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Value Orientations: Australian Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

D.R. Massey
D.R. Massey*
Affiliation:
Schonell Educational Research Centre, University of Queensland
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Extract

As early as 1938 Elkin, discussing traditional Aboriginal society, maintained that Aborigines are orientated collectively, or place high value on the extended kin group (Barwick, 1964; Becket, 1964; Fink, 1964), see themselves as existing in harmony with nature and have no conception of time in the European sense, but live only for the present and remember the past as an integral part of the present. Most anthropologists tend to agree with such propositions. (p.288)

But, are these same values held by non-tribal Aboriginals in contemporary Australia? Certainly conventional wisdom suggests that they are (Eckermann, 1973, p.470). Similarly, there is widespread acceptance of non-Aboriginal Australians as individualistic, future oriented, preferring ‘doing’ to ‘being’, and placing emphasis on mastery over nature (Binnion, 1976, p.34). Is this so?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education , Volume 6 , Issue 5 , November 1978 , pp. 10 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

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