401
These statements were composed to reflect the subjective correlates
of identity delineated by Erikson and de Levita . The statements
were taken from interview situations with Aboriginal people, and
as far as possible, reflect the phraseology used. Erikson (1977)
emphasises the importance of trust as a basis for a positive identity.
In the interaction of everyday life, trust makes possible the distancing
of oneself from the possibility of anomie, since trust allows one
to predict the behaviour of others, and hence allows one to articulate
and project into the future one's own course of action.
In sociological terms everyday life contains tyρificatory schemes
through which others are apprehended, and patterns of behaviour
formulated (Berger and Luckmann, 1966:45). It is one of the problems
of the 'stranger' to a society that he cannot come to grips with
the typificatory schemes held by the host society.
These typificatory schemes, based in trust, described by Erikson,
accord with Berger and Luckmann's definition of social structure.
Social structure "is the sum total of these typifications and of
the recurrent patterns of interaction established by means of them"
(Berger and Luckmann, 1966:48).
24.21 (i) Trust
(a) Hypothesis
It was hypothesized that Aboriginal people would be socialized
into a negative identity. It was therefore projected that Aboriginal
people would support statements reflecting distrust and expectation
of rejection.
The following statements offered, for agreement or disagreement,
typifications of actors in the everyday world of educational institutions.
1See pp. 33-34.