Chapter 15: Motivational Cognitions and Behaviors for Metropolitan Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Australian Students: Assessing the Relations between Motivation and School Engagement

Recognition of the importance of academic motivation has been captured by a diverse array of educational and psychological research (Covington, 2000; Dekker & Fisher, 2008; Martin, 2009; Urdan & Maehr, 1995), and more recently, considerable emphasis has been placed on the role of motivation within cross-cultural schooling contexts (Ganotice, Bernardo, & King, 2012; McInerney, 2003; McInerney & Ali, 2006). The careful development and positive connotations arising from academic motivation research in cross-cultural settings may be seen as especially important when considering students from more traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds, such as Aboriginal Australian students (Martin, 2006; McInerney, 2003, 2012). Indeed, identifying methodologies that may help disadvantaged students engage with a schooling system that has a history of alienating their sense of cultural identity could be seen as one of the most important steps towards achieving educational equity (Munns, Martin, & Craven, 2008; Schwab, 2012). Nevertheless, considerable care must first be taken to ensure that the understanding of academic motivation be: comprehensive, reliable, and representative across students from diverse cultural backgrounds (Ganotice et al., 2012). Some researchers (e.g., McInerney, 2003, 2008, 2012) have contributed much to advancing our understanding of the motivational patterns of Aboriginal Australian students. Following in this tradition, this paper shall seek to investigate a diversity of motivational factors across a sample of Aboriginal Australian and non-Aboriginal Australian high school students within urban metropolitan educational settings.