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.

Parents anxious over school choice

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-02-03/parents-anxious-over-school-choice/282874

In an article published by The Drum in 2009, Craig Campbell discusses the impact school choice has had on parents from many Australian middle class families. 30 years ago ‘school choice’ in Australia was unheard of, either the local government school was the automatic selection - or if one's family was Catholic, or had attended elite Protestant colleges, tradition and faith took care of the school attended (The Drum, 2009). So in the1980’s when School Marketization (Kenway, 2001 ) was on the rise and parents and students were being viewed as both consumers and commodities of the schooling process ultimately lead to ‘widespread anxiety and frustration amongst many middle class families’ (The Drum, 2009).

The school market can be a place of clear winners and losers (The Drum, 2009), this is what Reid (1998) describes as exchange value, students can either have positive or negative value placed upon them. Positive students are (Reid, 1998)  “those who lift the schools academic, sporting or cultural performance and image, and who conform to the schools and teachers educational norms” (Pg.51), and those with behavior problems or those that place extra demands on the school are seen to add negative value. In many cases students that don’t hold great exchange value were often avoided by schools, it was these families that quickly realized “it was one thing to choose a school, but it was a very different thing to be chosen by a school” (The Drum, 2009).

Many parents feel the pressure to ‘shop around’, with the idea now that “only the good are good for the school (Reid, 2009. Pg. 51) parents feel forced into competitive practices. They keep a close eye on the reputations of schools, examination results, their children's teachers, their own children and their friends, and the mass media (The Drum, 2009). In some cases the competition leads to corruption. There have been cases of parents advantaging their children by aggressive use of influential contacts, of doing children's assignments for them, even of attempting to bribe teachers in relation to selective school entry tests (The Drum, 2009).

The marketization of schools and increased concern about school image has not been a positive experience for many parents. For these families the so-called idea of ‘School Choice’ resulted in to many inequalities and left many households concerned  their children were being disadvantaged. 



Campbell, C. (2009) Parents anxious over school choice, The Drum.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-02-03/parents-anxious-over-school-choice/282874

Kenway, B. (2001 ). Designer schools, packaged students. Consuming Children: Education -Entertainment - Advertising .

Reid, A. (1998). Going Public: Education Policy and Public Education in Australia.

Bringing Sexy Back

Sex education in the Australian school curriculum has been said to be inadequate and not reflecting present society, with teachers failing to fulfill there duties as cultural workers. Teachers have a crucial role in creating meaning and helping students learn about the society they live in. It is worrying then to see, in a survey of 1219 15-29 year olds, that the consensus was that sexual education in schools was equal to none or very little (Silver 2012). Within a culture that celebrates romantic and sexual relationships, especially through music and film, adolescent interest in risks and experiences of sexual behaviour is not surprising (Schaalma et al 2004). This suggests that there is an obvious disjunction between “the content of sex education and the evidence based needs of young people” (Schaalma et al 2004).

The Tasmanian state government has pushed to celebrate sexual diversity by updating and improving the quality of sex education (Glaetzer 2012). Education Minister Nick McKim has implored that the curriculum for sex education be modified to include “sexuality, gender identity and respectful relationships and to support students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex” (Glaetzer 2012). These implementations have followed from research indicating that young people know very little about common STI’s. This is worrying because most young people in years 11 and 12 are sexually active (Silver 2012). Along with this, is the rise in sexually transmitted diseases, with the blame being pointed at the education system and teachers, because parents are usually themselves uneducated and uncomfortable with times changing severely since their adolescence. 

Sex education is linked to the basic rights individuals are entitles to. Students have that inalienable right to knowledge, and this knowledge needs to cater to their environment. This knowledge can enable students to make well-informed decisions in order to avoid regret, trauma, shock and coercion (Silver, 2012). The Australian Catholic Lobbies response to the Tasmanian state governments plan is a “good illustration of the need for young people to be well-informed, tolerant and understanding of all members of society” states Mr McKim (Glaetzer 2012). If students are taught by teachers, through the education system, about diversity and respect, maybe bullying rates and suicide rates would decrease? Gender identity has been through many changes in the past century, especially in light of feminist and queer movements. Judith Butler stated that “gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space” (Glover & Kaplan 2009). Perhaps it is time to recognise this by modifying the school curriculum. In years 5 and 6, physical and emotional changes of puberty will be taught and in years 7 and 8, sexuality will be fleshed out  so to reflect the younger ages that students are going through puberty, and begin to explore and form their gender identity (Silver 2012).

References

Glaetzer, S 2012, ‘Sex ed plans under attack’, The Mercury, 4 October, accessed 16 October 2012, < http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/10/04/363106_tasmania-news.html>.

Glover, D & Kaplan, C 2009, ‘Introduction: Gendered Histories, Gendered Contexts’, Genders, Routledge, New York.

Schaalma, H.P, Abraham, C, Gillmore, M.R & Kok, G 2004, ‘Sex education as health promotion: What does it take?’, Archives of Sexual Behaviour, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 259-269.

Silver, M 2012, ‘Lets talk about sex’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 October, accessed 17 October 2012, < http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/lets-talk-about-sex-20121009-27b93.html>.

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

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

My schooling experience in the Blue Mountains was shaped by my private education at the Catholic co-ed school, St. Columba’s. When Ho (2011) posed the question in her study ‘Respecting the Presence of Others: School Micropublics and Everyday Multiculturalism’, “So how Culturally diverse are Australia’s Schools” (p.606) I couldn’t help but recognise the limited culture exchange at my school and feel slightly ashamed at the lack of multiculturalism. My experience of multiculturalism heightened greatly as I found university to be the best sight for a ‘micropublic’ (p.605) promoting cultural connectivity and exchange. My peer group diversified ethnically and I was participating in cultural traditions that made me reflect and grow my own sense cultural identity. It saddens me that this exchange had not happened earlier in high school, as my Catholic school reiterated Ho’s findings that “private schools are not structured to represent the full diversity of society”(p.609). Reflecting on my schooling experience I am unhappy that I did not contribute to Rizvi’s discourse of Cosmopolitanism promoting the “greater need of intercultural understanding and communication” (2008, p.111).

I found myself relating to McIntosh’s paper of White privilege (1988) as she describes her school as giving her no training in “seeing myself as an unfairly advantaged person” (p.2) and I reflect on this being due to the lack of cultural diversity at my high school. In addition to this I can now see myself being apart of the ‘white flight’ movement that creates highly concentrated mono ethnic cultures (Ho p. 614).  The reasoning for my concentrated ‘white’ culture of schooling was not due to a fear of migrant groups, but due to the geographical location and population of the Blue Mountains. Through reading Ho’s paper in a self-reflective context I think that even though my schooling did not promote cultural exchange, which I think is a shame for the cultural growth of its pupils, it did not hinder my ability to “understand and negotiate cultural difference” (p.616). This is just my personal reflection; I cannot speak on behalf of my classmates but I have not found that my experience of mono cultural schooling has affected my ability to appreciate cross-cultural communication in my life now.

Resources:

Rizvi, F. (2008) Education and it’s Cosmopolitan possibilities, Transforming Learning in Schools and Communities, London, Continual International Publishing Group, pp.102-114

 Ho, C 2011, ‘Respecting the presence of others: school micropublics and everyday mutliculturailsm;, Journal of Intercutlrual Studies, pp605-615

McIntosh, P (1988) “White privilege and male privilege: A personal Account of coming to see correspondences through work in Women’s Studies, Wellesley College Centre for Research in Women p. 2