How High Ability Aboriginal Students Entering High School

Success for students entering high school is crucial to keeping them in school (Gray & Hacking, 2009). While there has been much research into the dips in achievement and self-perception, the combined expertise of researchers and educators acknowledges that the greatest difference in organisational culture in school years exists between primary and high school (Eccles & Midgley, 1989). This change occurs for teenagers when they are experiencing the biggest curve on their developmental trajectory (Simmons & Blyth, 1987). Despite these important physical, social and emotional processes taking place most reviews in Australia and internationally have focused on the variables; school structures or shifts in peer groups, either positive or negative

perceive and experience the transition. Particular emphasis will be placed on the ways in which high ability Aboriginal students make sense of the situation and their specific issues in transition. The research identifies current practice in relation to the support and programs provided to students at this time, as well as investigating reasons why, for some, the maintenance of academic performance becomes challenging. The research will build upon these findings to better connect research, policy and practice in order to increase achievement and equitable outcomes for all

Comparisons with similar others form the basis of these self-schemas. The collective self, which is a non-Western and Aboriginal cultural understanding, is also based on comparisons, but with outgroup others. The collective self is associated with relationships between group members and the general behavioural expectations of that group.
One of these self-schemas in adolescence, forming during this developmental period is learning schema, or the academic self-self-concept. A positive academic self-concept will have a mutually reinforcing benefit for self-concept and an individual?s academic outcomes (Shaveson, Hubner, & Stanton, 1976; Shavelson & Bolus, 1981; Marsh, Byrne, & Shavelson, 1988; Marsh, 2002; Marsh & Craven, 1997; 2006; Craven & Parente, 2003; Craven, Halse, Marsh, Mooney, and Wilson-Miller, 2005a;