This thesis is a history of schooling for Indigenous children in Western Australia between
the commencement of the first Aboriginal school in Perth in 1840 and 1978. The thesis
represents the view that, for most of this period, and regardless of policy, education for
Indigenous children was directed towards changing their beliefs and behaviours from
being distinctly Aboriginal to recognizably European. Four major policies for Aborigines
provide the framework for the thesis, these being amalgamation (1840-1852),
protection (1886-1951), assimilation (1951-1972) and self-determination (1973- ).
The amalgamation of the Indigenous popuIation with the small colonial society in
Western Australia was a short-lived policy adopted by the British Colonial Office.
Protection, a policy formalised by Western Australian legislation in 1886, 1905 and
1936, dominated Aboriginal affairs for the first half of the 2ofh century. Under this policy
the Indigenous population was regarded as two distinct groups - a diminishing traditional
population to be segregated and protected and an increasing part-Aboriginal population
that was to be trained and made 'useful'. In 1951 Western Australia accepted a policy of
assimilation, coordinated by the Commonwealth government, which anticipated that all
people of Aboriginal descent would eventually be assimilated into the mainstream
Australian society. This policy was replaced in 1973 by one of Aboriginal community
self-determination, an initiative of the Commonwealth government and adopted
throughout Australia.
The attempts at directed cultural change were evident in the 'Native' schools that opened
in Perth, Fremantle and Guildford in the 1840s where it was assumed that the separation
of children from their families and a Christian education would achieve the transition
from a 'savage to civilized' state. For another century the education of Indigenous
children on missions and in government settlements was founded upon similar
assumptions. The thesis acknowledges that the principal change agents, such as the Chief
Protectors of Aborigines, mission administrators and the teachers in direct contact with
the children, seriously underestimated both the enduring nature of Indigenous culture and
the prejudice in Australian society.
Between 1912 and 1941 a few government schools in the southern districts of Western
Australia refused to admit Aboriginal children. The exclusion of these children is
examined against a background of impoverished living conditions, restrictive legislation
and mounting public pressure on the State and Commonwealth governments for a change
in policy. The change did not begin to occur until 1951 when the Commonwealth and
States agreed to a policy of assimilation. In Western Australia this policy extended
education to all Aboriginal children. The thesis explores the provision of government
teachers to Aboriginal schools in remote areas of Western Australia between 1951 and
1978. The final chapter examines Indigenous perceptions of independent community
schools within the fust five years of the policy of self-determination and contrasts the
objectives and management of two schools, Strelley in the Pilbara and Oombulguni in
the Kimberley.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/221933 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | marnev@cygnus.uwa.edu.au, Neville James Green |
| Publisher | Murdoch University |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.murdoch.edu.au/goto/CopyrightNotice, Copyright Neville James Green |
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