Question

Outline some of the psychological and social factors important in understanding indigenous disadvantage in education and health outcomes in Australia.

Answer 1

Indigenous disadvantage in education and health is the gap in education and health between indigenous people of Australia and the non-indigenous people of Australia, where the indigenous people are lagging behind. Some of the psychological and social factors responsible for this gap or lagging are :

• Discrimination: The indigenous people were subjected to racial discrimination, which kept them segragated from entering the mainstream society to access health benefits and achieve education.
• Violence: Rate of violence and violent behavior is higher comparatively than the non-indigenous people. This is due to childhood trauma, and substance abuse and alcoholism.
• Poverty: Long term discrimination has kept these people from the mainstream society and kept them backward in economic growth. Also, these people were denied access to education due to the racial discrimination. The rate of unemployment is higher.
• The indigenous people suffer from many psychological diaorders due to the adverse living conditions and hardships of life. Suicide rate is higher than the other communities of the society.
• Loss of land, language and cultural identity due to colonization has resulted in "intergenerational trauma", which has caused them to lag behind the other main sections of society.
• High rates of infant mortality and shorter life expectancy rate due to harsher living conditions.