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Dr. Wendy Hanlen was the first Aboriginal person to be conferred with a PhD at the Central Coast Campus of the University of Newcastle during the University's graduation ceremony in October 2003. Wendy's thesis attempts to fill the void currently being experienced in literacy outcomes in Indigenous populations.
Thesis title:
Emerging literacy in New South Wales rural and urban Indigenous families
Dr. Hanlen is a Kamilaroi woman living in Darkinjung country on the Central Coast of NSW. Wendy is a member of the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, the Kuriwa Aboriginal Education Consultative Group and Woodport ASSPA.Dr. Hanlen is also a research academic at Umulliko.
Wendy undertook a PhD over three and-a-half years completing her doctorate in 2002 and graduating in 2003. She was a full time student with a University of Newcastle Research Scholarship and received funding from the Australian Research Council - Indigenous Researchers Development Scheme. Prior to her postgraduate studies, Wendy participated in the 1996 NSW Aboriginal Education Policy in-service training for teachers in the Sydney's Ryde and Northern Beaches Districts and the Central Coast as both a community member and in as an Independent Consultant.
Wendy's research sought to understand the literacy beliefs, values, goals, expectations,experiences, practices and access to resources from the perspectives of the four rural and five urban NSW Indigenous families. The research also explored how families perceived their roles in the children's early literacy learning. It was Wendy's intention from the beginning to conduct the research from Indigenous perspectives. This produced a number of challenges in the research process and it soon became clear that she needed to develop an appropriate theoretical approach and methodology. Wendy used Yarn Times as means of gathering data in consultation with the communities and the participants. This proved to be successful not only for the research process but it was valuable in a very personal way for the participants. They revisited their own childhood from their perspectives as Indigenous parents and they could see real value in their own contribution to their children's literacy development. In the past teachers have not seen value in the parents'contributions and this was reinforced to the families with the annual results of the Basic Skills Test which continue to focus on the poor outcomes for Indigenous students without producing answers for parents to understand why and what can be done to improve them.
The research provided information that is useful in a number of fields including the development of curriculum and policy planning; community based early literacy and community family workshop programs. One of the most important outcomes was a contribution to the development of Indigenous theoretical perspectives and research methodology.
Examiners' Comments
'This is approach [yarning] enabled her to meet the rigorous requirements of University academic conventions, be true to her own Indigeneity and be a voice for the Indigenous communities she worked with… I am extremely impressed with the thesis as a study that demonstrates a deep knowledge of several fields of knowledge namely, Education, Indigenous Studies, Sociology, History, Anthropology and Sociolinguistics. It is then by definition an amazingly eclectic work'. (Professor Tania Ka'ai, University of Otago, NZ)
'The yarning approach that Ms Hanlen developed for gathering her data was most effective in gaining contextual and important information on literacy and family literacy development. The voice of the Indigenous families was always present as a result of the yarning approach… The methodological implications of her work are enormous… Ms Hanlen should also undertake the task of re-theorising early childhood education in Australia'. (Professor Marilyn Fleer, Monash University, Peninsula Campus)
'These case studies clearly illuminate the large body of theoretical work Ms. Hanlen has done… and… offer[s] convincing evidence for many of the claims that follow from that theoretical work… Her call for research based on indigenous [sic] cultural perspectives and Western academic traditions… is particularly telling. Her call for research based on indigenous perspectives is, while, of course, controversial, since many believe that scientific research has no cultural perspectives, is responsibly and intelligently done'. (Professor James Gee, University of Wisconsin, USA)
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