This paper reports on the nature and operation of an enacted leadership approach integral to the development of an early literacy program in partnership with the families and community of Napranum a remote Indigenous community on the western side of Cape York in far north Queensland, Australia.  The Parents and Learning (PaL) program has been highly successful in several Indigenous communities since its introduction in 2001. This paper focuses on the nature of the leadership inherent in the home-school partnerships, critical to the achievement of educational outcomes in the children.

The educational achievements of many Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) children are poor, particularly in remote areas where literacy skills are consistently well below the national average.  This disadvantage impacts on their expectations and future life outcomes. Closing this gap between the literacy performance of indigenous and non-indigenous children is of crucial importance and has become a government priority (Australian Government, 2009). 

Family engagement is accepted universally as integral to young children’s success at school and recent research shows that involvement by family members improves educational achievement (Henderson, Jacob, Kernan-Schloss & Raimondo, 2004). There are clear differences in the involvement of parents. Middle class families possessing cultural, social and economic capital are seen to readily respond and take up the opportunities for involvement in their children’s schooling (Daniel, 2005). On the other hand, school leaders find gaining engagement from parents from minority, marginalised and disadvantaged groups, including remote indigenous parents, challenging (Hughes & MacNaughton, 2000).

Past parental engagement practices have been seen as imposed within “a broadly paternalistic framework, assuming the superiority of mainstream views” (Priest, King, Nangala, Brown & Nangala, 2008, p.123), resulting in parents being positioned as subordinate in top-down, hierarchical, and binary relationships with school professionals. Further, Shepherd and Walker (2008) have suggested that family-school interactions with ATSI parents and their communities are characterised by inappropriate interventions where parents’ strengths are often overlooked or undervalued by inexperienced but well-intentioned practitioners. Thus most ATSI parents don’t actively seek involvement with their children’s learning at school.

While models of Australian home/school partnerships abound (DEEWR, 2008), most are constructed by the school to provide opportunities for parent participation in school-initiated activities. The power and control of these relationships appear to reside with the school and its leader with such models problematic in engaging indigenous (and other disadvantaged families) in their children’s learning (Daniel, 2005). Evidence of genuine, reciprocal partnerships between home, school and indigenous communities is limited. This paper, reporting on the PaL program, illustrates the successful engagement of Indigenous parents in their young children’s literacy learning.

The intercultural space

Taylor has described an intercultural space as:

…the meeting of two distinct cultures through processes and interactions which retain the distinctive integrity and difference of both cultures and which may involve a blending of elements of both cultures but never the domination of one over another (Taylor, 2003, p.45).

The co-constructed space (not a physical location) in which PaL operates is best described as an inter-cultural space (Flückiger, Diamond & Jones,2012). With no defined boundaries, membership and participation is fluid often with extension to the community. The Pal partnership operates in a space where everyone listens to each other respectfully and the cultural knowledge and experiences of the parents and community, along with the knowledge and experiences of the teachers and Directors, are given equal importance. Thus leadership and the responsibility for PaL has the potential to be assumed by any, or all of the participants. 

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