Profiles of practice: influences when selecting texts to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in English

The subject of English offers a unique context to embed Indigenous perspectives for the benefit of all students through its availability and variety of text choices. Currently, the New South Wales (NSW) English Syllabus requires teachers to include texts which provide ‘insights into Aboriginal experiences in Australia’ (NESA, 2012). With no structured auditing method for this inclusion, there is room to further understand how teachers select texts to include Indigenous perspectives. This paper will present some factors influencing text selection when including Indigenous perspectives through four teacher profiles. It presents four teacher profiles to explore some influences on their text selections when including Indigenous perspectives. It is a snapshot of decision-making for class texts identified from semi-structured qualitative conversations with four Western Sydney English teachers. The study aims to provide some insight into the process of embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives through text selection in Years 7–10 English.