Miss Stacy, who is now studying for an M.A. in Sociology and Anthropology, presented this paper at the 46th ANZAAS Congress in Canberra, January 20th–24th 1975.

These extracts are from a discussion paper by Mr. Swaab, under the same title, presented at the Council of Europe sponsored Workshop on Action Research Concerning Compensatory Education for Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Children with Particular Regard to Preschool and Primary Education in Strasbourg, France, 7-11 October 1974. The full text will be published in the Proceedings of the Workshop later this year.

This skit was designed to emphasize the negative attitudes of teachers and parents toward students who are poor readers. Reading and discussion of the skit may help teachers become aware of alternative solutions that will eliminate the negative attitudes and will accentuate positive practices for reading improvement of students.

As a follow-up, teacher s are divided into groups to discuss one of the problems presented and to report to the total group suggestions for eliminating the problem discussed.

It has become fashionable in educational circles to pay homage to what is described as ‘cultural activities’ in schools, particularly those schools in which the clientele is drawn from a culturally different community. Such an addition to the curriculum content of schools is a response to the concern that schools are somehow irrelevant to the needs of the client group. While the latter point may indeed be true, this paper argues that curriculum decisions in the area of ‘culture’ are deceptively simple.

Jane enters the classroom amid cries of subversive laughter and cruel comments. She seats herself and proceeds quietly and methodically to do her school work. The other children keep on teasing, pounding at that little girl’s emotions, until she finally sobs and sinks below her desk. She doesn’t hear everything they say - she doesn’t have to - she knows what they are saying and why.

After reading Mr. C.F. Mounsey’s article in The Aboriginal Child at School, Volume 2, No.5, December 1974, we were struck by the similarities of the problems of the school he mentioned with those of the Katherine Area School, except that our pupils were, shall we say, less ‘resourceful’, but the absenteeism and resulting fall off in performance followed the same lines.

In June 1973 a proposal for a study of the beliefs of metropolitan (Perth) Caucasian children and adults towards Aborigines was submitted by the Western Australian Institute of Technology to the then Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority. The proposal was forwarded to D.A.A. in Canberra, was approved, and preliminary work on a pilot study commenced in February 1974. The survey continued through the year and the results were analysed. A final two-volume report was presented to the Department in January 1975.

Over the last two years Australians have become more aware through the bitter comments of Aborigines in the media that a new government cannot overnight solve problems which have been festering for more than a century. It is still possible for the National Population Inquiry Report to note in 1975 that ‘in every conceivable comparison, the Aborigines and Islanders … stand in stark contrast to the general Australian society, and also to other “ethnic” groups, whether defined on the basis of race, nationality, birthplace, language or religion. They probably have the highest growth rate, the highest death rate, the worst health and housing, and legal status of any identifiable section of the Australian population’. They also have the least schooling.