Being Australian and being indigenous : what's the difference?

The study reported here is part of an ongoing program of research into young people's perceptions of what it means to be Australian. The pilot study explored three questions: What does it mean to be Australian and Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander? Do Indigenous and non-Indigenous students differ in their strength of affiliation with Australia? Does discrepancy theory predict Indigenous and non-Indigenous students' strength of affiliation with Australia? Discrepancy was conceptualised as the difference between 'self' and 'other' conceptions of what it means to be Australian. Focus group interviews and a survey were used to collect data from 51 Indigenous and 113 non- Indigenous school students. Although results highlight some differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in their constructions of an Australian identity, results also suggest that there is a strong commitment to both a national Australian identity and an Indigenous identity by the Indigenous students, which augurs well for reconciliation and social cohesion amongst this generation of Australians. The Indigenous students scored significantly higher than the non-Indigenous students on two measures of strength of identification with Australia. Discrepancy theory predicted non- Indigenous but not Indigenous students' strength of affiliation with Australia: high discrepancy scores were associated with high affiliation scores for non-Indigenous students. Implications for schools and schooling are discussed.