The name is absent

320

teachers who have learned their Aboriginality at second hand (in
the Torrens A.T.E.P. programme for example*) were seen as white
by the people who used traditional people as their basis of comparison.
That is, the people of Augusta Park, and of Port Augusta in general,
supported their model of Aboriginal society (parallel to white

society) by noting a ’mediated' Aboriginality for those who had
moved away from tribal connections.

The 'worlds* of both Port Augusta High and Augusta Park reflected
a theorizing about the construction and maintenance of Aboriginal
identity in which the Aboriginal universe of meaning was not nihilated.

On the contrary every effort was made to recognise the culture
of the tradition-oriented people and the importance of the Law,
and to present this positively to all students.

There was no evidence of a movement towards therapy, towards
an integration into white society that demanded also a relinquishing
of Aboriginal attributes. The model of a parallel Aboriginal
society was accepted as 'real' both by Aborigines and non-Aborigines.

Augusta Park theorizing differed from that of Augusta High
in that there was an unwillingness to theorize about 'problems*
as specifically Aboriginal. The theorizing was that students
2

were all 'equal* but some students had an Aboriginal identity.
The structuring and maintenance of this identity was held to be

an important aim in school policy and practice, with the proviso
that care must be taken not to initiate practice which would rekindle
the racist backlash of the late seventies.

Clearly, this school, too, saw itself espousing policy at
variance with the attitudes of the wider white society.

2

This theorizing could be seen as based in the ’reality’ that the
students at Augusta Park came from families not differing greatly in
economic background and aspirations from white families who were their
neighbours. Port Augusta High had students from a wider range of socio-
economic and cultural backgrounds.

<<   367   368   369   370   371   372   373   >>

More intriguing information