This edited collection by leading Australian Aboriginal scholars uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) to explore how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are growing up in contemporary Australia. The authors provide an overview of the study, including the Indigenous methodological and ethical framework which guides the analysis. They also address the resulting policy ramifications, alongside the cultural, social, educational and family dynamics of Indigenous children’s lives. Indigenous Children Growing Up Strong will be of interest to students and scholars in the areas of sociology, social work, anthropology and childhood and youth studies.

Surprisingly little research has been carried out about how Australian Aboriginal children and teenagers experience life, shape their social world and imagine the future. This volume presents recent and original studies of life experiences outside the institutional settings of childcare and education, of those growing up in contemporary Central Australia or with strong links to the region. Focusing on the remote communities – roughly 1,200 across the continent – the volume includes case studies of language and family life in small country towns and urban contexts. These studies expertly show that forms of consciousness have changed enormously over the last hundred years for Indigenous societies more so than for the rest of Australia, yet equally notable are the continuities across generations.

Childhood stories of family, country and belonging What is it like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia? This anthology, compiled by award-winning author Anita Heiss, showcases many diverse voices, experiences and stories in order to answer that question. Accounts from well-known authors and high-profile identities sit alongside those from newly discovered writers of all ages. All of the contributors speak from the heart – sometimes calling for empathy, oftentimes challenging stereotypes, always demanding respect. This groundbreaking collection will enlighten, inspire and educate about the lives of Aboriginal people in Australia today. Contributors include: Tony Birch, Deborah Cheetham, Adam Goodes, Terri Janke, Patrick Johnson, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Jack Latimore, Celeste Liddle, Amy McQuire, Kerry Reed-Gilbert, Miranda Tapsell, Jared Thomas, Aileen Walsh, Alexis West, Tara June Winch, and many, many more. Winner, Small Publisher Adult Book of the Year at the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards ‘Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia is a mosaic, its more than 50 tiles – short personal essays with unique patterns, shapes, colours and textures – coming together to form a powerful portrait of resilience.’ —The Saturday Paper ‘... provides a diverse snapshot of Indigenous Australia from a much needed Aboriginal perspective.’ —The Saturday Age

Indigenous sociology makes visible what is meaningful in the Indigenous social world. This core premise is demonstrated here via the use of the concept of the Indigenous Lifeworld in reference to the dispossessed Indigenous Peoples from Anglo-colonized first world nations. Indigenous lifeworld is built around dual intersubjectivities: within peoplehood, inclusive of traditional and ongoing culture, belief systems, practices, identity, and ways of understanding the world; and within colonized realties as marginalized peoples whose everyday life is framed through their historical and ongoing relationship with the colonizer nation state. The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous Sociology is, in part, a response to the limited space allowed for Indigenous Peoples within the discipline of sociology. The very small existing sociological literature locates the Indigenous within the non-Indigenous gaze and the Eurocentric structures of the discipline reflect a continuing reluctance to actively recognize Indigenous realities within the key social forces literature of class, gender, and race at the discipline's center. But the ambition of this volume, its editors, and its contributors is larger than a challenge to this status quo. They do not speak back to sociology, but rather, claim their own sociological space. The starting point is to situate Indigenous sociology as sociology by Indigenous sociologists. The authors in The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous Sociology, all leading and emerging Indigenous scholars, provide an authoritative, state of the art survey of Indigenous sociological thinking. The contributions in this Handbook demonstrate that the Indigenous sociological voice is a not a version of the existing sub-fields but a new sociological paradigm that uses a distinctively Indigenous methodological approach.