8. Indg.

Social/Emotional Wellbeing
Sunday, 8 October 2023 8:38 PM

History
Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander OR Indigenous/First Nations
- Recognise identity, culture, tradition, etc.
- 65,000 years ago (been on land for long time)
- 2021 Census: 812,728 people, 3.2% of Aust Population
Impact of European invasion
- Illness, displacement, dispossession, violence , discrimination, unacknowledged
- Policies
○ Separate children from parents (all states)
○ Segregated from other Aust (up till 1950s-70s)
○ Assimilation: Stolen gen, Raised to be white, Attempted cultural/racial genocide
○ Reconciliation: Recognition of Native Title (1993), Redfern speech
○ Sovereignty: recognise ownership, treaty
○ Closing the gap (2008)
○ Knowledge of history impt
Stolen Generation (1 in 10 over 25 y/o, 1994)
○ Forced removal of Aboriginal children (1890s-1970s)
○ Children prevented from picking up Aboriginal habits
○ Stolen wages: station workers, domestic servants
○ Target mixed descent to assimilate
○ Raised in missions/foster parents
- Impact
○ Loss language, tradition, knowledge, dance, spirituality
○ Physically, emotionally sexually abused
○ Grief and Trauma
○ Loss of identity, no familial experience, ashamed of heritage
○ Intergenerational trauma: ↑ PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, Suicide
- Forced removal
○ 15,432 removed from family (2015), 32.9% not in accordance to principle
○ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle
▪ 1st Pref: within family and kinship networks;
▪ 2nd Pref: with non-related carers in the child's community; then
▪ 3rd Pref: carers in another Aboriginal community

Social Behav. [PSYC 2212] Page 1

 - Cautious about historical comparisons/assumptions
○ Survivors appears differently in all

Strength and Resilience

- Custodians of world's oldest living cultures
- Remarkable achievement, unparalleled in the world
SEWB
- Decolonised psychology, recognising holistic ways of being
- Recognise connections, influenced by policies and past events

Deficit Discourse vs Strength-Based Approaches

Closing the gap outcomes

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 - Gaps in health outcomes
○ Shorter life expectancy (10-11 yr)
○ 3x more likely to die from avoidable conditions
○ Burden of chronic disease (kidney, heart, diabetes)
○ Higher child mortality
○ Key drivers of Health Gaps
▪ Social - education, employment, overcrowding
▪ Behavioural - smoking, obesity, alcohol
- Gaps in Education
○ Most educational disadvantaged
○ 24% lower Y12 completion
- Gaps in Criminal Justice
○ Make up 27% in Prison, 55% in Juvie
○ Only 3.3% of Aust population
○ Key drivers
▪ Poverty & Disadvantage - education, disability
▪ Experience of trauma - child protection, family abuse
▪ R/S with system - police, lack of legal access

Self-Determination

- Crucial construct approaching disadvantaged

- Most effective factor producing better health/social outcomes
- Community involvement (design/delivery, community ownership)

Political/Legal
- UN Charter: develop friendly r/s among nations based on respect for principle of equal rights and
self-determination of people
- "All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their
political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Indg Ppl

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Indg Ppl
- Have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to
development
- Key Role for ACCOs: deliver culturally aware/responsive/safe services in every state
- Evidence: ppl that make their own decisions outperform external decision makers (government,
natural resource)

Analysis
- Indigenous disadvantage
○ Rights of people to have political power to determine approaches
○ Not individual psych but structured relations of power btwn groups
○ "WEIRD" construct play out intra-psychologically from rights to self-determination

Policies
- Maranguka (caring for others) Justice Reinvestment Project

Importance of expectations
- Rosenthal’s seminal ‘Pygmalion’ studies in the classroom
○ Experimentally increasing teacher’s expectations of students showed improvements in
intellectual performance
▪ Climate: warmer socioemotional climate that teachers create (verbal/non-verbal)
▪ Input: teach more material to their “special” students
▪ Output: call on these students more often for answers
▪ Feedback: give more differentiated feedback to these students
□ contingent on the correctness or incorrectness of the student’s response
□ whereas accept subpar answers from students they believe are less able
- Low expectations play roles in student experience disadvantage in reaching full potential
○ Graham Chaffey (gifted aboriginal underachieving cause teachers may not recognise potential)
○ Dandy et al, 2015: lower expectations for Aboriginal students
Changing expectations
- Stronger Smarter Institute
○ Chis Sarra (first aboriginal principal): dramatic levels of underachievement
○ Implemented philosophy of high expectations, strength in culture/identity, quality academic
outcomes
Practical steps: students monitor own absences, class w fewest absences won free ice blocks,

Social Behav. [PSYC 2212] Page 4

 ○ Practical steps: students monitor own absences, class w fewest absences won free ice blocks,
sch motto/uniform/song, engage Aboriginal staff
○ Increased satisfaction, enrolment, comm support

Stereotypes, Prejudice and Discrimination

- Stereotypes: Belief certain attributes are characteristic of particular groups
- Prejudice: Attitudinal/affective response toward certain group
- Discrimination: Favourable/unfavourable behaviour directed towards certain group
Discrimination and Health outcomes
- Minorities receive poorer quality healthcare (Aboriginal)
○ Difference in group response to care
○ Systemic/institutional factors - Institutional racism
○ Individual bias - provider bias/prejudice
○ Bias, prejudice, stereotyping from healthcare workers contribute to difference (more implicit,
smtm explicit)

Discrimination and Education

- Racism associated with poorer educational outcomes
- 1 in 4 Indg aged 10-14 experienced unfair treatment
Discrimination and Criminal Justice
- Indg more likely to be questioned, arrested, remanded custody, plead guilty-convicted, imprisoned,
detained indefinitely, Less likely to get parole

*Social psych help empower community through place-based, community-led programs that
recognize self-determination

Policies without self-determination

NT "Intervention" and Cashless Debit Card
- 2007 Gov package changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure
- Reducing cash available to community - Cashless Debit Card (CDC)
- Evaluation: reduced negatives (alcohol, drugs, gambling) but cannot all be attributed to CDC, not
long term, mixed findings
- Klein & Razi (2017): “We find not only that the trial was chaotic, but that its logic is deeply
flawed, and disconnected from the relational poverty experienced by
people receiving state benefits.”

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