Psychological Sense of Community: An Australian Aboriginal Experience

Sense of community (SOC) is central to an individual's psychological wellbeing (Sarason, 1974). Eleven participants, mainly from the North West of Western Australia, took part in semistructured interviews investigating Australian Aboriginal notions of community and SOC. Five key themes emerged...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bishop, Brian, Colquhoun, Simon, Johnson, Gemma
Format: Journal Article
Published: John Wiley & Sons Inc 2006
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/22114
_version_ 1848750779976908800
author Bishop, Brian
Colquhoun, Simon
Johnson, Gemma
author_facet Bishop, Brian
Colquhoun, Simon
Johnson, Gemma
author_sort Bishop, Brian
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Sense of community (SOC) is central to an individual's psychological wellbeing (Sarason, 1974). Eleven participants, mainly from the North West of Western Australia, took part in semistructured interviews investigating Australian Aboriginal notions of community and SOC. Five key themes emerged from the data. These included: kinship structure, language groups, skin groups, education, and knowledge. It is argued that the themes of kinship structure, language groups, and skin groups described the Aboriginal social structure whereas the themes of education and knowledge described the maintenance of a SOC. The impact of this conclusion on the theoretical understanding of a psychological SOC was discussed using analogies to Tönnies' (1957) distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T07:42:16Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-22114
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T07:42:16Z
publishDate 2006
publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-221142017-09-13T16:01:25Z Psychological Sense of Community: An Australian Aboriginal Experience Bishop, Brian Colquhoun, Simon Johnson, Gemma Sense of community (SOC) is central to an individual's psychological wellbeing (Sarason, 1974). Eleven participants, mainly from the North West of Western Australia, took part in semistructured interviews investigating Australian Aboriginal notions of community and SOC. Five key themes emerged from the data. These included: kinship structure, language groups, skin groups, education, and knowledge. It is argued that the themes of kinship structure, language groups, and skin groups described the Aboriginal social structure whereas the themes of education and knowledge described the maintenance of a SOC. The impact of this conclusion on the theoretical understanding of a psychological SOC was discussed using analogies to Tönnies' (1957) distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. 2006 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/22114 10.1002/jcop.20079 John Wiley & Sons Inc restricted
spellingShingle Bishop, Brian
Colquhoun, Simon
Johnson, Gemma
Psychological Sense of Community: An Australian Aboriginal Experience
title Psychological Sense of Community: An Australian Aboriginal Experience
title_full Psychological Sense of Community: An Australian Aboriginal Experience
title_fullStr Psychological Sense of Community: An Australian Aboriginal Experience
title_full_unstemmed Psychological Sense of Community: An Australian Aboriginal Experience
title_short Psychological Sense of Community: An Australian Aboriginal Experience
title_sort psychological sense of community: an australian aboriginal experience
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/22114