Interdisciplinary Seminar:
Education for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
Convener: Kathy Mumford, Australia

Reinforcing Cultural Identity
Alba Claudia Romano, Non-member, Argentina
This paper will honour Dr. Adriana B. Martino of the Argentina Federation of University Women, who had proposed a paper shortly before her unexpected death.

In support of cultural identity Dr. Martino was interested in the adjustment between school and family knowledge.  I shall follow that theme but I shall concentrate in bilingualism. While I am convinced that the command of the language of the majority –lets call it the official language – is a sine qua non condition for advancement of the individual and the attainment of social justice, the preservation of the maternal language is a safe refuge for the indigenous population and a guarantee of support and acceptance within the original community. Programs of universal literacy in are, of course, to be supported but they may become a breach between the older and younger generations.  Bilingual schools, with which I am acquainted, is an ideal way of both becoming a useful member of the society in general and retaining the roots and the pride of belonging to an autochthonous community.

Dr Alba Claudia Romano holds a Masters degree in Classics from Bryn Mawr College (USA) and a PhD from Monash University (Australia), where she took up an appointment as Lecturer in the Department of Classics in 1967. In Australia she became interested in problems of Indigenous peoples and has continued this interest in Argentina, to which she returned as a Professor in the University of Buenos Aires in 1998. She has published widely in classical and linguistic studies.