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This paper presents comparative research which examines issues in teaching Indigenous primary school students in Australia and the USA. It portrays the dilemmas for teachers and students when the curriculum is dominated by a monocultural, Eurocentric ethos. It then describes schools that have moved towards an alternative curriculum. In discussing postcolonial challenges for teacher educators and education policy makers arising out of these issues, the paper continues the debate about postcolonial approaches to cross-cultural and anti-racist education for Indigenous children in their community contexts. It argues that elements for significant educational change exist in both countries, and discusses how these changes need to be expanded and systematised to achieve a culturally powerful curriculum in Indigenous schools.

Six milliards d'individus peuplent la planete aujourd'hui. Quel est l'avenir de cette planete ? Dans quelle mesure est-on aujourd'hui capable de maintenir la vie et de canaliser notre evolution ? Quel role jouera la science et l'education scientifique dans ce processus ? Les inegalites economiques et educatives constatees dans le monde resultent d'un rapport de force inegal et d'une distribution injuste des ressources terrestres. Quel est donc le role que peuvent jouer la science et l'education scientifique dans ce scenario ?

My students, who are prospective high school teachers, reflect many of the common attitudes held by the larger general population; that is, they tend to be fairly apolitical, individualistic, and nonconfrontational, and most often they view situations and people from a personal point of view. My primary challenge as a White teacher educator is thus to intervene in such a way that my students do not reproduce in their teaching what they have experienced in their schooling. Two of my goals are that students develop the ability to be open and reflective about their learning histories, values, beliefs, and actions on those beliefs; and that they become conscious of the "hidden curriculum" of schooling (Chan & Rueda, 1979). Because I want my students to problematize (critically examine) the puzzling and contradictory aspects of their views of reality as well as their experiences, I strive to help them discover, experience, and construct powerful alternatives to their past experiences. I want them to become aware of the role that they may be asked to play in perpetuating oppressive structures and practices in the educational system and find ways to take an oppositional stance to an oppressive role. In effect, I try to teach my students to challenge the status quo in the hopes that they, as the teachers of the future, will choose to take a stand in the interests of social justice. Translating theory into practice, however, has proven difficult. While I do not assume that all prospective teachers enter teacher education programs with racist and sexist values, I believe that a great majority of them do and that they tend either to be unconscious of this reality or want to deny it. As a teacher I have observed that a critical