| Sumario: | In 2007 the authors embarked on an ethnographic research project. Then, as now, low school attendance, poor English literacy scores and the educational and social disengagement of young people in remote Indigenous communities was portrayed as a 'crisis'. While they acknowledge that mainstream education is an effective learning pathway for some, their combined experience in working with Indigenous communities in remote Australia suggested that there were many Indigenous young people in those communities for whom mainstream education appeared not to hold the answers to their visions of the future. Consequently, they were keen to explore other pathways to learning and other options for reengaging the young people who find themselves outside the fence of institutional learning. Specifically, they decided not to explore the merit or otherwise of education 'in school'. Rather, their research focuses on two domains: ongoing learning in the out-of-school hours, and ongoing learning across the lifespan. Accordingly, their interest is in two groups: early school-leavers (aged sixteen and above) and young adults in the post-school age group. The project, the Lifespan Learning and Literacy for Young Adults in Remote Indigenous Communities project, asks three key questions: How can early school leavers and disaffected young adults in remote communities be reengaged with learning? How can literacy be acquired, maintained and transmitted outside school settings? How can learning and literacy be fostered across the lifespan? [p.2, ed].
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