A reflection of my own experiences of culture and identity in relation to education

Looking back to my experiences with cross cultural exchange in primary and high school, Its embarrassing to say how limited they were. The Sutherland Shire was and predominately still is a place of 'whiteness' (Leonardo, 2004), that is not to say that there are no other ethnicities living there, but rather they are the minority.

When i consider James Scheurich's (1998) description of being white as akin to walking down the street with money being put in your pocket without your knowledge and at the end of the day having all this wealth without ever having to work for it, the analogy fits my experience to a tee, only I never saw the other side. It never occurred to me that not everyone was receiving the same entitlement i was, perhaps it was ignorance but when everyone in 'your' world carries the same invisible knapsack of entitlements you don't see it as privilege but rather the norm, Whites are carefully taught not to recognise white privilege (McIntosh, 1988).

There was one Indian boy in my class in primary school who was a good friend, he attended all the parties, was popular with the other kids and looking back he didn't seem disadvantaged because of the colour of his skin, his culture was never an issue, but having said that, his culture was never embraced, publicly acknowledged and certainly not publicly celebrated. This minor discrepancy seemed to have been very quietly swept under the carpet, "if we don't talk about it... it doesn't exist", this was a common mentality in the Sutherland Shire, It seems immigrants were welcome provided they opted for the Australian way.

My engagement in cross-cultural exchange only really began to develop when my circle of friends grew/changed, ultimately when I was no longer in this sheltered environment I became inquisitive and concerned about equality. I wanted to submerse my self in these ‘Micropublics’ (Ho, 2011) and began to gravitate toward classes and activities where multiculturalism existed. My goal so far as a pre service teacher at UNSW has been to experience as much diversity as possible in the education setting.

Leonardo, Z. (2004) The Colour Of Supremacy: Beyond the Discourse of 'White Privilege'. California State University.

McIntosh, P. (1988) White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to see Correspondences Through Work in wWomen's Studies.