lasting peace. In 2015 the United Nations Security Council passed a ground-breaking resolution, Youth, Peace and Security: Resolution 2250 (United Nations Security Resolution 2250, 2015). This urged member states to increase inclusive representation of young people in institutions to establish mechanisms for the prevention and resolution of conflict, and to counter violent extremism. Youth were finally recognised as 'the missing peace' in the role of global peace processes. The United Nations acknowledged the potential for good of these 1.8 billion young people who, on a daily basis, seek creative ways to prevent violence and consolidate peace across the globe in devastated and conflict-affected societies. Technology-based peacebuilding practices, collectively known as Peacetech, were enshrined as a route forward in this complex task. Peacetech, combining the strategic use of technology in peacebuilding practice, has been pioneered as one pillar of Resolution 2250. Post-conflict education programs often deliver Peacetech's technology-based peacebuilding programs to post-conflict youth groups. This paper on Peacetech is divided into three parts. First, it outlines the definition and goals of Peacetech. Secondly, it outlines the definition and goals of Peacebuilding and outlines the significant role post-conflict education can have in peacebuilding. Thirdly, it highlights three Peacetech case studies evaluated in the field by the author. Overall, it is hoped that the paper will enthuse researchers in both the education and development fields to engage in further extensive research on post-conflict education.

Processes of curriculum reform are often a period of upheaval for teachers and schools. As values and priorities change and new knowledge and skills are required, teachers find themselves occupying new positions upon the school landscape. In the case of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts, some of the concerns emerging from recent reforms include insufficient class time to cover the new content, inadequate support and resources for planning, and challenges stemming from five distinct arts subjects being grouped into a single curriculum, without a shared experience as "the arts". This paper explores the impacts of this particular curriculum reform on three music teachers' work, specifically the ways in which they position themselves and their work as music teachers in relation to the arts curriculum. Their stories highlight the importance of professional networks and relationships in developing new curriculum knowledge, and point to possibilities for developing shared understandings as teachers of the arts.

This paper responds to the need for a deeper understanding of gallery educator practice. Focusing on a significant encounter in a major city public gallery, it describes how narrative inquiry offers new insights into how experienced gallery educators shape school education sessions based on prior knowledge and experience, and in-the-moment observations and judgements. Responding to artworks, artists, gallery spaces, and students' needs and interests, gallery educator practice is infused with 'pedagogical tact'. Narrative inquiry makes this complex teaching visible and, in doing so, affords a valuable approach to professional learning.

In this paper we propose the concept of 'becoming-with' in relation to the experience of the catastrophic fires in the summer of 2019-2020 in Australia, and their implications for research into young children's response to bushfires, and their learning about bushfire recovery, which resulted in the development of an arts-based project to explore emergent curriculum and pedagogies for planetary wellbeing. We draw on Deleuze and Guattari's theorising that 'the self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities'; and 'Spatio-temporal relations' as 'not predicates of the thing but dimensions of multiplicities of events as encounters' to theorise how 'becoming-with' fires enabled the development of emergent curriculum and pedagogies in an early learning centre, which can ultimately contribute to planetary wellbeing.

This is a co-constructed narrative between both Marie, an early career teacher, Stephen an artist and colleague in the school's creative arts faculty and Colin, an Aboriginal teacher and researcher. They met throughout 2012 and discussed issues that related to their discursive interactions that occurred in this small rural school between its teachers and the town's largely Aboriginal community. These discussions were conducted within the context, of Marie's experiences as a new scheme teacher, Stephen's reflexive observations as a teacher of many years' experience and Colin, who had worked with the school on various curriculum projects. These narratives give witness to their experiences, their failures and successes and of the discursive concerns seen to affect school student success and community relationships. These narratives connect with the town's history of race relations and the aspirations and concerns of Aboriginal people living in this community. This paper, which focuses on Marie's efforts to engage her Year 8 music students in the new and 'alien' environment is juxtaposed with Stephen's, whose commentary, based on proximity and practice, gives a counter insight into the world of teaching. This paper is a three-way critical reflection on the place of contested and conflicted relationships between teachers and students, the impact of teachers' limited appreciation of the histories of this community and its impact on their lives.