Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Resources

At First Glance

When first evaluating your selected resource, the first three questions to reflect upon are:

• Does the author identify or does the work clearly reference who worked with them?
• When was this resource published? It is preferred that nothing published prior to ten years ago, from the current year, is included.
• What perspectives are included in this work?

From this initial contemplation, you should be able to ascertain the way in which this resource can be used, and if it can be used for your purposes. The AIATSIS Guide to evaulating and selecting education resources is linked below, which includes a helpful diagram to prompt you to consider where a resource is written by mob, with mob, for mob, about mob or against mob. It reminds us that we are valuing the participation and ownership of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples their knowledges.                              

Guiding checklist

This checklist is meant to guide you towards developing an understanding of quality Indigenous resources, and not to be used as a definitive guide on what resource to use. At many times, you will need to use common sense and confer with others to decide whether to use a resource. You may come across resources that you would like to use, yet you know these resources do not satisfy the yes list, or tick off a few items from the no list. For example, you may choose a primary resource that is an older, offensive text to show the viewpoints of the past in the interest of truth telling. In an instance like this, you might need to seek out a resource that ticks off items from the no list.

Yes List

A resource should aim to tick as many of these as possible, with a minimum of four. There will always be individual cases for certain purposes for resources.

No List

If there are any no's, the resource cannot be used. There will be individual exceptions to this where resources that tick some no's can be used for comparative purposes.