The name is absent

589

The promotion of a multicultural Australia currently fostered

presents Aboriginal people with a problematic situation. On
the one hand, they resent the coming of migrants who are seen
to take jobs that could well be theirs. On the other hand, given

a preoccupation with identity and culture, Aborigines are committed
to a multicultural society, though not necessarily the form it

takes in Australia.

22.4 Summary The objective reality of Aboriginal students in
multicultural Australia

. 1

The world in which student urban Aborigines in the study are
I

Contexted then, is one that, at the level of theorizing, supports
multi-culturalism. Vietnamese should not try to leave their culture
behind, Aborigines should not try to become white, it is good to
/

have a mixture of cultures and to learn about other cultures. Even
the admission of coloured people to Australia is accepted.

I.

Employers are seen as discriminating against Aborigines. -There

is some measure of support for Aborigines getting jobs before
migrants.

There is a ’theoretical’ acceptance of multi-culturalism and an
acceptance of Aborigines in a multicultural society. On the
other hand,this acceptance is not consonant with the overwhelmingly
negative stereotyping of Aborigines already discussed.

The question must be asked whether the negative stereotyping by
officialdom reflects that of the ’world’ of society in general holding
sedimented knowledge of what ’everyone knows’ about Aborigines,
knowledge that is entirely negative.

It is posited that the support at a theoretical level reflects
the world of education rather than the world of everyday life and
the world of government legislation and policy. It was pointed
■
out above that there is a fundamental difference in Schools Commission
policy which looks to the possiblity of dual identity for ethnic
people, which incorporates Aborigines into the multi-cultural
perspective, and which encourages structural pluralism.

¹Urban refers both to Pt. Augusta and Adelaide.

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