‘A journey of peeling back’: examining the impact of pedagogical narratives to support teaching of First Nations content

Scholarship in Australia has argued for a need to significantly improve teaching of First Nations content. While there has been an ever-increasing focus on how such content has been ‘embedded’ into the Australian curriculum across the mandatory years of schooling, evidence suggests that little pedagogical change has occurred. Many educators continue to experience epistemic inertia when confronted with First Nations curriculum content, and despite considerable efforts invested in the enactment of policies and practices, there is little evidence to indicate that ready-to-use resources, or education packages, results in more effective classroom practice. In this paper, we build on emerging scholarship to argue for developing a school-wide, ‘big ideas’ rationale that educators can employ across all years of learning. We offer empirical evidence demonstrating how cultural mentorship of educators, combined with developing of big idea pedagogical narratives, can positively influence epistemic capacity to critically engage with First Nations curriculum content.