Transformations in Arts-Based Service Learning: The Impact of Cultural Immersion on Pre-service Teachers’ Attitudes to Australian Aboriginal Creative Music-Making

Abstract

Since 2009, pre-service teachers from the University of Western Sydney have been visiting Tennant Creek in Central Australia, teaching in the High School and interacting with the community in their projects. This service learning experience, partnering with the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF) and the Papulu Aparr-Kari (PAK) Indigenous Language Centre, focuses attention on educational outcomes for Aboriginal students in remote Australia. While the arts-based service learning projects have respected the identity and decision-making of the young musicians, they have been life changing for the pre-service teachers. This chapter demonstrates how service-learning projects have forged a different kind of teacher identity that is based on mutual relationships.