Symptoms and Solutions: Problems of Explanation in Aboriginal Education

Abstract

The preparation of this paper has been stimulated by the table appended to the article “Parental involvement: endeavours to improve communications between Meningie Area school and the Pt. McLeay community in the period 1973–4” (A.M. Nankivell, The Aboriginal Child at School, Vol. 3 No. 1, 1975 pp. 48–55). The table, headed “Summary of Main Points Arising from Group Discussion of the Eight Major Problems at Meningie”, is a report of some conclusions derived from a seminar conducted with “Aboriginal and white parents and representatives of the various administrative and ancillary bodies concerned to discuss mutual problems”.The article and table describe a number of ‘facts’ and make deductions, based on the unchallenged wisdom of psychologists, which purport to ‘explain’ problems in Aboriginal education. Indeed, the table is a succinct statement of the kind of explanatory system which has been used in Aboriginal education; an explanatory system which deserves close examination in the light of the failure of Aboriginal education over the last 130 years. The comments which follow, then, are not directed exclusively at the paper under discussion; they refer to general problems of explanation in Aboriginal education.

Schools Do Make a Difference, But…!

“…Just as individual pathology models of Aboriginal educational failure deny the importance of social and situational factors (and often blind individuals to them) (McConnochie andWhitelaw, 1976: Bucknall, 1976), so 'education-bound' solutions deny the extent to which schools are socially determined institutions which reproduce and legitimate social inequality. It is well to keep in mind that 'education cannot compensate for society' (Bernstein, 1970).…”