Clay Chastain - 1 -
AIS 180 – Introduction to Australian Indigenous Studies
Assignment #2, Topic #2
On the Importance of Australian Indigenous Studies to Combat Racism
Clay Chastain
Murdoch University
22 May 2009
Clay Chastain - 2 In the context of Australian Aboriginal studies, the importance of historic,
cultural, and political investigation in schools is often over-generalized, marginalized, or
completely overlooked for non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal students alike. Because of the
historically Westernized viewpoint, education on Aboriginal topics has been sparse and
inaccurate, spreading long-standing racist ideologies and reinforcing negative cultural
connotations instead of explaining the actuality of the Aboriginal people. Throughout
this paper, examples will be given of these oversights in the educational system and
provide details into the realities of the Aboriginal context in Australia, as well as
positioning the idea of progressive education and the importance of a full study of
indigenous materials. The end goal of the paper is to stress the overall importance of
teaching accurate Aboriginal history and culture in a more applicable and appropriate
way in order to overcome negative perpetuated cultural stereotypes through the use of
academic insights.
While the subject of race and racism is decisively a touchy subject even among
academia, the factual accounts of younger Australian students in an anthropological study
have produced empirical data on the nature of the foundation of their beliefs towards
Aboriginals. Although the idea of racism is perceived as being a negative quality, many
of the students inadvertently admitted a level of socialization towards Aboriginals that
reflected a significant degree of counterfactual racial motivations.
In this study, produced by Nado Aveling in 1998, the author tries to introduce the
concepts of racism in terms of the Western identity, as well as providing the compelling
racial data. One of the founding problems that the author mentions is the way that
Australian school children are being educated in terms of Aboriginal studies, stating that
Clay Chastain - 3 “. . . generations of schoolchildren learned that Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia, . . .
a vast land, sparsely populated by ‘spear-carrying and witchetty-grub-eating primitives’”
(Jones, 1998, p. 15). Aveling notes that only recently in 1992 was the notion of Terra
Nullis¸ or the idea that Australia was “empty land” before Western colonization, finally
dispelled by a controversial High Court decision (Jones, 1998, p. 16). Although the
Westernized story of Captain Cook’s discovery of a barely inhabited land is an example
that Aveling cites came from textbooks in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the educational
inaccuracies are still perpetuated by others in academia and government offices. For
example, in 1988, the former Minster of Territories, Paul Hasluck, states that:
“There was nothing that could be recognized as a homogeneous and
integrated aboriginal society. Here and there throughout the continent
there were crumbling groups of aboriginal people bound together by
ancient tradition and kinship and living under a fading discipline. . . None
of these groups could be identified as a society in the same way as the rest
of the people in Australia could be identified as a society” (Hasluck,
1988).
Clearly, in this instance, the inaccuracies of Aboriginal society should be obvious; the
idea that Aboriginals do not have a comparable society to Australians seems unlikely.
According to a 2009 dictionary, a society is “an organized group of persons associated
together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other
purposes” (Dictionary.com, 2009), which indicates that Aboriginals, like Australians,
have a consistent society. As well, upon the actual study of Aboriginals, the idea of
Clay Chastain - 4 kinship and the deep cultural heritage passed down through generations contradicts the
notion of Aboriginal people society being heterogeneous or disintegrated.
In light of remarks like Hasluck’s, and the data presented by Aveling, it seems
that there is a long tradition of socialization through education that incorrectly casts
Aboriginals in a negative light; this, coupled with the poor overall perspective on
Aboriginal culture through the secondary school system, has led children to develop a
distinctively Westernized, and often racist, view towards Aboriginals. In 2006 study on
the racism of the white population in the Northern Territory, the author cites a study that
found that “. . . racism is structurally embedded in society and is reflected in normal
discourse” (Kessaris, 2006). The author’s argument is that because of the poor
educational practices in the past, and the years of cultural exploitation, the white
population has become accepting of racism and practices it towards the indigenous
population through a normalized perspective. The author asserts that “[t]he normalized
nature of racism means that large numbers, in fact the majority, of nice, decent, regular
Mununga [white] people, can and do, routinely participate in everyday kinds of casual
racism so ordinary that they do not even recognize it.” (Kessaris, 2006)
With this said, the problem of Aboriginal education does not solely rely upon the
issue of racism, but rather is a factor in the situation. Because of the overall nature of the
Australian education system, it is not just the non-Aboriginals who are being inaccurately
socialized, but also the Aboriginals. Many recent articles (as of May 2009) in major
Australian publications highlight these problems. One of these articles cite curriculum
which does not even teach “. . . history, geography, nor [sic] science” in more remote
areas of Australia (Ferrari, 2008). In other cases, Aboriginal children leave their
Clay Chastain - 5 schooling unable to even read at level of competency (Slattery, 2008). Largely, it can be
said that these situations influence the lack of cultural understanding by both nonAboriginals and Aboriginal students alike.
The largest obstacle to overcome, however, remains elusive. While the solution
seems to be an easy one, the lack of proper education in Australia towards Aboriginals
and their culture for such an extended period of time has created a socially acceptable
form of racism. Because of this, applying the basic idea of increasing educational
funding is a limited approach at best. Without conclusive studies on these subjects, the
most critical aspect of defeating racism and supporting Aboriginal culture via updated
schooling initiative is under-documented and more difficult to study.
One of the studies that does exist follows an educational program designed to
promote cultural understanding for Australian Aboriginals from a white perspective in
the workplace actually found that after three months “there was no significant difference
to baseline levels of prejudice and stereotyping”. Even though a person has knowledge,
it does not inherently mean that racism will be impacted in any meaningful way. While
the study did note that it decreased what it describes as “old-fashioned” racism, the
conclusion of the study was that “further research must be done to develop more
successful strategies of prejudice reduction and stereotype change that are also applicable
to 'real world' contexts”. Essentially, this study is one of the few studies that does not
just report that there is racism and that more education is essential, it also follows through
a full study on actual cultural changes over time.
However, while these types of studies are essential, along with the more personal
embedding of Aveling into young school children’s socialization, they clearly present a
Clay Chastain - 6 deeper problem in combating the problem. There is, at this time, a distinct lack of
conclusive studies that deal with Australian Aboriginals and what methods are the best
approaches to improving the education of both Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals. While
similar studies exist for almost any marginalized population, especially those of
indigenous populations, the context of Australia is unique to itself and more work needs
to be done to produce progressive results in general education.
In conclusion, the end result of this information is that education and research into
Aboriginal culture is a huge portion of the battle against the traditional Westernized
viewpoint. It is crucial for everyone to attempt to have a firm understanding of the
indigenous culture of Australia. Not only is it the underlying culture of the first
inhabitants of the land, but it is a necessary knowledge for everyday relations with a
significant portion of current Australians. By increasing general knowledge of
Aboriginal culture, more studies and attempts at combating negative stereotypes will
likely be investigated, as well as the natural process of spreading progressive ideologies
to anyone who is in the country.
Word Count: 1,573
Clay Chastain - 7 Works Cited
Ferrari, J. `Education Apartheid' Failing Aboriginal Kids. Australian, The. 5 Apr. 2008.
Hasluck, P. 1988. Shades of Darkness: Aboriginal Affairs, 1925-1965. Melbourne:
Melbourne University Press.
Hill, M. E., & Augoustinos, M. (2001). Stereotype Change and Prejudice Reduction:
Short- and Long-term Evaluation of a Cross–cultural Awareness Programme.
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 11(4), 243-262.
Kessaris, T. N. (2006). About Being Mununga (Whitefulla): Making Covert Group
Racism Visible. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 16(5), 347362.
Slattery, L. `Back to basics' key for aboriginal schools – Indigenous Affairs. Australian,
The. 11 February 2008.
Society. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1, Based on Random House 2009).
Retrieved May 12, 2009, from Dictionary.com website:
http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/browse/society.