Culture and Community - Tackling Racism in Australian Secondary Schools - Assessment Answer

Assignment Task

Select one of your group’s “future directions”

• Develop a research project to inquire into your question.

– The project must explore ways to address the cultural diversity issue in communiques

• This is to be collaborative research - researchers and community members work together.
• Multicultural perspectives – consider the potentially distinct cultural assumptions, prior experiences, personal needs, feelings, expectations, skills, and health conditions that people bring to the community; discuss them in your proposal as relevant.
• Be creative!
• Additional conditions to be assumed:

– Some local community is interested in your project and

willing to collaborate. – There are some funding possibility – Some volunteers can assist you with certain ascribes; – You have access to a range of experts to gain advices – You have sufficient bme for this project

Tackling Racism in Australian Secondary Schools

The purpose of this project is to assist communities and education systems to identify and tackle racism in the secondary schools across Australia. Secondary schools play a key role in contributing to the prosperity and social congruence through enabling all learners to achieve the best educational outcomes (Walsh & Black, 2010). However, this aspect is often hindered by racism, which has dominated the secondary schools over the years. The project aims to empower the students on the effects of racism on the victims and the benefit of creating a conducive environment for all. The project will meet this objective by integrating some strategies which will include promoting cultural identity and inclusiveness, facilitating equitable participation, access, and outcomes in all disciplines (Parks & Hughey, 2010). Furthermore, the project will initiate a punishment mechanism through which students who engage in racism will be punished.

Background and Significance

Racism refers to a philosophy that gives expression to myths concerning other ethnic groups and races, that diminishes and renders them inferior, that reveals and is preserved by profoundly rooted social, historical, cultural, and power variations in the society. It occurs as an outcome of a complex interaction of people attitudes, institutional practices, and social values (Jan & Keith, 2013). Racism is expressed through actions of people and institutions and is enhanced in the ideology of prevalent culture. It alters its appearance in response to social change, which means that the expressions of racism in 1950s are not the same to the expressions today (Healey, 2003). The basis of racism is the belief that certain individuals are superior to others because they are members of a particular race, national group or ethnic background. The issue of race is believed to be a social construct as opposed to scientific construct.

In Australia, the issue of racism is inseparably associated with the history of migration and colonization. It is similar to the racism issue in America, which is solely based on historical perspectives of colonization and migration. The migration of individuals from various parts of the globe led to the rise in linguistic and cultural diversity of the population in the country (Healey, 2003). Discrimination and prejudice have been concentrated towards numerous groups who came to Australia specifically towards groups from different linguistic backgrounds besides English, irrespective of the various government schemes that encouraged individuals to settle in the country.

Despite the government's and other stakeholders' attempts to stop racism in the country especially in institutions, it is still present in Australia schools. Direct racism is observed in situations of harassment, racist abuse, and discrimination (Jan & Keith, 2013). It is also manifested indirectly through ignorance to cultural diversity, prejudiced behaviors, and culturally biased practices. The most common form of racism reported in secondary schools across Australia is not recognized or tackled by instructors or other people in authority who are in position to change the situation. It appears that the people who do not experience racism themselves do not realize how painful it is or shelve it as minor and thus, they do not see it as potential for harm (Walsh & Black, 2010). The threat is that when racist behaviors and attitudes are allowed to go unimpeded in a school, a climate develops which observes these deeds as normal actions and so permits racism to become rooted.

The project is perceived to cause certain positive implications that will ensure racism reduces completely. The project plans to incorporate all the key stakeholders including teachers, parents, students, and professional human rights personnel from both within the country and outsourced from other countries in the world that successfully managed to end racism in their countries. Racism is not something easy to end because it comprises of the belief systems of those who practice it. It means that integrating the teachers and students only cannot lead to effective results and that is why all the key stakeholders will be incorporated (Walsh & Black, 2010). If everything goes according to plan, there is no doubt that the desired results will be achieved.

Approach

Research on the aspect of fighting racism and previous successful attempts confirm that collective effort is the key to ending the menace. With this in mind, the project will entail collective effort from various stakeholders who will come up with a mutual consent on how to handle the situation and end it. The approach that will be used is empowerment, enactment of new laws, and enforcement of the laws (Parks & Hughey, 2010). As mentioned, the project will comprise of professional human rights personnel from within and outside the country. They will act as tutors, whose work will be to empower the teachers. The teachers will be taken through a significant training in which the focus will be to empower them about detection of racism and discrimination and taking necessary measures against the culpable students.

The aspect of ignorance will not be an issue anymore because there will be consequences for any teacher noted to witness an instance of racism and ignoring it. The teachers will be informed on how to detect racism even without witnessing them happen so that they can deal with the new forms of racisms that exist today or that they may arise in the future. Note that few parents will also be involved in the training especially the board of directors of various schools (Healey, 2003). The training will take place at the regional education headquarters of different states, which will bring together teachers of different schools within a locality. It means that one workshop will contain more than 150 teachers from more than five secondary schools. At the same time, at least 40 parents representing the board of directors of the involved schools will attend the workshops. The ministry of education will also be represented by few officers to show that they support the project and are willing to engage in activities that will end racism in schools (Walsh & Black, 2010). They will run for one week in each region, which will be enough not just to learn mechanisms of tackling racism in schools but also establishing new laws that will be applied to guide students and restraining them from engaging in such acts.

Once empowered, the teachers will be mandated to empower students on the negative implications of discriminating others based on race and the benefits of restraining from racism attitudes, behaviors, and actions. After sharing these aspects and ensuring that the students understand them, the teachers will then communicate the new laws set against any attempts to engage in racist activities. In other words, there will be penalties and punishments to students caught or reported exercising racism (Parks & Hughey, 2010). The project officers will request the government through the ministry of education to create awareness of the conferences and trainings, as well as the by-laws that will be passed. Once the entire country knows about the seriousness demonstrated by the government, the project officers, and human rights personnel to ending racism, they will have no other option than support the venture and inspire national success (Jan & Keith, 2013). With this approach, there is no doubt that if racism will not end, it will reduce by large margin.

Method

Participants: the project will be conducted in various locations in different states. Each state will have its own training center where teachers from various secondary schools in the state will attend (Knowles & Ridley, 2006). Going by the average number of teachers in every secondary school and the number of schools in one state, the total number of teachers who will attend each workshop will be approximately 600. At the same time, at least 40 professionals will attend each workshop so that one professional deals with about 15 teachers. In total, one workshop class will contain 20 people including few parents and at least one representative from the ministry of education. Overall, one workshop in a given state will have about 700 participants.

Data Collection Analysis: the issue of data collection is not applicable in this case because the project is not a survey. However, for the teachers to be empowered and to have the ability to empower the students, they will have to acquire knowledge from various sources. Other than the word of mouth from the professors to the teachers, various sources of knowledge will be used. Some of them include textbooks; peer-reviewed journal articles; professional websites such as global human rights body; magazine and newspaper articles; and blogs by bloggers from the international human rights department (Parks & Hughey, 2010). Comparison of information acquired from different resources will be done and all the teachers agree on specific strategies to use to end racism. The empowerment program will be significant because it will help some racist teachers to stop their behaviors and start working towards getting appropriate solution (Knowles & Ridley, 2006). Therefore, data collection will be through secondary sources mentioned and eventually, the best strategies will be attained and enforced by the teachers.