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broadening cultural perspectives. The Strelley Mob rejects white
•culture-laden’ material in education, arguing that it destroys
their culture. English ɑfor them a foreign language) is a tool
for interaction with the dominant culture, and not a means of
access to a literature and a culture.
Policy statements on multi-cultural education place great
emphasis on language as preserving cultural identity. The Aboriginal
language manifestly does this par excellence. But the identity thus
strengthened is away from mainstream culture. Very few Europeans
would opt to learn an Aboriginal language. If they did, there
would be a choice of a plethora of languages. The use of
Aboriginal language presupposes a situation that is multi-structural
as well as multi-cultural.
*
Multiculturalism may be seen as a policy accommodating politically
the pressures of certain groups within ethnic communities, rather
than as a policy that embraces all groups in the community.
The Australian Schools Commission has strongly supported community
involvement in schools, strongly supported the exploration of
alternatives to schooling, the development of curricula that take
account of changing patterns of employment, of changing opportunities
for work and changing community values that accompany this.
All of these aims are already found to be in existence at Strelley;
their practical implementation there could well provide insightsj in
other situations, for schools which are seriously attempting to provide
an alternative education to meet the needs of their particular clientele
in a rapidly changing social and economic situation.
However, the alternative system conducted at Strelley is predicated
on a set of values that may well not be acceptable to the Australian
mainstream model of the ’world’, structured according to the values
and norms of the dominant group. While the dominant group may
be able to tolerate, deplore, ignore a depressed minority within
its framework and encourage ’alternative' schools embedded within
the framework of the dominant society, it is problematic whether
the dominant group can tolerate a minority group who shake off their