MetaFilter posts tagged with assimilation

Healthy Country, Healthy People

ginky — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:54:22 -0800

An opinion piece in the Age states that the Northern Territory Government "plans to, in effect, close down indigenous outstations". Northern Territory government just announced the Working Future initiative. But this proposal to create 20 towns across the Territory may not be the healthiest option for indigenous Australians. The Healthy Country, Healthy People report concludes: "Controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and health behaviours, multivariate regression revealed significant and substantial associations between caring for country and health outcomes...Conclusions: Greater Indigenous participation in caring for country activities is associated with significantly better health. Although the causal direction of these associations requires clarification, our findings suggest that investment in caring for country may be a means to foster sustainable economic development and gains for both ecological and Indigenous peoples’ health." Last year the AMJ published research about the Utopia community in the Territory that showed lower than expected morbidity and mortality for an Australian Aboriginal population. Jenny Macklin, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs states that "All Australians have the right to choose to live in extremely isolated regions but this inevitably involves a trade-off in access to both market and government provided services. Choosing to live in very remote areas must not be allowed to compromise the health, wellbeing and education of children." Some people suggest that certain aspects of government policy might be more about Uranium than the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians. Previously on the blue

Rethinking Literacy

divabat — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:49:19 -0800

The Dark Side of Literacy - Indian education reform organization Shikshantar, who aims to encourage concepts of "Swaraj", or self-rule in local education, argues that current education and literacy models do not take into account local cultures and languages and gives too much credit to the Western alphabet. They also argue that there are many serious flaws in what they describe as UNESCO's campaign of "McEducation For All".

Give My Regards to Yiddishe Broadway

jonp72 — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 06:39:33 -0800

I'm a Jewish Yankee Doodle Dandy and other Yiddish sheet music on topics ranging from the Dreyfus affair to interreligious romance. How Broadway evolved from Yiddish theater.

Acting White

grrarrgh00 — Mon, 02 Dec 2002 17:33:40 -0800

Acting White *: In 1986, Professors Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu introduced this phrase into our cultural lexicon, presenting evidence that black academic underperformance might be partially or largely attributable to a devaluation of academic success by black students themselves. Needless to say, this theory was controversial ... [*via Arts & Letters Daily] [more inside]