Australian Cultural Identity

Aboriginal people are the natives of our homeland and their cultures are spread throughout our continent. Indigenous Australians take pride in their culture and strive constantly to uphold the integrity of their cultural system and their faith. A positive cultural identity can give a sense of belonging, purpose, social support and personal value. Possessing a strong cultural identity has been shown to protect against mental health symptoms and buffer distress prompted by discrimination (Shepherd, Delgado, Sherwood, & Paradies, 2017). A true cultural identity can be defined as one that shows how a person identifies him with his culture and how this relationship with the culture impacts his life. An individual may identify him with one or more

This disparity is also seen in the educational achievement and completion rates of ATSI students that consistently remained lower than that of non-indigenous learners (Dobia & O’Rourke, 2011). Year 12 completion rate of Indigenous students was 31% compared to the 76% for non-Indigenous in 2011 (Statistics, 2011). Bodkin-Andrews and Carlson (2016) opine that programmes and attitudes targeting Indigenous people has been for the most part extremely negative in its orientation and results, to the extent that their history has left a tragic legacy to the educational outcomes and opportunities of young Aboriginal

School community’s strong commitment should afford teachers to create highly supportive learning opportunities for the current ATSI youth for which a teacher should be able to identify and accept a student as Aboriginal or TSI within the present mix of school students. Under the common law, three conditions need to be satisfied for a student to assume the aboriginal identity (Commission,