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Social Justice Issues In The Education Of Aboriginal English Speakers, Ian G. Malcolm

Language as a Social Justice Issue Conference

Most Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia use a variety of Aboriginal English for communication, at least within their own speech communities. This paper provides an overview of some of the issues of social justice which are entailed in providing for these people, as Australian citizens, a fair and equitable education.

Concerns are raised in four areas:

1. Linguistic myths surrounding Aboriginal English and Standard English (SE). Traditionally, SE has been assumed to be unified, accent-free, inherently superior and unchanging. On the other hand, traditionally Aboriginal English has been ignored or variously described as a non-language, a poor …