Being a lifelong public school student in Western Sydney, I am well aware of the stigma that is associated with such a profile. One that at times is exaggerated and perpetuated some by biased media and consequently assumed by others. These include the stigma being less intelligent or poorly behaved. Though unfortunately some perceived qualities of the West are true but this does not define who we are individually as students– yes we have lower levels of socioeconomic status and yes we have a greater proportion of students from diverse backgrounds. This advances my expression on my schooling experiences as projected generalisations and labels can be damaging to any student. For instance during my secondary education, my teachers vain attempts to motivate us would only stimulate the regressive response, “but we’re only from the West,” from students, which sadly is an attitude passed down to subsequent grades in a vicious cycle. So I ask why is it that such notions of labels can so greatly impact how we view education and how can this be aided.
In order to examine how social attitudes cause a perceived idea of disadvantage for some students I draw on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. He theorises that students view themselves in the same way that others perceive them perhaps via the aforementioned stereotypes or as he claims, "to make the world conform to the myth." (Crossley, 2013, p.150) Essentially then, students are conditioned to accept the stigma placed on Western Sydney education because of the generalisations they are exposed to. So it is clear that this can be damaging to students own attitudes towards school and their lives, finding it difficult to escape society’s degrading views and expectations and like in my example reproduce these unmotivated behaviours to other students. This can negatively influence their goals for the future by inducing a disposition of hopelessness.
Though Giroux points out some obvious flaws in Bourdeu’s theorisation of habitus as he fails to take into account the optimistic effect of this, which is by viewing students as an active agent of change to break out of these suppressive moulds through personal initiative for improvisation, what Giroux sees as reinvention and reconstruction (Crossley 2013). Also too I propose that exposure to the uniqueness of Western Sydney’s environment should be seen as advantageous given the diverse multiculturalism and experience with different languages and culture, perhaps adding to their cultural capital. This is significant as knowing how to interact and socialise with numerous people is essential in society and employment and such skills are acquired in environments like multicultural schools not learnt through books.
So I say these social attitudes and judgements with negative connotations need to be altered to lessen unfavourable generalisations. In fact Western Sydney’s commendable attributes such as the diverse demographic should be utilised as an advantage to educational experience. This can be achieved if students from Western Sydney can maintain strong individual identities and not succumb to poor projected expectations of them.
Crossley, N. (2013). Habit and Habitus. Body and society. Vol.19, No.2&3. pp.136-161
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