Children and Youth in Aboriginal Australia: An Overview of the Literature

Eickelkamp, Ute

doi:10.1080/00664677.2010.487297

Cited by 32 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…We also contacted 37 contributors from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers (we could not locate 14 email addresses), of whom 9 responded. We also examined the references from six relevant reviews (Bugarin 2008 ; Eickelkamp 2010 ; Herzog 1974 ; Hewlett 2014 ; Keith 2008 ; MacDonald 2007 ). This yielded another 340 publications for full-text reading.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

Lew‐Levy

Reckin

Lavi

et al. 2017

Hum Nat

180

151

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Hunting and gathering is, evolutionarily, the defining subsistence strategy of our species. Studying how children learn foraging skills can, therefore, provide us with key data to test theories about the evolution of human life history, cognition, and social behavior. Modern foragers, with their vast cultural and environmental diversity, have mostly been studied individually. However, cross-cultural studies allow us to extrapolate forager-wide trends in how, when, and from whom hunter-gatherer children learn their subsistence skills. We perform a meta-ethnography, which allows us to systematically extract, summarize, and compare both quantitative and qualitative literature. We found 58 publications focusing on learning subsistence skills. Learning begins early in infancy, when parents take children on foraging expeditions and give them toy versions of tools. In early and middle childhood, children transition into the multi-age playgroup, where they learn skills through play, observation, and participation. By the end of middle childhood, most children are proficient food collectors. However, it is not until adolescence that adults (not necessarily parents) begin directly teaching children complex skills such as hunting and complex tool manufacture. Adolescents seek to learn innovations from adults, but they themselves do not innovate. These findings support predictive models that find social learning should occur before individual learning. Furthermore, these results show that teaching does indeed exist in hunter-gatherer societies. And, finally, though children are competent foragers by late childhood, learning to extract more complex resources, such as hunting large game, takes a lifetime.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

Lew‐Levy

Reckin

Lavi

et al. 2017

Hum Nat

180

151

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We contacted 37 contributors from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers (we could not locate 14 email addresses), of whom nine responded. We also examined the references from six reviews on closely related topics (Bugarin, 2006; Eickelkamp, 2010; Herzog, 1984; B. S. Hewlett, 2014; Keith, 2008; MacDonald, 2007).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Social and Gender Norms? A Meta-Ethnographic Review

Lew‐Levy

Lavi

Reckin

et al. 2017

Cross-Cultural Research

111

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Forager societies tend to value egalitarianism, cooperative autonomy, and sharing. Furthermore, foragers exhibit a strong gendered division of labor. However, few studies have employed a cross-cultural approach to understand how forager children learn social and gender norms. To address this gap, we perform a meta-ethnography, which allows for the systematic extraction, synthesis, and comparison of quantitative and qualitative publications. In all, 77 publications met our inclusion criteria. These suggest that sharing is actively taught in infancy. In early childhood, children transition to the playgroup, signifying their increased autonomy. Cooperative behaviors are learned through play. At the end of middle childhood, children self-segregate into same-sex groups and begin to perform gender-specific tasks. We find evidence that foragers actively teach children social norms, and that, with sedentarization, teaching, through direct instruction and task assignment, replaces imitation in learning gendered behaviors. We also find evidence

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“…One novel finding of this study is that the peer group interactions of Aboriginal children, often described as ‘cousins’, provide a supportive environment for autistic children, in which they are encouraged to participate in play-based activities and protected from potentially negative interactions with other children. This is because the primary social learning environment for many Aboriginal children is their peers (Eickelkamp, 2010) and children, who have considerable autonomy from adults, are encouraged to be compassionate and generous towards each other (Heath et al, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inclusion, acceptance, shame and isolation: Attitudes to autism in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia

Lilley

Sedgwick

Pellicano

2020

Autism

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This is the first qualitative study to investigate experiences of, and attitudes towards, autism in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia. Understanding the complexity of these attitudes is crucial because they influence the recognition of autism as well as the ways in which individuals and families are supported. Twelve families with 16 autistic children living in diverse regions of Australia participated in a semi-structured interview. The interviews were thematically analysed using the six-step process outlined by Braun and Clarke. The analysis identified a marked tension in participants’ accounts. On the one hand, participants described negative feelings, including shame associated with atypical behaviour, stigmatisation and the social isolation of families, which potentially point towards under-identification or misdiagnosis. On the other hand, they also described inclusive attitudes, including ‘looking after each other’ and a growing acceptance of autistic differences. This positive model of support for and acceptance of autistic children and their families may well contribute to good outcomes for autistic children and adults in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. More research is needed on cross-cultural and pluralistic understandings of autism, parental perceptions and family experience. Lay Abstract There has been almost no research done about autism in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia. This article is the first detailed report on attitudes to autism in these communities. Understanding attitudes to autism is important because they influence whether or not children are diagnosed, as well as the kinds of support autistic people are getting. Twelve families who lived in different parts of Australia were interviewed. They told us that there is a range of attitudes to autism in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. These include negative ideas such as sometimes feeling shame associated with children’s unusual behaviour, as well as feeling stigmatised and socially isolated. The negative attitudes reported may mean that some children are missing out on an autism diagnosis or being wrongly diagnosed with a different condition in these communities. They also included positive ideas such as the importance of looking after each other and of accepting autistic people and their differences. We can all learn from these positive attitudes. It will be interesting to know in future projects whether these accepting attitudes lead to better outcomes for autistic children and adults in these communities. This research helps us to understand how autism is thought about in different cultures and how attitudes impact diagnosis and support. It will also help people to plan supports that reflect what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families actually want and need.

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Children and Youth in Aboriginal Australia: An Overview of the Literature

Cited by 32 publications

References 27 publications

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Social and Gender Norms? A Meta-Ethnographic Review

Inclusion, acceptance, shame and isolation: Attitudes to autism in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia

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