Epistemologies, Worldviews & Resilience: Aboriginal & Torres Strait

This report delves into the epistemologies and worldviews of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all living things and spirits. It explores how these worldviews shape resilience-building strategies, particularly among children, and how this resilience reflects contemporary Western notions of social justice. The report highlights the historical and cultural context, including the impact of colonization and residential educational institutions, on Aboriginal communities. It further discusses the importance of early childhood education, cultural knowledge, family support, and community involvement in fostering resilience and addressing social and economic disparities. The report concludes that cultural knowledge and education play a vital role in empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to overcome challenges and promote well-being.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Epistemologies and Worldviews.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander epistemologies and world-views................................3
Building resilience and reflect contemporary western notion of social justice and Aboriginals
epistemologies and world-views............................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The world-views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders generally recognises link of all
living things as well as spirits which specifically exists in-between each of them. In this, personal
well-being, spirituality, community well-being and well-being of surrounding environment are
generally to be understood. Every group of Aboriginals can express the culture in several ways
such as an outcome of geographic circumstances as well as history of every group. In the world ,
humans can live in is generally a multicultural consisting vast amount of knowledge of world-
views. History of Aboriginals generally illustrates that the people of Aboriginals are quite strong.
In spite of having severity of various issues which people, their families as well as communities
generally face, people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specifically resembles their
resilience. The report will cover epistemologies and world-views of Aboriginals and their
strategies through which they actually build resilience among Islander children. It will also
include how resilience in children can mirrors the modern-day western belief of social justice
and epistemologies and world-views of Aboriginals (Hansen & et. al., 2021).
MAIN BODY
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander epistemologies and world-views.
Understanding about history as well as culture of people of Aboriginals and Torres Strait
Islanders within a local community can specifically creates a high understanding of their
students. In this, becoming more familiar with world-views of aboriginals can aid educators to
build coherency of cultural concept among both instructional and content approaches of every
subject areas. In this, having an effective learning about various cultures can enhances a higher
understanding of their own cultural (Indigenous Peoples Worldviews vs Western Worldviews,
2016). Having shared history among Aboriginals people and European settlers is generally one
of cultural gap. In this, generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders may experienced
deep, unwanted as well as permanent alterations among cultural and family life as an outcome.
In this, various peoples of Aboriginals are working to alter the abuse cycle, language loss,
economic and social gap as well as absorption of their cultures. In this, education is the only
aspect towards such change.

Building resilience and reflect contemporary western notion of social justice and Aboriginals
epistemologies and world-views.
People of Aboriginals are building bridges as well as working more to create such
educational communities where the children of Aboriginals are respected along with their
cultures are reflected. In addition, they are generally rebuilding the cultures and hope towards
right of relations of past within Aboriginals. Some of the people within Aboriginals can report
that residential educational institutions generally was a great experience, many of them generally
felt cultural identity loss, loss of opportunities in order to improve parenting skills as well as
influences of trauma, every bit of this can impact that how people can effectively raise their
children. In this, experience of educational institutions has had an extensive influence on various
communities. Even best run residential educational institutions as well as most dedicated staff
impose much loss just because of imperfect system. Generally the parents had lost the likelihood
to grow their children and children has lost affection, security of their families and communities
(Indigenous Resilience in Australia: A Scoping Review Using a Reflective Decolonizing
Collective Dialogue, 2021). In addition to this, having education of young mind is generally
considered as an essential step in preparing the children for learning experiences for future
prospect. In this, evolution of early childhood education has generally changed how parents as
well as adults view value of offering more exciting opportunities towards young generation.
Having elevated quality childhood educational programs can specifically enhances
earning potential as well as support learning attainments. In this, educational programs among
childhood can aid to decrease the educational gaps. In context with Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islanders, among early childhood, if can influences long term cognitive, social. Emotional as
well as the physical development. Having healthy improvement among children can help to
prepare children for educational experiences. In this, development and educational opportunities
among early children are generally affected by various social as well as environmental factors
and some of them are such as having ineffective relationships among families, access to early
education programs, having stress in early life and many more (Early Childhood Development
and Education, 2021). In this, the social problems which Aboriginals generally faces are more
likely than the other peoples of Australian that can experience several forms of negative assets,
mainly consisting poverty, unemployment rates, discrimination, isolation, excessive alcohol and

drug abuse, having trouble in legislations and so on. In this, some people, have negative assets is
coupled with impairments which generally results in disability (SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC
WELLBEING OF ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER PEOPLE WITH
DISABILITY, 2017). In this, having colonisation generally results in racism, inequity and gap of
culture among Aboriginals. The people generally suffers from malnutrition, homelessness as
well as elevated rates of poverty. Aboriginals generally involves reduced levels of literacy as
well as have reduced approach towards well-being services, also contributing towards their
poverty and have make up the pathetic demographic in every single region across UK. Resilience
is generally a strength and power of Indigenous people to deal with difficulties as well as
misfortune among their lives such as ongoing impacts of complex dominance. In this, their
strengths are generally found in their belief systems, cultural practices along with their values.
An indigenous phenomena is generally a complex phenomena that specifically relies over
positive adaption of people, their community and an environment towards adversity.
In this, most of indigenous people can experiences elevated levels of adversity other than
non-indigenous people having highly disproportionate burden of specific illness, premature
mortality as well as per-meant well-being disparities over many years. Such as Indigenous
people are more likely towards alcohol abuse, smoke, experiencing psychological distress,
reduced physical inactivity and elevated risk of cardiovascular illness issues. Apart from that, the
community members of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders generally revealed that there are
numerous individuals, their families and community which believes specific factors can foster
high resilience among Torres Strait Islander young people and these are such as having weekly
exercise, support of family towards children to attend schools, knowledge of their culture,
number of activities available to young generation, having effective conversation with someone
if difficulties arises (Factors that foster resilience in Aboriginal adolescents and implications for
early intervention, 2019). These such factors can effectively help the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples so that they can educate their children's well to improve their lifestyle
healthier (Elder & Potskin, 2018). Providing as much of education to Indigenous children and
families can help to better their health and well-being. In this, the indicators of having resilience
among Indigenous people generally possess both behavioral and emotional strengths. As it is
analysed that having support of families and community along with physical exercise can
promote resilience and great health among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people. It

is known that having knowledge of cultural can be act as an essential factor which is believed to
play a necessary role in both emotional and social well-being of Aboriginals young people. It is
considered that having an early interventions as well as community support programs can
empower the families to give high encouragement consisting scholastic encouragement, are
likely to enhance resilience in at the risk of Aboriginals young people. In addition, the things that
are actually known to protect both emotional and strengths of Aboriginals and Torres Straight
Islanders are generally being associated with culture, community, ancestry, spirituality as well as
consisting sense of belongings. Every individual has various ups and downs in daily life. Having
feeling of sad and hopeless for more than a week or two weeks, then this could be considered as
a sign of mental illness like anxiety or depression.
The things that effectively impact over mental health among Aboriginal people and can
make them to stay strong ca involve such as feeling separated from their culture and identity,
loss of land, insufficient income from sources, having issues with families and relationship as
well, having reduced housing conditions and many more. Fro Aboriginals, having such events in
their past can drastically impact over their emotional and social well-being. To heal such issues
with Aboriginals, providing sufficient knowledge, education to Aboriginal young people and
children can help them to overcome their issues. Providing quality education can help them to
aware about their cultures and obtaining occupation. In this, there is a need to aware children
more about cultural diversity by creating more activities through which children can positively
share as well as celebrate their identities with each other. This can promote awareness of their
rights as well as anti-bias practices among Aboriginals. Furthermore, provide knowledge to
children's talk about their confusions or know about their culture can make them more
understandable and reduce conflicts or issues among them (Bennett, 2019).
CONCLUSION
From above discussion, it is concluded that having knowledge of cultural and education
can play an essential role in a community. In context with Aboriginals Torres and Strait Islanders
are having an educational issues in historical, philosophical, social, political context. Providing
good quality of education to young people and children and regular exercise can positively help
Torres and Strait Islander people to overcome their issues such as poverty, low income, health
disparities and many more. In this, there is a need to educate children more about cultural, as this
can help to make children more understandable about their cultures and reduce bias.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Bennett, B. (2019). Ownership and Protection of Aboriginal Knowledge: Academic Response
and Responsibility. Working Across Difference: Social Work, Social Policy and Social
Justice, 39.
Elder, C., & Potskin, J. (2018). Interdisciplines, and Indigenous research and methodologies.
In Routledge handbook of interdisciplinary research methods (pp. 311-316). Routledge.
Hansen, L. & et. al., (2021). Reaching Across the Divide (RAD): Aboriginal Elders and
Academics working together to improve student and staff cultural capability
outcomes. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 50(2), 284-292.
Kennedy, J. & et. al., (2021). Holding space for an Aboriginal approach towards Curriculum
Reconciliation in an Australian university. Teaching in Higher Education, 26(7-8),
1060-1076.
Tascón, S. (2019). Disrupting white epistemologies: De-binarising social work. In Disrupting
Whiteness in Social Work (pp. 8-25). Routledge.
Terare, M. (2019). Transforming classrooms: Developing culturally safe learning
environments. Working Across Difference: Social Work, Social Policy and Social
Justice, 26-37.
Waller, L. (2020). Indigenous knowledges, education and media in Australia. In Indigenous
Knowledges and the Sustainable Development Agenda (pp. 33-50). Routledge.
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<https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-health/
interventions-resources/early-childhood-development-and-education>
Indigenous Peoples Worldviews vs Western Worldviews, 2016 [Online] Available through:
<https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-peoples-worldviews-vs-western-worldviews>
Factors that foster resilience in Aboriginal adolescents and implications for early intervention,
2019 [Online] Available through: <https://emergingminds.com.au/resources/factors-that-foster-
resilience-in-aboriginal-adolescents-and-implications-for-early-intervention/>
Indigenous Resilience in Australia: A Scoping Review Using a Reflective Decolonizing
Collective Dialogue, 2021 [Online] Available
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SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC WELLBEING OF ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY, 2017 [Online] Available through:
<https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4714.0~2014-15~Feature
%20Article~Social%20and%20economic%20wellbeing%20of%20Aboriginal%20and%20Torres
%20Strait%20Islander%20people%20with%20disability%20(Feature%20Article)~10001>