A Reflection on a Current Issue in Sydney related to Culture and Identity

As I was strolling the internet I happen to come across a rather disgusting and apparently immediate problem within Sydney. Racism. Now being 2013, one may think that such prehistoric notions of ignorance may have dwindled and died out along with the dinosaurs, alas the events on a certain Sydney bus stand to prove otherwise. An article by Matt Young on News.com.au, states that,

“ABC News presenter Jeremy Fernandez has described the moment he was kicked off a Sydney bus after enduring verbal racial taunts.”

To summarise the events according to the article, ABC News presenter Jeremy Fernandez was with his 2 year old daughter, when a child began poking and pinching his daughters arm and head. In response to this, Fernandez placed his arm around his daughter and the child changed target and pinched his arm. To which Fernandez replied, "darling that was my arm you just flicked." And that is when the mother of the child began accusations, calling Fernandez a, ‘black’ pedophile- To make matters worse, the bus was filled with primary school students, and in addition the fact that Fernandez was the one who was kicked off, after the bus driver told him, “mate, it’s your fault”. 

Thereby this event is demonstrating moral and social violations as well as racial discrimination. In Sydney. In 2013. I find myself asking, filled with curiosity of the 'cultural dimensions of the racist women, which cultural influences, what aspects would allow her cognition to deem her actions on that bus as acceptable. Fernandez tweeted this event (right):

Its clear then, that something needs to be done to prevent such an event from occurring in the future. I believe the answer lies in education. That if we begin to truly culturally diversify education and expose the youth to varying cultures and races so that they may grow as open and accepting individuals. 

As such education may be a tool to be used in the present to fix the future. Understandably the lady who began this racial spur may have been exposed to an educational system of a more un-accepting Australia in the past, yet it still does not account for the behavior depicted, if not for race, show some moderation for the children who were exposed to such a rant.  

Sources/Reference:

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/abc-journalist-cops-racist-rant-on-sydney-bus/story-e6frfmyi-1226573416717 

My experiences of Culture and Identity in relation to Education (E.G)

In this post-modern society each and every one of us has been exposed to countless cultures throughout our lives. But how do you assess your experiences with culture and identity? Wadham, Pudsey and Boyd (2007) states that, “humans are cultural beings and we can’t understand them without recognizing the cultural dimension of their lives”. These dimensions refer to an individual’s social status, background and education. It is these things that inter-link to create a person’s cultural experience, and it is also these things that people in the post-modern society use to judge, and be judged by. But judging someone, is the process in which one assesses a particular cultural influence on the individual, and then denotes which social group he or she may belong to. It is how we may identify one another by placing identity markers upon those we meet and those we know of. Keeping these conceptions in mind, my personal experience with culture and identity is taken up mostly by my high school life and my personal hobbies. In which I was exposed to a multitude of differing cultures and different people. In hindsight I am aware now of just how great a number of cultures were in my school, and as such it also becomes apparent that through experiencing so many cultures and different people I have become an increasingly accepting individual. This is also the case with my close friends who have experienced the same high school. Then I can argue, that the greater number of cultures one experiences in high school/education, the greater their perception of the worlds, “cultural dimensions” (Wadham, et.al, 2007) and thus, the greater their acceptance of the varying dimensions.

Talk about dimensions is great and all, but what specific dimensions were the greatest for me in high school. It’s safe to assume that this is the case for many people, where the greatest cultural thing a person interacts with is another person’s background. Of course a person’s background is complex, as it is my firm belief that a cultural background is subjective to a person’s cultural characteristics, things such as, “language, traditions, food, clothes, arts, dance, music and sports” (Leo F. Parvis (2005). I cannot simply denote the mainstream identity marker to an individual, as I understand that individuals are not so simple, but are complex and made up of countless cultural influences that may not just differentiate them as individuals, but also differentiate their cultural backgrounds. For example, in my High School, I shared the cultural background of growing up in a Turkish family with the Turkish social group in my high School. But during those years of education I was primarily surrounded with a multicultural group of friends and teachers. This caused me to completely differentiate myself from people whom I shared the same cultural background with. Thereby I am reinforcing the notion that you cannot simply explore or denote an individual’s identity simply by association with certain primary and mainstream backgrounds.

Finally, I find that being exposed to many cultures allows a person to begin creating identity markers, such as, ‘the Turkish social group’, and that everybody partakes in the identity game. It is only natural to attempt to understand another individual, and as such you will associate that individual, dependent on the information you know of them, with an identity that you have previously been exposed to. And also, when an individual cannot place an identity marker on someone, the automatic response is to place the identity marker of being weird/strange to the person/s. Then education becomes a system where an individual begins to learn associations to categorize people, that they will then carry and continually shape throughout their lives. I was exposed to a multicultural school that has shaped my perspective on cultural diversity and the importance of education within the conceptions of culture, and identity that shape our modern society. 

~Emre G

References

1. Parvis, L. (2006). Understanding Cultural Diversity in Today's Complex World. Lulu. com.

2. Wadham, B. A., Pudsey, J., & Boyd, R. M. (2007). Culture and education. Pearson Education Australia.

'Chill out it’s just a joke… or is it?'

2. A reflection on a current educational issue in Sydney relating to culture and identity

With the constant influx of immigrants from over seas countries within the past century, Australia has developed into a multicultural nation and racism has found itself creeping into schools even through apparent ‘humor’.

What constitutes racism though? Being one of few Syrians in a school of mainly Lebanese students, I embraced being humorously called a ‘Syrian dog’ by my peers and took no offense to the profanity and often replied with similar remarks. This, however, is not the case for all apparently lighthearted humorous racial exchanges happening within schools today. It begs the question, are these types of comments acceptable, even if the person they’re directed to does not take offense? I would say it depends on the context and the circumstance it is being said in.

About one year ago, an innocent video by an Intensive English class in a school in western Sydney was posted of the students embracing their cultures and their absorption into the Australian education system, they express their love to write and for spelling and how much they feel like they belong in the class. Little did they know this video would somehow go viral and spread all over neighboring schools, and be ridiculed for their accents. The song was mockingly sung all over schools, which was only a reflection of the excessive ridicule people face today because of their race, and the issues of drawing the line between a lighthearted joke, and a racist joke.

The ABC program The Drum addressed this issue recently in response to the derogatory comments made by Eddie McGuire to Adam Goodes, where the journalist states ‘’racist jokes are crass. Vulgar. Hurtful. With your joke, you judge me before you even know me. You make me less than equal, less than human. You affect my employment chances, my promotion options. You affect how shopkeepers and security guards treat me. You humiliate me in front of colleagues, friends, family, strangers.’’ This reflects the views of many Australian students in schools who may experience racial jokes inflicted upon them with intent of offense.

Race within Australia has been juggled through commentary about people’s ethnicities to the point that it is often difficult to distinguish where the line is drawn. Where racial jokes are one of the many ‘’discursive mechanisms that contribute to the making and positioning of radicalized identities that sustain race-based inequities and discrimination’’ (Vass 2012, p 2). Where the lengthily effects of lighthearted racist jokes may contribute to creating and promoting racial stigmas and stereotypes which ultimately leads to racism.

References

Ho, A 2013. ABC Homepage. Available from <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-30/ho---racism/4723212> 20^th September 2013.

Vass, G 2012, ‘The racialised educational landscape in Australia: listening to the

whispering elephant’, Race Ethnicity and Education, pp. 1-26.

‘OMG where is my free laptop? Hashtag first world problems’

1.     A reflection of your own experiences of culture and identity in relation to education

My own experiences of culture and identity were shaped dramatically in education, where although having attended a private school, academic prosperity was never strictly enforced upon students before year 12. I never considered myself a ‘westie’ nor did I think lower socioeconomic status or social stigmas had an impact on my education until a year 11 mock trial away session at an affluent independent school, where my team mates and I were astounded by the fact that their table legs didn’t fall off, and that they had revolving doors in their library (students broke our manual one). Such trivial and superficial aspects to take note of, however, it ignited the reality of what other students had access to that we were unaware of what we were missing out on. Like the funded laptops handed out to schools, that we as a private school, heard about in the news but never received, instead our school invested in laptops only available for teacher hire during class time (but they got stolen a few weeks later so that didn’t work out). Having been employed since the age of 14, I never felt impacted by the inefficiency my school had in resources as I purchased my own, however, now that I look back it was simply a reflection on the inefficiency of expectations from the school executives themselves, why spend precious school fees on poor, obnoxiously loud, ethnic students who don’t want to learn?

As a school of mainly students of lower SES, and of mixed ethnicities, mainly that of Middle-Eastern and Pacific Islanders, the culture immersed itself into each students identity. Race played a significant role in the overall culture of the school, where students were inclusive and it was often teachers who were more hostile to our diversity from the stereotypical higher SES affluent ‘white’ students our teachers were used to in most private schools (I witnessed a teacher yell at an entire grade ‘stop acting like you’re from Granville for once’). I therefore choose to emphasize the impact this kind approach has on students, as many of my peers felt they were defined by their postcode and their race, needing to conform to the ‘dodgy Arab’ stereotype.

University was only an option for the minority of students whose motivation mostly came from home. Where it is necessary that ‘’teachers themselves have a professional duty to respond appropriately to social change and to develop an above average level of intercultural communication, cultural understanding and general competency in inclusive teaching’’ (Mansouri 2010, p94). That teachers must be aware and responsive to the culture and multiple identities within a certain school and embrace these factors to enhance, rather than repel, students motivation to excel. As ’any good teaching must engage deeply with the complexities of the community’’ (Lynn 2010, p319). Many of my teachers did embrace our culture and racial diversities, dancing and singing with us to the sad imitations of Arabic drums using lockers and bins, but ultimately, it was those teachers that enhanced the educational experience, and lead 30% of the grade to pursue tertiary education (highest in our schools history, woohoo!).

‘’There are three things to remember when teaching: know your stuff; know whom you are stuffing; and then stuff them elegantly.’’ Lola May

References

Lynn, A 2010, ‘The Role of Inuit Languages in Nunavut Schooling: Nunavut Teachers talk about Bilingual Education’, Canadian Journal of Education, pp. 295-328.

Mansouri, F. Jenkins, L 2010, ‘Schools as Sites of Race Relations and Intercultural Tension’, Australian Journal od Teacher Education, vol. 35, no. 8, pp. 93-108.

A reflection on a current educational issue in Sydney relating to culture and identity (Mike Howlett)

“Australia is one of the most multicultural countries in the world, with people from about 270 different cultural backgrounds making their homes here” (Taha, 2013). This headline slogan from a news article written by Mohamed Taha and published by ABC news presents the extreme diversity of Australia’s cultural landscape whilst highlighting the high possibility of racism within Australian society. In relation to this, it is unequivocal that racism is a contemporary educational issue that is present within Australian schooling institutions. It is a derogatory notion by which the cultural identity of students are formulated by a compilation of stereotypical and subjective viewpoints. The fundamental issue of racism in schooling is that students are growing up with the ideology that people of different races and cultures should be seen differently and represented in a different way, causing a fundamental misunderstanding of cultural identities. Whether this racism is presented overtly or covertly, this issue will ultimately lead to students causing disharmony between races and cultures in the future, resulting in less employment and social opportunities whilst causing a detrimental rift within society. Moreover, the representation of racism within schooling could potentially cause students of white ethnicity to adopt notions of white supremacy and degrade and even debase those of different cultural backgrounds.

The news article as mentioned previously focuses on various schools which experience a high prevalence of racism and displays ways in which communities, individuals and governmental groups are trying to confront the issue. One such effort which was coined by the Australian Human Rights Commission was releasing a hip hop music video in conjunction with artist ‘Brothablack’ and humanitarian organisation ‘Together for Humanity’ titled ‘What you say matters’. The music video featuring students from James Meehan High School in Macquarie Fields focuses on educating students to become more aware of the complexity of racism and racial taxonomy. The initiative was derived from member of ‘Together for Humanity’ ‘Zalman Kastel’ who believes that teaching students “saying no to racism is like saying no to drugs…it’s not enough…people often talk about racism yet have a very shallow understanding of what it actually is” (2013).

The music video featured a compilation of situations involving racism in which the students had personally experienced. Students claimed that at times, this made the process somewhat confronting yet remained passionate about the possibility of the music video to spread the message about racism whilst educating students about what it truly is and how they can recognise it.

Zalman Kastel is also trying to confront the problem early by hosting a forum of culturally diverse individuals in which young students (year’s 2-4) would ask questions and be asked to guess which member of the forum was Australian. The right answer? They all are. The student’s responses seemed that they were fixated with the notion that “if you’re not white, and you’re not Christian, you’re not Australian” (Kastel, 2013) showing a clear representation of the magnitude of racial profiling within Australian educational institutions.  

Through this analysis, there is no doubt that racism is a prevalent issue within Australian education. Yet perhaps there are other methods that the issue could best be approached. For example; in an interview, renowned actor Morgan Freeman was asked by 60 minutes reporter Mike Wallace “How are we going to stop racism” to which Freeman passionately replied with the simple answer “stop talking about it….im going to stop calling you a white man, and I’ll ask that you stop calling me a black man…I know you as Mike Wallace and you know me as Morgan Freeman”. (2005).

References:

1.      Taha, M. (2013, July 31). ‘Teachers, pupils on mission to tackle racism in Australian

Schools,’ ABC NEWS.

2.      Wallace, M., & Freeman, M. (2005, December 18). ’60 minutes: Black History

Month,’ CNN. 

A Reflection of my own experiences of culture and identity in relation to education (Mike Howlett)

It is undeniable that “Education and schooling are two of the most important ways in which we learn to live within and contribute to our own cultural lives” (Wadham, Pudsy & Boyd, 2007). For example, within my own experience of schooling, I found that education is an all encapsulating experience. It offers a representation of a diverse range of cultures (and subcultures) resulting in an unbridled sense of cultural awareness and understanding that ultimately transformed my cultural life. Moreover, cultural diversity within education provides essential foundations for the youth of the nation to begin identifying and analysing various aspects of identity such as; Essentialism, classification systems and identity markers whilst simultaneously forming an understanding of their own identity as “our immersion in particular cultures shape how we see and feel about the world, how we behave within it, and the range of choices we have to operate with” (Wadham et.al, 2007).

To say that my experience of education was culturally diverse would be an understatement. The first educational institution I attended was in the heart of Singapore which actively encouraged diverse cultural immersion for families of all backgrounds. The school itself was called ‘The Overseas Family School’ and was predominately aimed at accommodating for students of international backgrounds. It was a multifaceted community in which students from various different cultural backgrounds would wear different clothing, speak in a different manner, eat in a different way and interact with one and other based on culturally specific norms. Giving testament to Wadham’s et al. theory of establishing ‘how we see the world’ based on cultural immersion whilst also experiencing somewhat of an identity crisis. Nothing was done the same between students of two disparate cultural backgrounds. Therefore, I was inevitably left to ask myself “what time do I eat, and with what implements- knife and fork, chopsticks, my hands? With whom should I eat?...should I eat or will this jeopardise my relationship with divine powers?” (Wadham, et.al, 2007). I relate to this clear example from Wadham et al. with ease. I was the minority, a boy from a Western background, being raised in Indonesia, in the company of students from all around the world. Within this experience of education, there was no escaping cultural mixing and diversity.

My culturally diverse experience of education continued as I returned to Australia and was enrolled in a lesser, yet still multiculturalist school. It was at this time that I truly began to recognise and analyse different identities and subcultures of human beings, ultimately derived from their cultural backgrounds. I experienced an abundance of classification systems and notions of essentialism as certain groups of students based on ethnicity would become isolated into groups of their own. Groups that inevitably resulted in various titles and stereotypical connotations to be contributed to them, despite the fact they are all ‘technically’ Australian. My most interesting experience of culture in regards to education was an instance in which students from international cultural backgrounds were prohibited to speak their native language in public domain in an attempt to encourage students to mix with other cultures. This ultimately gave me the sense that schools can at times be a site of “cultural struggle” (Wadham, et.al, 2007) in which “culture is produced, consumed yet regulated, that is, different people with different beliefs propose ideas, some of which are taken up and some of which are refused” (Wadham, et.al, 2007).

References:

1.      Wadham, B., Pudsy, J., & Boyd, R. (2007). What is Culture? In: Culture and Education,

(pp. 1-6). Pearson Education Australia.