Factors affecting the development of school and Indigenous community engagement: A systematic review

School systems and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have long acknowledged
the levels of social, cultural and epistemic conflict that has historically existed
between teachers and schools, and Aboriginal students, families and their local communities.
This relationship is both symptomatic and causal of the broader and highly
complex field of issues and policies found to underpin the fraught histories existing
between many Aboriginal communities and schools. This systematic review of the
research literature reports on findings and insights into the everyday environments
of these interactions and the possibilities of Aboriginal communities being able to
affect the establishment of genuine and productive interactions with schools. The
review looks to focus on those factors seen to either enable or act as barriers to this
process, and comment on their impact on Aboriginal communities, their students
and schools’ capacity for purposeful engagement.