Western Australian Aboriginal young women and community representatives identify barriers to school attendance and solutions to school non-attendance

Oct 15, 2026

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The paper reports outcomes from yarning circles with young Aboriginal women participating in the Shooting Stars education engagement program at Narrogin Senior High School in Western Australia. It explores how participants and a localised steering committee discuss racism, teacher–student relationships, and peer connectedness, linking these themes to attendance and engagement. Using a culturally safe, democratic process framed by relatedness, the study presents achieved and projected actions committed to by committee stakeholders.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Background: attendance disparities and policy context

Shooting Stars program and yarning circles method

Barriers identified through participant discussions

Outcomes and stakeholder commitments

Western Australian Aboriginal young women and community representatives identify barriers to school attendance and solutions to school non-attendance Rose Whitau1, Latoya Bolton-Black1, Helen Ockerby2 and Lowana Corley1 1 Shooting Stars, Glass Jar Australia Ltd, 200 Selby Street, Jolimont, Western Australia, 6014, Australia [rosewhitau@shootingstars.org.au](rosewhitau@shootingstars.org.au) 2 Garnduwa Amboorny Wirnan, Unit 2, 23 Coghlan Street, Broome, Western Australia, 6725, Australia The barriers to school attendance that affect young Aboriginal people in Australia are diverse, immense and well documented; however, except for a handful of studies, Aboriginal students’ voices receive no platform for policy makers to hear them. In this paper, we present results from yarning circles about barriers to school attendance conducted with young Aboriginal women that participate in an education engagement program called Shooting Stars at Narrogin Senior High School. Yarning circles were facilitated, analysed and discussed within a framework of relatedness, with the researchers embracing their own standpoint, and the standpoint of the Shooting Stars participants, as Indigenous women. The results from these participant yarning circles were discussed with the Shooting Stars Narrogin localised steering committee, and this discussion is presented here, alongside the outcomes, both achieved and projected, to which committee stakeholders have committed. For the most part, the participants and the steering committee discussed racism, teacher–student relationships, and peer connectedness, and how these were related to participant attendance and engagement at school. This paper showcases the power of the yarning circle as a tool for collaboration in that it provides a space to create cohesion through conversation, through contention and through sharing. Keywords: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education, school attendance, yarning circles, Indigenous methods, student voice Introduction First, it is right that we introduce ourselves. We, the authors, are all Indigenous women: LBB (Nyoongar, Yamatji), HO (Bardi-Jawi, Nyoongar), and LC (Kungarakan, Paperbark Peoples, Finniss River Northern Territory) are all Aboriginal Australian, and RW is New Zealand Māori (KāiTahu, Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha) and Pākehā (New Zealand European). We all work, or have worked, for the Shooting Stars program from which we receive financial remuneration. We are heavily invested in the Shooting Stars program and our participants’ success. This paper is not an evaluation of either the Shooting Stars program or Narrogin Senior High School. We offer this paper as a case study in collaboration between an education program, a school, students and community. Narrogin Senior High School has chosen to remain named in this paper, and we honour the school community’s courage and honesty in our journey toward reconciliation. Shooting Stars, an initiative of Glass Jar Australia and Netball Western Australia, uses sport, art (visual and performing), and other incentives as rewards to encourage Aboriginal girls and young women to improve their school attendance, while promoting their health and wellbeing. The Shooting Stars program is site specific, with staff adapting a key set of deliverables to the requirements and interests of the host school, community and students (Figure 1). The six main program activities drive the five key outcomes of the program, which are evaluated through collation of attendance data from the Department of Education, participant case studies and yarning circles. Yarning circles provide a culturally safe, democratic method by which our local communities, represented by a steering committee, and program participants themselves can drive the direction and content of their local program while providing qualitative feedback regarding the program’s effectiveness (Whitau & Ockerby, 2019). The yarning circle method is both a program activity an

FAQs

What method does the paper use to collect young women’s perspectives on school attendance?

It presents results from yarning circles facilitated with young Aboriginal women in the Shooting Stars program.

Which main barriers to attendance are discussed by participants and the steering committee?

They focus on racism, teacher–student relationships, and peer connectedness, and how these relate to attendance and engagement.

What role do yarning circles play in the program evaluation?

They function both as a program activity and as an evaluation tool, enabling collaboration and qualitative feedback through conversation, contention, and sharing.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Kurz