pexkwd
8mo ago
you have two broad camps of Aboriginal people in Australia. The first is in remote communities, especially in the NT or in bits of rural Queensland or WA. These people are usually of almost exclusively Aboriginal descent, they're politically voiceless, and they often suffer crushing poverty and have other terrible outcomes. The second, however, are in the major cities. This group is almost entirely mixed-race, often with less indigenous background than European, and their life outcomes tend to be comparable to that of the general Australian population.
This was my impression too, but recently I was looking at the NAPLAN results* and I was surprised at how poorly Indigenous students** actually did. For every test I looked at, Indigenous major city students did significantly worse than even Non-Indigenous very remote (for both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous the percentage "passing" decreases from major city to regional and further again to remote). More specifically the below percentages include students who were "Strong" or "Exceeding" (and excludes students in the other categories of "Developing", "Needs additional support" and "Exempt").
Year 3 (approx 8.5 years old) Numeracy scores
Indigenous major city - 37.3%
Non-Indigenous very remote - 50.3%
All the other grades and subjects showed similar results, e.g.
Year 9 (approx 14.5 years old) Reading scores
Indigenous major city - 35.3%
Non-Indigenous very remote - 50%
Unrelated to this thread, another possibly surprising result from NAPLAN is that students with a language background other than English (LBOTE) (either the student or parents/carers speak a language other than English at home) do better than non-LBOTE on every single test at every grade level, including English/Language arts (e.g. 71% vs 56.5% in grade 3 spelling). Based on Australian demographics, many LBOTE students would have Asian ancestry.
In less surprising news, boys did better than girls at numeracy (e.g. 67% vs 62.1% in grade 3), girls did better than boys at English/Language arts (e.g. 71.4% vs 62.4% in grade 3 reading), major city kids did better than very remote kids (e.g. 69.5 vs 50.3% in grade 3 numeracy for non-Indigenous), and kids with at least one parent who have a bachelor did MUCH better than kids where the highest level either parent had achieved was grade 11 (e.g. 79.6% vs 31% in grade 3 numeracy).
*NAPLAN is "a series of tests focused on basic skills that are administered to Australian students in year 3, 5, 7 and 9." On that page, click "Achievement by subgroup" then the "Comparison by" dropdown on the right to get to "Indigeneity by ABS remoteness"
** Defined by NAPLAN as "one who identifies as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin", therefore presumably including the mixed-race city dwellers.
You're probably right that selecting immigrants who are skilled is a better explanation for LBOTE doing better than non-LBOTE.
Yep, it's hard to navigate and I stumble upon it accidentally from https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/naplan-national-results the bubble "Achievement by subgroup" then the "Comparison by" dropdown on the right to get to "Indigeneity by ABS remoteness". Definitely remote are significantly worse off than urban Aboriginals.
Percent strong or exceeding for Year 9 reading:
Indigenous major city - 35.3%
Indigenous inner regional - 29.9%
Indigenous outer regional - 25.1%
Indigenous remote - 15.7%
Indigenous very remote - 8.5%
Non-Indigenous major city - 68.3%
Non-Indigenous inner regional - 57.2%
Non-Indigenous outer regional - 55.3%
Non-Indigenous remote - 55.7%
Non-Indigenous very remote - 50%
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