Indigenous Cultures In The Australian Culture: Case Study

Three Wiki assignments helped to correct misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about indigenous people and culture; moreover, it was time to think about how cultural safety could affect nursing practice.

This case study will analyse how these Australian Government policies, initiatives and legislative requirements influence curriculum, promote quality care and support the achievement of high quality outcomes for young children in Early Learning contexts.

Australia is one of the country that has grown to be the most diverse in the world. Many people come from different country, different ethnic background and different beliefs/religions. We want to enrich children’s experiences of diversity. At the same time we want our children to also experience, learn and explore Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander because they are the Australia original inhabitants.

Throughout the early 20th century, the Australian public was led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged in their communities, and that there was a high risk of physical and sexual abuse. Aboriginal children were being removed in order to be exposed to ‘Anglo values’ and ‘work habits’ with a view to them being employed by colonial settlers, and to stop their parents, families and communities from passing on their culture, language and identity

The indigenous children were integrated into the white community in an attempt to deter them from the culture and raise them as white Australians. Some of these

Government policies authorising the removal of Aboriginal children have caused extensive and unrepairable damage to every aspect of Indigenous culture. It could be argued that the emotional turmoil which occurred as a result of this policy, is greater than any physical abused ever faced by the Australian Aboriginal people. The act of child removal would be a scarring experience for parents and children of any race or culture. This policy had a particularly damaging impact on the Indigenous people as their identity is based within a set of strong traditional guides and teachings. These lessons are not recorded, but can only be taught through speaking with elders and learning through a connection to others within the mob, connection to art forms

‘Australia’ also showed how the government controlled how children of Aboriginal descent were brought up with language used such as “The mixed raced children must be dislocated from their primitive full blooded Aborigine, how else are we to breed the black out of them”. This presented again the reason as to why the Aboriginal children were taken away from their own cultures to be raised in something completely different.

Partnership is all about communication and shared experiences. There are many indigenous resources to help Early Childhood services such as SNAICC and IPSU, the NSW Aboriginal Child, Youth and Family Strategy, Early Childhood Australia, ACECQA, these can help with information and resources and professional development. These services can help Early Childhood services connect with the local community to develop partnerships and goals.

The ‘Stolen Generations’ is a term used to describe the actions of which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, mostly children, were taken away from their families between the 1890’s and the 1970’s (Korff, 2014). Children were taken to institutions or adopted by non-Indigenous families and most never saw their families again. In the early 1900’s the Australian public was persuaded into believing Aboriginal children were deprived, mistreated and at risk in their own communities. People believed that Aboriginal children would receive a better education, a more loving and caring family and a more civilised upbringing if adopted by white families or government institutions. In reality Aboriginal children were being removed so that they

Were children of mixed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent whom were removed from their families by Australian Federal Government

Aboriginals or indigenous Australians are the native people of Australia. Aboriginals were nomadic people who came to Australia about 40,000 – 60,000 years ago from Southeast Asia. Religion is a great part of Aboriginal culture. The essay answers these questions: What do Aboriginals belief? What is a Kinship system? What is Dreaming and Dreamtime? What rituals does Aboriginals have?

Australia’s Indigenous population is made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, each of whom, have discernible and diverse language, customs and cultures, spanning time immemorial (Reynolds, 2005). Aboriginal Australians maintain symbiotic interrelationships to Country, culture and kin (Sherwood, 2013), engaging in a worldview which holistically connects the wellbeing of individuals to their community and also, to place and the land. This sense of wellbeing includes varying aspects of physical, social, emotional, cultural and spiritual education (Malin & Maidment, 2003); and in determining the propagation of Country, care and sustenance of the land is imperative for maintaining its wellness, in addition to the reciprocity that this wellness provides by return, to the people (Yunupingu, 1997). The encompassing health of individuals, community and Country, is dictated through the education passed down by the Law of The Dreaming and Ancestors, ensuring balance between the aspects of wellbeing (Sherwood, 2013). It is a markedly different framework to that of Western cultures (Reynolds, 2005); and one that was interrupted, maligned and denigrated, by invasion.

Australia Indigenous identity and culture are denied and removed by the dominate race since the first British colonisation in 1788 (e.g. Australia Museum, 2015; Reflective Journal, 19 March 2015), and it has cross-generation effect. An Aboriginal member from the stolen generation, Rita Wenberg (2012) states she was not a good mother to her children, her traumatise experience from stolen generation remove her sense of identity and disable her to handle her grief, which has significantly affect her parenting ability. Priest, et al., (2010) found that Aboriginal parents were 3.6 times more likely to report drug problems and the children were 1.62 times more likely to be become ill. Zubrick, et al., (2006) also discovered that Aboriginal youth

Australian Indigenous culture is claimed to be one of the oldest continuous living cultures in the world. They have approximately been on this land, Australia, for 40 000 years or more. However they weren’t alone on April 29th 1770 for Captain James Cook and his fellow botanists, Joseph Banks and Daniel Carl Solander had sailed in on the East Coast of Australia, Botany Bay. Some people call this colonisation, to establish a colony in; settle, but some people call this an invasion, entrance as if to take possession or overrun. The British did not have a right to come into this country and take over for it was the Indigenous people who looked after this land and claimed it for tens of thousands years. Violence is not the answer to trying to communicate and there was a feud between the two cultures. For many years during and after the invasion, the British had killed many Aboriginals and vice versa. Over-sea diseases were imported into Australia which the Aboriginals were not immune to. Children were removed from their homes so that they would

Therefore, it comes down to not only a question of welfare but also of cultural differences and whether the white population deemed the aboriginal way of life to be undesirable rather than the children’s living conditions. Jacobs (2009, p. 256) makes the assertion that the aboriginal conditions were judged in comparison to white middle-class, Christian standards and were not applicable to an indigenous context. For example, it was reported by Elkin, a contemporary academic who studied aborigine culture, that the aborigines showed no desire to join a mission and to partake in the ways of the white people, as farming, houses, and schools interfered with the aboriginals’ pre-existent lifestyle of nomadism (Elkin, 1951). Therefore, their perceived ‘inhumane’ lifestyle and their resistance to conforming to a white lifestyle arguably confirmed the held beliefs that the aborigine culture was detrimental and inhumane to the Indigenous children. This can further be seen in the aims set out in to be accomplished with the aborigines by Leake, Premier of Western Australia; these being humanising, civilising and Christianising (Prinsep, 1900-1901). This clearly indicates that the white settlers were working towards a goal with the aboriginals, and that perhaps this perceived inferiority affirms the HREOC’s (1997) assessment that ‘systematic racial discrimination’ did occur.