The Crisis in Indigenous School Attendance in Australia: Towards a MetaRealist Solution

In this article we endeavour to address the problem of the low levels of Indigenous school attendance in Australia through strategies based on dialectical critical realism and metaRealism. We employ the concepts of the dialectic of the 7 Es, the concrete universal, four-planar social being, the self, active perception and dialectical universality (empathy) to show how Indigenous education and an approach to school attendance can be developed that leads to a transformation of the underlying relations between educators and Indigenous communities, families and children. In specific terms we endeavour to show how school connectedness can be given an emancipatory orientation.