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4.32 Area II
■* ≡ « ■■ a ∙ ∙
(i) Interaction between social Structure and the worlds in Which
’ people live
(a) Social structure - typifications
'Social structure1 is defined as ’’the sum of typifications and
of recurrent patterns of action established by means of them” CBerger
and Luckmann, 1966:48).
”1 apprehend the other by means of typificatory schemes even in
the face-to-face situation” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966:45).
The individual inherits the typifications of the group within
which he locates himself and is located by others. His perception
of self is filtered through the accumulated self-typifications of
the group and his awareness of the typifications by others outside
the group.
For Aboriginal youth this means that the individual,
contexted into a specific social structure, inherits the biography of
his particular group together with the awareness of attitudes to, and
perceptions of, his group by the dominant group. Thus his personal,
individual perceptions of the self, are filtered, to a greater or
lesser degree, by his awareness of typifications, of social stereotypes,
both those of Aboriginal people and those of mainstream society.
The 'specific social structure' wherein the individual locates
himself, which contains typifications with which he interacts to form
psychological reality, consists of multiple realities, of sub-structures.
There are differing 'worlds' of home, school, peer group, employers
and so on. In the school∕education situation, the individual's peer
group, his school Consociates and his teachers may typify the
Aboriginal individual in ways that differ from his own typifications.
That is, there may be asymmetry between the individual's self-
typification and his tyρification by various groups in mainstream
society. There may be differences between typifications of Aboriginal
people by non-Aborigines coming from different social groups.