Stolen Generations: INDIGENOUS STUDENT/TEACHER IDENTITY AND WELLBEING 1
Indigenous Student/Teacher Identity and Wellbeing
Naomi Wharton
University of Notre Dame, Fremantle
INDIGENOUS STUDENT AND TEACHER IDENTITY AND WELLBEING 2
Degeneration Impact in Aboriginal Youth’s Identity and Wellbeing by the Stolen
Generation
The forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their communities known as the
Stolen Generation left a scar on Aboriginal people and culture in Australia. Has had
an enormous de-generational impact in terms of identity and wellbeing “affecting
those originally removed and those to come” (Priest, McKean, Davis, Waters and
Briggs, 2012.). Mitchell (2007) claims inequalities in Aboriginal health can be drawn
back to history, understood in the context of colonial times and the forcible
dispossession (Priest et al., 2012.) However, Hunter (2002) argues this view is
distorted and in blaming the inheritance distress of ancestors for wellbeing denies
the organic such as substances, family environments and disorders. “Contemporary
understandings of Indigenous mental health are confused and conflicted” (Hunter,
2002.) Hunter (2002) fails to accept the connectedness of dysfunctional family to the
cultural genocide, contradictive to Priest et al. (2012) arguing dysfunction, racism,
suicide and abuse spawned from history of the Stolen Generation. In working in East
Kalgoorlie Primary with pre-kindergartens one student’s remark when being told not
to strike another student was “but my mum hits my dad?” Primary evidence to linking
a dysfunctional family link to children’s development influence by its parents. It also
happens that this child’s parents disagree in the schooling of their child. Commonly
this mistrustful ideology of western figures of authority such as teachers and police is
because of the Stolen Generation (Priest et al., 2012.)
The Stolen generation took place throughout the 1900s. Today, in 2017, cultural
assimilation is often dismissed as a past time by many Westerners. That the solution
of ongoing grief was subsided by Kevin Rudd’s national apology in 2008 on February
the 13th. An ignorance of ancestral trauma and grief is due to the lack of
INDIGENOUS STUDENT AND TEACHER IDENTITY AND WELLBEING 3
understanding of the Indigenous people’s cultural importance of their dead, spirits,
family, community and connectedness to country (Human Rights and Equal
Opportunity Commission, 2010.) All in which were violated in the abduction of
aboriginal children into Anglo- Australian settings. This lack in understanding and
view of reconciliation as a state rather than a process fogs awareness of racism
prevalence today. An underlying racism, the ‘us and them’ mentality, is detrimental to
Aboriginal youth’s identity diffusion (TEXT.) Immersions, higher levels of education
and the social multicultural integration are proactive steps that can really progress
reconciliation (Priest et al., 2012.) This to me is this just a continuation of cultural
assimilation. Complete Reconciliation requires radical reassessment of how the
education departments conducts of learning, for it to conform to both western and
indigenous cultural values and traditions.
All adolescents pass through a period of psychological moratorium, an exploration
of oneself. The loss of culture from stolen generation has been seen in the extinction
of languages, tradition and stories, diminishing Aboriginal culture. Hoffnung et al.
(2016) claims many aboriginal youth today find themselves suspended between
traditional and modern identities, leaving them with a heightened risk of ‘negative
identity’ following risk of antisocial behaviour and misbehaviour. Delinquency among
aboriginal youths is at a disturbing rate (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007.) An
identity crisis in disguised as crime and treated as crime will not break this cycle of
poor wellbeing. Breaking this cycle “both an ethical responsibility and as a means of
addressing health inequalities and combating systemic, interpersonal and
internalised racism” (Priest et al., 2012.) A point, Hunter (2002), can agree with. That
there is a mutual obligation to relieve the burden of mental health on Aboriginal
communities, whether it is due to a forced conformity to the western world or not.
INDIGENOUS STUDENT AND TEACHER IDENTITY AND WELLBEING 4
References
Hoffnung, M., Hoffnung, R., Seifert, K., Burton Smith, R., Hine, A., Ward, L., &
Pausé, C. (2016). Lifespan development, (3 rd edition.) Wiley & Sons.
Hunter, E. (2002). ‘Best intentions’ lives on: untoward health outcomes of some
contemporary initiatives in indigenous affairs. Australian & New Zealand Journal of
Psychiatry, 36(4) 575–584. doi: 10.1046/j.1440-1612.2001.01040.x
Priest, N., Mackean, T., Davis, E., Waters, E. & Briggs, L (2012). Strengths and
challenges for Koori kids: Harder for Koori kids, Koori kids doing well - exploring
Aboriginal perspectives on social determinants of Aboriginal child health and
wellbeing. Health Sociology Review: The Journal of the Health Section of the
Australian Sociological Association. 21(2) 165-179. Jun 2012: 165-179.
search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=740557051425250;res=IELHEA
Discussion Questions
1. To restore Aboriginal confidence in education and enhance further academic
achievement can adopt an equal contribution to Aboriginal learning styles and
western learning styles in one classroom? Or would it be more effective to have
separate classrooms with western styles to Indigenous Australian style? Do the
positives outweigh the negatives?
2. Is the colonial settlement and stolen generation impact on Aboriginal youth’s wellbeing
reversible? Does it require the Aboriginal culture to return to its’s traditional roaming sense
without concepts of ownership or the money system in the future or to what degree of
compromising of its traditional culture will it entail? Will continued assimilation/compromising
diverge the culture into a whole new modern culture where there is no trace of ancestral
influence impacting wellbeing?
INDIGENOUS STUDENT AND TEACHER IDENTITY AND WELLBEING 5
