Search

Two studies explored the role of perceived threat in predicting White Australians' acculturation preferences for Muslim immigrants, with particular focus on the impact of their reliance on the mass media. In Study 1, students completed a survey that indicated that their tolerance of Muslim practice was largely explained by their general attitudes to multiculturalism. However, among those who were highly reliant on the media, symbolic threat from Muslims played an additional role, with those who perceived more threat being less tolerant. Study 2 further explored these findings in a second survey that included other measures of threat that comprise the integrated threat theory. While intergroup anxiety was the form of threat with the strongest main effect on tolerance, the impact of symbolic threat was again moderated by reliance on the mass media. The implications for understanding the role of media in facilitating interethnic disharmony were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the ways in which the conception of social integration and its practical realization have developed over time in Australia, and the various pathways that models of integration have followed. It makes a distinction between the approaches to inclusion of the indigenous population, the Australian Aborigines in broader Australian social life and social institutions, and those dealing with populations of incoming migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers. Although there are similarities in the models of integration mobilized in both arenas, the differences and interactions are also significant and characteristic of what is specific about settler-colonial societies. The central models in both fields are assimilation, integration and multiculturalism, and the paper will sketch briefly how each model has operated both in theory and in practice, how they have succeeded and interacted with each other, how they have intersected with other types of concerns, such as citizenship, civilization and security, as well as what might be distinctive about the Australian approach to social integration in comparison with other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the role of recreational sport as a means and marker of social integration by analysing the lived experiences of Somali people from refugee backgrounds with sport. Drawing on a three-year multi-sided ethnography, the paper examines the extent to and ways in which participation in sport contributes to Somali Australians' bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. It is shown how social bonds and bridges developed in the sports context assist in the (re)building of community networks that have been eroded by war and displacement. Sport's contribution to social capital should however be neither overstated nor over-generalized. Bridging social capital in sport is relatively weak and few bridges are established between Somalis and the host community. Negative social encounters such as discrimination and aggression can highlight and reinforce group boundaries. Access to and use of linking social capital is also unequally distributed across gender, age, ethnic, and socio-economic lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The immediate post-war period was defined by shifts in capitalism's socioeconomic and institutional underpinnings. Commonly known as Fordism, until the early-1970s models of standardized industrial mass-production and robust state planning and intervention were relatively successful in maintaining secular growth in employment, productivity and demand as well as establishing the national economy and society as unified, governable fields. This paper considers how migration controls in Canada and Australia enhanced and extended such arrangements. In simultaneously boosting production and demand, diversifying and integrating industrial activities and assimilating European migrants into a mass consumer culture while excluding non-Europeans perceived as disruptive of material and sociocultural homogeneity, such policies provided central vectors of economic and cultural nationalism that complemented other monopolistic and redistributive interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the continent of the Australian Aborigines was colonised, most commentary on the ‘natives’ was in terms of being child-like and that the state of being of the native personified the basic elements of nature. Over the twentieth century—while attempting simultaneously to preserve and extinguish the ‘tangible form’ and the ‘true nature’ of the Aborigine—much effort was directed towards biologically and socially transmuting the substance of the native into a mimicry of whiteness through the application of science and the employment of Christianity. The following is an explanatory treatise discussing a noteworthy grouping of interactions between a number of bureaucrats, politicians, missionaries and anthropologists who—although dedicated to constructing a new (white) existence for Aboriginal people—could never quite disengage from simplistic characterisations of the people for whom they were advocating. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aboriginal Australian author Kim Scott's True Country first novel, reveals the author's grappling with his Aboriginal identity amidst a community that has been deracinated, impoverished of its culture, thriving on reciprocity demanding welfare system and subjected to abominating ghettoization. The obvious reason being the corrosive assimilative workings of the white Australian nation-state. Driven by the zeal to unearth the spiritual truth/identity about this community and his self, Billy—the narrator sets out for a rummaging and recovers the meaning of true Aboriginal identity both at individual and community level. At the same time, as identity is internally heterogeneous, slippery, unstable and situational, true Aboriginal identity reclaiming remains a matter of strategic and subversive cultural resistance. While resisting white deracinating practices, the author discovers a 'true country'—a true Aboriginal identity—that could be realized beyond the modern truths in the world of 'Dreamtime reality'. It is this strategized cultural resistance to the assimilative white Australian nation-state, as is evident in the invective writing style of Scott, which I will highlight in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses attempts of the Australian government to extend its control over aspects of the lives of Aboriginal people in 73 targeted communities.A growing number of eminent Australians have opposed the government assault on the fundamental human rights of Aboriginal people and have viewed the anti-Intervention documentary "Our Generation." It notes how the architects of Northern Australia's assimilation hide behind the lie that Aboriginal people must be protected from themselves.

Social exclusion is a process that directly reduces people's capacity to participate in society. An important factor that contributes to social exclusion is the inability to recognise or understand important sources of information that facilitate social inclusion and participation. Social inclusion requires an ability to develop effective information practices that enable connection to compliance, making available everyday and nuanced information that constitute elements of the information landscape which need to be accessed and understood in order to participate in their adopted community. For refugees who are establishing themselves in Australia, the information landscape appears unfamiliar, complex, and difficult to navigate. To enable them to settle in Australia, new information practices may be required to enable them to find and interpret information, resolve problems, and deal with everyday situations which enable social inclusion and prevent social exclusion. This paper reports the findings of a project that focused on information and its relationship to social inclusion in three phases of settling in (transitioning, settling in, and being settled) to a new community in a regional city of NSW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The educational, occupational and income success of the racial minority immigrant offspring is very similar for many immigrant origins groups in the United States, Canada and Australia. An analysis based on merged files of Current Population Surveys for the United States for the period 1995–2007, and the 2001 Censuses of Canada and Australia, and taking account of urban areas of immigrant settlement, reveals common patterns of high achievement for the Chinese and South Asian second generation, less for other Asian origins, and still less for those of Afro-Caribbean black origins. Relatively lower entry statuses for these immigrant groups in the US are eliminated for the second generation, indicating they experience stronger upward inter-generational mobility. As well, ‘segmented assimilation’ suggesting downward assimilation of Afro-Caribbean immigrants into an urban underclass in the US, also receives little support. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents an examination into the 19th- and 20th-century Hungarian diaspora in Australia. Accounts are given describing various historical periods wherein large numbers of Hungarians migrated to the continent, beginning in 1833 but focusing on the post-1920 generation which fled persecution in Eastern Europe. Details are given describing the Hungarian cultural presence in Australia, highlighting challenges in the community's assimilation. Statistics and characteristics of the community in the 21st-century are also included.

A recurring theme in Indigenous affairs in Australia is a tension between maintenance of Indigenous culture and achievement of socio-economic 'equity': essentially 'self-determination' versus 'assimilation'. Implicit in this tension is the view that attachment to traditional cultures and lifestyles is a hindrance to achieving 'mainstream' economic goals. Using data from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, stronger attachment to traditional culture is found to be associated with enhanced outcomes across a range of socio-economic indicators. This suggests Indigenous culture should be viewed a part of the solution to Indigenous disadvantage in Australia, and not as part of the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The colonial experience in the Torres Strait exemplifies the role played by imposed territorial, classification, and administrative boundaries in contributing to the formation of imagined communities among colonized indigenous peoples. These boundaries have provided the basis for a shared colonial experience that was readily transformed into the conscious boundaries of an imagined Torres Strait Island community. The Torres Strait experience also suggests that in seeking to understand the formation of imagined communities in an indigenous colonial context, there are a series of phases that can be identified. These phases can be thought of as cultural tremors-tremors that over a sustained period redefine the cultural landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the Indisch Dutch community in post-WWII Australia. Particular focus is given to a comparison between the histories of Dutch colonizers and their descendants in the Dutch East Indies and of other European colonizers and their descendants in Australia. According to the author, the history of the Indisch Dutch diaspora can be seen as an example of the effects of the demise of European imperialism on both Indonesian and Australian history. Details related to discrimination against immigrants who were visibly of Indonesian heritage in the Netherlands are presented. Other topics include assimilation and Australian attitudes towards Asian countries.

This article highlights student co-regulation of teaching practices as a way of exploring how L2 students' language and pedagogical needs can be met in university support classes. Integration rather than assimilation - or adapting to the needs of the students rather than leaving students to face the exigencies of the new learning environment alone - is the focus of the article. Data are taken from a qualitative study of south Sudanese former refugees attending an Australian university. In this study it was found that teachers used their authoritative position to adapt their teaching to the students' apparent needs to differing degrees. Students benefitted from some modifications in teaching practices, but their ambivalent reactions to discussion-based teaching, in particular, proved to be an obstacle to their learning in the support classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Welsh immigrant settlements in the gold mining areas of Ballarat and Sebastopol in Victoria, Australia during the later half of the nineteenth century. The author argues that the Welsh immigrants failed to maintain a unique Welsh Australian community due to their habits of marrying outside of their ethnolinguistic community, their lack of religious unity, the necessity of learning English, their refusal to live in exclusive Welsh settlement areas, and their desire to become assimilated.

The article offers the author's view on how testimony worked across the inquiry of Australians to ease healing of separation between endemic children and their parents. She mentions the objective of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HEREOC) which is to aid the healing process of persons affected by old assimilation policies and the nation as well as prepare the way for reconciliation. She also argues that the processes are more complex and contingent.

An essay is presented on the assimilation advocacy for the indigenous people in Australia. It mentions that the climate change which results from people's course of action forces the possibility of fundamental change. It cites that the aboriginal culture expressed by Peter Sutton can be a means of short-term continuity but not with the long term process. The author suggests considering reciprocity in dealing with the welfare of indigenous people.

From the late 1930s until the early 1970s, foreign language films were commonly categorised by Australian film exhibitors and distributors as 'Continental'. Continental films were earmarked for exhibition to audiences described as 'discerning' and 'sophisticated', epithets which distinguished their more 'discriminating' taste from the popular preferences of mainstream cinema audiences. But 'Continental' had ambiguous connotations. Foreign language cinemas exploited the association of 'Continental' with high culture, for example, by appropriating French icons, but 'Continental' could also mean scurrilous and sordid. It was the Continental cinema audience's apparent transcendence of these moral ambiguities, its seemingly effortless appreciation of 'art', and its cosmopolitan approval of select aspects of foreign 'culture' that demonstrated its sophistication and cultural distinction. In its attitudes towards sex, art and ethnic diversity, the Continental cinema audience anticipated the more widespread social and cultural changes that would transform Australian society in the 1960s and 1970s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the cultural link between Australia and Asian countries. It mentions the historical background of the country's multiethnicity after the abolition of racial discrimination due to the efforts of labor leader Gough Whitlam in December 1972. In addition, the country was open for immigrants from different races. It also cites the implementation of multiculturalism policy by the Australian government in 1989.

Sociobiology is a relatively modern science but it is based on the very old premise that human beings are products of immutable laws of nature. For this reason it can be shown that sociobiology is an idea that envelopes a family of biblical and scientific theories that have been shown to be ideologies for the justification of hierarchy and oppression over the course of recorded human history. This family of sociobiological theories depicts 'race', and hierarchy based on race, as natural and inevitable. Here the argument is made that sociobiology is an ideology for the colonisation of Australia. Sociobiology is an ideology implicit in Australian legal doctrine and active in a continuing colonial process as a 'justification' for the annexation of Australia in the late eighteenth century as well as the domination that took place after 1788 through dispossession, denial of sovereignty, and policies of assimilation and exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, artwork of child artists from the Carrolup settlement school in Western Australia was rediscovered in the archives of the Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University. The young artists were among what was then called the half-caste children and now known as the Stolen Generation. Between the late 1800s and mid 1970s the Australian government forcibly removed children from their famillies with the purpose of not only assimilating them into European culture, bat also eliminating Aboriginal culture. With the support of a dedicated new headmaster and teacher Noel White (1946-1951), a group of male children became proficient artists. Through the efforts of Florence Rutter, who later co-authored the book Child Artists of the Australian Bush (Miller & Rutter, 1952), the children became internationally known. Tragically leading short and sometimes violent lives most of the children went on to menial jobs. Their style, however, has remained an enduring influence on the local artists of southwestern Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An article discussing Aboriginal Australian Rosalie Kunoth-Monks' role in the film Jedda is presented. The author discusses filmmaker Charles Chauvel's desire to portray traditional Aboriginal culture in a motion picture, noting Chauvel's use of actual Aboriginal people with no previous acting experience in the lead roles. Addressing the theme of anti-assimilation in the film, the author cites the dual roles of the film's stars as both indigenous tribal members and international movie stars. The critical reception of the film and Kunoth-Monks' later life and political activism are also included.

This paper compares the images of citizenship available through multicultural policy provisions to the Muslim minority in Australia and New Zealand. Its enfranchisement is fraught with difficulties in both countries. A comparison between the two nations, however, shows some striking differences. Not only is there a considerable discrepancy between the images of citizenship and the images projected by this minority, but despite many similarities that both nations have in common, but this discrepancy also appears to be much larger in Australia. Some explanations for this difference will be offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the status of Muslim women, this paper examines the market employment of the second generation of migrants in multicultural Australia and highlights their differentials with non-Muslims. This group of Muslim women was born and educated in a country clearly characterised by a high level of women's employment. Accordingly, it is theorised that the employment level of second-generation Muslim migrants might also be high as a consequence of assimilation and a greater freedom from religiously ascribed gender roles. The possibility of disadvantage through discrimination is also considered in this analysis. Dealing with assimilation and discrimination hypotheses, the empirical findings of this analysis explain the employment differentials of the second generation of Muslim migrants with non-Muslims in this multicultural setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Commonwealth government of Australia introduced the policy of 'assimilation' in the early 1950s. This policy aimed to merge Aboriginal people with other Australians. In 1953 the government drafted legislation that would cease to discriminate against Aboriginal people on the basis of their race, but would instead discriminate against Aboriginal people whose social status rendered them 'wards'. This reclassification process ultimately affected almost every Aboriginal person in the Northern Territory. However, the assimilation policy could not be implemented until a census had been undertaken of all Aboriginal people in the jurisdiction to determine which people would be listed as wards. The full implementation of the assimilation policy was delayed as the census took over four years to complete. The government employed patrol officers whose role included locating, naming and registering all Northern Territory Aboriginal people. Many obstacles confronted the patrol officers and the administrators in the completion of the census. This article tells the story of the census. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the way Australian and United States of America (USA) governments used the notion of the best interest of the child to remove Aboriginal and Native children respectively from their families and communities. Both governments relied on legal means to achieve the assimilation of children within the mainstream culture in order to annihilate Aboriginal and Native culture. On the one hand, the children were targeted because of their malleability and capacity for adaptation without influencing the mainstream culture. On the other hand, the chance of survival for their community was very thin without them. With regard to Australia, the process began as early as when the first settlements were established as Aboriginal women and children were kidnapped for economic and sexual exploitation. The protectorate system was thus established in the 1830s to assure their protection on reserved lands administered by a Chief Protector. In the case of the Native Americans, the assimilation policies were carried out with the boarding school system and the placements in white adoptive and foster homes. Both governments had shown the limit of their role as parens patriae when ethnic issues were at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates Aboriginal cultural interpretation at wildlife attractions and on wildlife tours in Australia. The sites included 14 wildlife parks or zoos; three Aboriginal-owned emu or crocodile farms; and 16 wildlife tours, river cruises or resorts with Indigenous interpretation of wildlife. Telephone interviews were conducted with 35 managers (nine Indigenous) and 26 Indigenous staff at wildlife attractions that included verbal or written Aboriginal wildlife interpretation. The Indigenous guides verbally presented both traditional uses and personal stories about Australian wildlife followed by Aboriginal 'Dreaming' or creation stories about totemic animal species. Non-Indigenous staff explained traditional Aboriginal uses of wildlife followed by biological facts and species information. The responses in this study thus highlight cultural differences in animal attitudes and approaches to wildlife use or interpretation. According to staff, tourists benefit from the inclusion of Aboriginal interpretation at wildlife sites by broadening their mind, dispelling myths, learning/education about Aboriginal cultures, novelty and excitement for visitors, increasing cultural awareness and developing more positive attitudes towards Indigenous people. Some guidelines for wildlife attractions and tours to develop and present Aboriginal cultural interpretation of Australian wildlife are also identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radio played an important role in the construction of Australia's 'imagined community', transcending spatial boundaries and fostering the development of audiences who were fluent in radio's storytelling tools. This article explores the ways Australian radio audiences of the 1950s responded to Gwen Meredith's representations of Aboriginality, whiteness, intermarriage and assimilation in her long-running ABC radio serial 'Blue Hills'. Through an investigation of the aural constructions of race in the serial, and an examination of audience readings of a narrative that endorsed interracial marriage--because 'colour will breed out in time'--the article reveals some of the multiple understandings of assimilation and the Aboriginal 'question' in this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a perspective developed primarily in anthropology, 'transnationalism' has until recently been dominated by ethnographic and textual analyses. While not problematic for any particular study, the overwhelming dominance of these methodologies has created two major theoretical shortcomings; a tendency to inflate the prevalence of transnational models of living, and the attribution of an egalitarian or emancipatory character to transnationalism, generally in the absence of systematic evidence. In this article we attempt to remedy these problems by examining the frequency and determinants of one tangible indicator of transnational activity in migrants to Australia: visits home. Our results suggest three important conclusions: 1) not all migrants visit home at all, and only about 11 per cent do so on a regular basis; 2) there are major between-group differences in migrants' capacity to visit home; and 3) the earlier concepts of assimilation and migration order are of substantial significance in understanding transnationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While soccer football is the most popular participation team sport in Australia, it lags in the media and spectator sport. Media commentators have long suggested that the 'world' game is un-or less-Australian because many teams and clubs are founded/organised around 'ethnic' non-Anglo derivatives. Despite the re-naming of the sport and the re-construction of the national club competition around a decidedly corporate managerial structure with big city names, clubs in the lower divisions in each state persist with 'ethnic' nicknames. This paper draws upon a case study of a Serbian-based club in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. We contrast this club alongside the newly formed A-League team. We employed fieldwork observations, interviews and document analysis to capture and interpret the maintenance of a Serbian identity through the actions of supporters. Our findings suggest that despite likely acceptance of the corporate de-ethicised model, suburban teams with non-Anglo ethnic derivatives remain a vital area for both sport and their respective communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the colonization of Australia by Europeans and the subsequent reeducation of the native Aboriginal peoples. Aboriginal education prior to British settlement consisted of learning through songs and stories. The British settlers viewed the Aborigines as barely educable and forced them to learn menial tasks from a European point of view. The author proposes linking aboriginal education and culture with the current method to reject false maps and promote understanding.

This paper compares the health of Australian immigrants with that of the Australian-born population and examines the extent to which differences vary with time since migration. Health is measured using self-reports of chronic diseases from three national health surveys. Probit models are used to estimate the health effects of immigrant arrival cohorts, years since migration and country of birth. We find that the health of Australian immigrants is better than the Australian-born population, but the longer immigrants spend in Australia, the closer their health approximates that of the Australian-born population. There are variations for different immigrant groups and for particular chronic diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an investigation of the impact of shared values and identities on Australian attitudes towards Indigenous reconciliation across two studies. In Study 1, University students were assigned to one of two conditions in which they completed a questionnaire that measured their value priorities and reconciliation attitudes; either as an individual or as an Australian. As expected, the value of egalitarianism was the strongest predictor of reconciliation attitudes, especially under the Australian condition. In Study 2, participants from the general community were assigned into conditions that manipulated identity (personal vs. Australian) and views of how Indigenous Australians have been treated by Europeans in the past (favourable vs. unfavourable). Under these conditions, participants were asked to report their level of collective guilt and reconciliation views. The results showed that collective guilt was stronger under the unfavourable than the favourable history condition but only when personal identity was salient. The findings also showed some support for the proposition that reconciliation views would be most positive under the unfavourable history condition when Australian identity was salient. The implications of the findings for advancing the progress of indigenous reconciliation in Australia are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is increasing importance attached to skill-based immigration in many countries including Australia. This paper investigates the incidences, determinants, and returns to graduate overeducation among tertiary qualified immigrants during the early phase of their settlement in Australia. We place particular emphasis on visa categories and region of origin. As expected, those on visas with “higher skill requirements” perform better in the labour market. The bulk of these are immigrants from English Speaking Backgrounds (ESB). Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) immigrants, on the other hand, have higher and persistent rates of overeducation. The wage returns to required and surplus education match the stylized facts of overeducation for ESB and Other NESB immigrants while Asian NESB immigrants receive no return to surplus education. Thus, the results suggest that NESB graduate immigrants are a heterogeneous group, with Asian graduate immigrants facing greater assimilation hurdles in the Australian labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a comparative mode of analysis, this article offers a new perspective on Indian assimilation policy in the United Slates. It focuses on one aspect of assimilation policy common to the United States and Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—the practice of removing indigenous children from their families and communities and placing them in institutions. The article argues that there is a subtle difference in the way that Americans and Australians described ‘assimilation’ taking place-namely, the extent to which white Americans and white Australians openly planned to ‘whitewash’ indigenous identity through interracial relationships. Nevertheless, while children of mixed descent played a very different role in the grandiloquent words used by reformers and politicians to describe their nation's policies, similar ideas about their role in the absorption and eventual disappearance of the indigenous population into the white one can be discerned in both contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of an evaluation of early learnings from Indigenous Community Development projects funded by the Telstra Foundation in Australia. The projects look at community-identified solutions for the serious social and health problems affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people. The projects also address themes such as early childhood development, youth participation and leadership, and the role of schools in facilitating change. Marlene Burchill, as the principal project worker, also provides her Indigenous perspective on community development.

The article describes the views of Indigenous young people in care as well as the views of carers of Indigenous young people about their experiences and needs, the challenges they have faced, and their views on promising practices in Australia. These views were gathered during focus groups conducted with Indigenous young people in care, and with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous carers of Indigenous young people in two jurisdictions. The views of young people presented suggest that the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in out-of-home care could be enhanced by having more placements available within their local community and extended family.

The article focuses on the socioeconomic forces underlying Indigenous interaction with the justice system which can only be obtained by interrogating omnibus social surveys that include a reasonably comprehensive set of potential explanatory factors, including potentially important on family background in Australia. The omnibus social surveys include 1994 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey and the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey. The author also provides an overview of existing literature on socioeconomic factors underlying Indigenous crime.

According to Singapore-based academics Randolph Kluver and Wayne Fu, there is a need to seek out cultural proxy signifiers 'which indicate the extent to which beliefs and values are moving across national boundaries' (Kluver & Fu, 2004, n.p.). This paper examines how Singaporeans who have settled in the Western Australian city of Perth which houses the largest single concentration of Singaporeans outside Singapore, to the extent that it has been dubbed 'Singaperth' by The Straits Times (Long, 2003a, 2003b)--reconnect with Singapore culturally in and through their creative pursuits. The motivations and thoughts of three Perth-based Singaporeans who belong to the 'creative class' (Florida, 2002), and who continue to relate to Singapore in their work and cultural activities, are presented and analysed. Using these three respondents as 'proxies', this paper considers the extent to which Perth might be seen as a creative suburb of Singapore, where cultural globalisation entails the embrace of the new creative and cultural 'network', one which enables these 'Singaperthions' to enjoy their 'new' suburban home, yet gives them autonomy to selectively, albeit consciously, mediate their diasporic 'homeland' and cultural 'centre' identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three studies examined non-Aboriginal Australians' guilt and anger about their ingroup's advantage over structurally disadvantaged Aborigines. Study 1 showed that participants who perceived their ingroup as relatively advantaged perceived this inequality as unfair and felt guilt and anger about it. Anger, and to a lesser degree guilt, predicted the willingness to engage in political action regarding ingroup advantage. Study 2 showed both guilt and anger to be relatively self-focused because both were associated with appraising the ingroup's (rather than the government's) discrimination as responsible for ingroup advantage. Study 3 examined on participants especially willing to engage in political action to bring about systemic compensation to Aborigines. Anger about ingroup advantage was a potent predictor. Although guilt was associated with the abstract goal of systemic compensation, guilt did not explain willingness for political action. Results underline the importance of examining specific group-based emotions in intergroup relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multicultural model of the intergenerational absorption of ethnic immigrant groups is proposed. A recently developed methodology to facilitate comparative assessment of the absolute spatial context of ethnic group concentrations is used to analyze segregation dynamics in Australia's three main contemporary immigrant-receiving cities. Ethnic enclaves emerge as transitory phenomena in the Australian urban context. In the absence of significant social discrimination, ethnic group segregation is seen to relate to economic factors. A segmented assimilation approach brings out relevant features of Australia's immigration history as: recency of arrival; the significance of the post-1945 long economic boom compared with the subsequent period of economic restructuring since the early 1970s: the ending of the White Australia policy in the early 1970s; and a distinction between skilled and refugee entry. Intergenerational evidence supports a view of Australian multiculturalism as "assimilation in slow motion,". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes how the forced removal of children from their families and communities, through the Commonwealth policy of assimilation in Australia, was indeed an external force of control that deprived indigenous children of culturally significant occupations. It outlines the three aspects of occupational deprivation which resulted from children being forcibly removed from their families: (1) in deprivation of a culturally significant social environment, (2) in spiritual deprivation of one's land and story, and (3) in deprivation of initiation processes.

The article discusses the changes that occurred in the lives of Koories in the settled south-east of Australia when they left behind remote reserves and moved into towns and cities during the 1930s and 1940s. It highlights the gap between the rhetoric of assimilation policies and the reality of Koorie life and society at a time when relations between Koories and the wider community were often starkly polarised and Koories were engaged in political struggles to strengthen the status and well-being of their people.

Over the past decade, a growing number of complaints have been made against Australian education authorities over the language of instruction used to teach deaf children. The complaints, made under the Disability Discrimination Act, were lodged with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for investigation and possible conciliation. When conciliation failed, two of these cases continued to the Federal Court of Australia. An analysis of court transcripts and the determinations made by the Federal Court is presented in this paper. The focus of analysis is the way in which researchers who appeared as expert witnesses in these cases were positioned by counsels for the respondents. Foremost among the findings was the way in which researchers, whose work challenged the approach taken by the education authorities, were represented as being political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines policies of Aboriginal assimilation between the 1930s and the 1960s, highlights how different forms of settler nationalism shaped understandings of the Aboriginal future, and explores the impact of the shift from biological notions of Australian nationhood (white Australia) to culturalist understandings of national cohesion and belonging. Assimilation policies were underpinned by racist assumptions and settler nationalist imperatives. Aborigines of mixed descent were a special focus for governments and others concerned with Aboriginal welfare,“uplift” and assimilation. This is most evident in the discourse of biological absorption of the 1930s, but lived on in notions of cultural assimilation after the Second World War. One of the ongoing motivations for assimilation drew upon the nationalist message within“white Australia”: the need to avoid the development of ethnic or cultural difference within the nation-state. The article highlights an ideological split among the advocates of individual assimilation and group assimilation, and uses the writings of Sir Paul Hasluck and A. P. Elkin to illustrate these two views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Challenges to the way social work in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia is practised are currently emerging from critical and postcolonial questioning (Besserab, 2000; Briskman, 2003; Gilbert, 2001). The shared heritage has led to a set of practices which owe much to modernist views of the world leading to universalist approaches. While this is changing, bicultural and cross-cultural practice continues to present difficulties for practitioners who struggle to position themselves in ways that meet the requirements of appropriate and sensitive cultural work. This paper argues that in order to create appropriate practices the social work profession needs to perceptively assess how it uses knowledge practices from a continuing neo/colonising project. Using the notion of ‘double binds’ (Ellsworth, 1997), I examine some of the influential practices associated with the ostensible bicultural and cross-cultural pursuit. I draw on research conducted with social work practitioners to demonstrate how the neo- colonial process may be countered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dental casts taken of Aboriginal people resident at Yuendumu, Central Australia, between 1950–1970 preserve a unique historical record of defects of the dental enamel (DDEs) among people born from 1890–1960 (n = 377). These data are used, in comparison with precontact data, to trace the chronological changes in childhood development that occurred among Aboriginal people from the point of initial engagement with white settlers to a period of overwhelming government control. The results demonstrate very little change in the frequency of DDE from the precontact period to 1929 but increases after that time, particularly after the forcible settlement of people on a government establishment at Yuendumu in 1946. Apart from the absolute increase in frequency, it is also clear that population variation decreased markedly, with growing numbers of children experiencing multiple defects in early childhood (ca. 0.8-1.5 years of age). The results also indicate that an early onset of DDE constituted a risk for further episodes. These changes in DDE correspond to periods of increasingly intense contact between Aboriginal people and Europeans and with changes to government policy aimed at assimilating the indigenous population. Such policies had marked costs for childhood development. The lack, however, of a visible marker of initial contact demonstrates the importance of the intensity of and motives behind interactions between indigenous and colonial populations in determining the health consequences of colonial encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the legal regulations of transnational migrants. Regulation of women immigrants; Assimilation of the immigrants; Legal response toward refugees in Australia.