Dr Vicky Duckworth BA (Hons); PGCE; PG Dip; MEd; MA: PhD
PIC to be reduced
Three links but only two website names
Abstract – Carol Garlett
Exchanging Ways of Being – an Aboriginal perspective
Exchanging ways of being is an inspirational and aspirational call to action. It entails an invitation to walk in more than one world, to understand, accept and accommodate difference. In Western Australia, we have focused for many years on the principle of Two-Way education, largely in schools but more recently in the adult education and training sector. These Two-Way programs recognise that language is more than the sounds we make or the words that appear on the page. Language hoards and transmits culture – belief systems, values, social practices. The English language, in its many varieties, does not serve a single culture. Language difference can point to cultural difference, but not cultural deficit. Why is it then, that mainstream institutions – schools, courts, prisons, welfare agencies – conduct their business as if there really were just one English language, just one way of being, with disastrous effects for Aboriginal people?
I want to provide some personal, first hand observations on the importance of recognising language difference if we are to truly exchange ways of being as a starting point for addressing social inequality.
