The name is absent

CHAPTER XXVII

CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE, AND
DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

*

27.1 Conclusions
_ ______ _ *

27.11 ’Worlds’ of Aborigines

The most important conclusion of the study, from which other
conclusions derive, is the fact that Aborigines are not a mono-
lithic group and that categorisation and policy-making which do
not take note of this are either useless or harmful or both,
r≡

What can be generalised in the urban situation is that
Aboriginal students in schools have:

a positive view of themselves and their families

a positive view of schooling

a positive view of Australian society

a desire to merge into Australian society.              '

However, there is not one 'world' of meaning for Aborigines.

^ There are 'worlds' of meaning, differing between tradition-
oriented and urban groups and within the urban situation. The
differing models of Aboriginal worlds proposed, (Figure 3) are
accepted as 'real' for the Aboriginal people.

However, from the point of view of the white world, legislation
continues to be passed for 'Aborigines', policy is formulated for
'Aborigines' as if they were a monolithic group, despite the
stated aims and objectives of political party policies.

Aborigines are forced into identifying themselves in a global
way, since the categories for such identification are determined
by white society.

The Aboriginal people are 'named', located, into a particular
world of meaning, by the dominant group.

Such naming by others is a basic problem in the search for
identity.

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