racism in Australian schools

Racism: how to stop the chokehold

Ample research has shown the benefits of teacher workforce diversity reflecting Australia’s increasingly diverse student population. Minority teachers can bring their own understanding of relevant cultural contexts, while also acting as academic role models for students from non-dominant backgrounds. 

They may also enhance broader cultural awareness and simultaneously raise expectations and tackle negative minority student stereotypes.

But what happens when the minority teachers in question resent their own culture and/or cultural group and preference white cultural norms instead? That’s internalised racism.

What is internalised racism?

Internalised racism is a racial minority’s implicit acceptance of deficit understandings or negative stereotypes of their own racial group. It is part of a larger system of racism that not only functions at everyday levels, but also remains ingrained in institutions and systems.

(Internalised) racism’s impacts

Minority teacher internalised racism is an issue which is concerningly prevalent yet rarely talked about. 

On one hand, racism continues to  endure because it is a social construct constantly adapting to changing contexts and embedding itself across individual experiences, the community, and media. On the other, racism’s systemic nature allows it to both reproduce – and conceal –  the harmful ideologies, attitudes, and behaviours we seek to eradicate in the name of racial justice. Because of this, racism can be hard to define and understand, allowing it to operate to reproduce white-centric racial hierarchies.

What happens then? Racially subordinated minorities consciously or subconsciously internalise these hierarchies and their associated negative stereotypes. They become complicit in their own oppression. When this happens, there are dire consequences including – but not limited to – a loss of cultural identity, adverse impacts on mental health, as well as harms to psychosocial wellbeing.

Asian Australian schoolteacher (internalised) racism

Within the Australian school context, my research on Asian Australian schoolteachers adds to a broader conversation on Australian racism. It sheds light on the ways in which racism and internalised racism operate to the detriment of individual Asian Australian schoolteachers and their communities. 

While this might not be immediately obvious, there have been many occasions where I have personally been reminded of my perpetual foreignness. For instance, on my first day as a high school teacher, I was asked by a teaching colleague whether I knew kung fu. In different settings, I have also received countless ‘well-meaning’ comments on the proficiency of my spoken English, while simultaneously being queried as to where I’m ‘really’ from.

The racism inherent in Australian schools

Building on this and existing research which shows how Asian Australian schoolteachers face race-related barriers to hiring and promotion, name-calling, and accent ridicule, marginality in workplace relations, and isolation, my research interrogates the racism inherent in Australian schools. Specifically, it reveals the negative impacts of Asian Australian schoolteachers being positioned as a racial ‘Other’, and the enduring internalised sense of exclusion arising from this.

Importantly, my work uncovers the way that racism is often misunderstood, along with the way that internalised racism fractures communities from within. This can be seen from the following spectrum of Asian Australian schoolteacher responses to discussions of school-based racism:

  • Agreeing that racism exists, but not knowing what to do about it
  • Agreeing that racism exists and that something should be done, but relying only on flawed, face-value action (e.g., increased interracial interaction) instead of more substantive, structural change
  • Denying racism exists and attributing experiences of marginalisation to cultural incompatibility instead 
  • Denying racism exists and distancing themselves from other Asian Australian teachers, while upholding and reinforcing harmful stereotypes of their communities

Of course, it is important to note that while (internalised) racism manifests in individual attitudes and behaviours, it is not produced by them. In this case, such harmful attitudes and behaviours are precipitated and contingently shaped by a uniquely Australian form of anti-Asian racism, originating during the Gold Rush, continued through the White Australia Policy, and sustained even to today. The most recent articulation of this racism was illuminated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a groundswell of overt and covert forms of anti-Asian sentiment and behaviour across Australian society, and by extension, schools.

The intersection

This intersection of racism and internalised racism thus has significant mental health and wellbeing harms for individual Asian Australian schoolteachers as well as their communities. Equally worryingly, when marginalised Asian Australian schoolteachers place their own roles and identities in a subjugated position, they end up upholding white cultural norms, which has further-reaching impacts in perpetuating racial marginalisation for Asian Australian and other racial minority students. Some examples of this perpetuation include:

  • Not questioning problematic deficit stereotypes based on supposedly homogenous ‘cultural’ characteristics of certain minority groups (i.e., assumed low aptitude with English, teachers expecting student disparities in certain disciplines etc)
  • Making assumptions based on race (i.e., assumed racial achievement gaps, differential expectations and feedback, racial microaggressions towards students etc)

What to do about it all

For Asian Australian schoolteachers who have internalised racism, a necessary first step is to recognise the wider chokehold of racism and white supremacy. This involves questioning the ways it has impacted us, as well as unlearning its associated attitudes and behaviours. It involves foregrounding First Nations sovereignty and adopting a willingness to tackle white cultural norms and its ingrained racial hierarchy that stratifies and oppresses all racial minorities.

It also involves engaging deeply with race, racism, and other structural factors, and in so doing, taking up an anti-racist stance. This encompasses getting to know minority students and appreciating the rich cultural heritage they bring, and talking openly about – and even speaking up against – racism, even when it feels uncomfortable. It also encompasses engaging with minority communities and being mindful of our language and word choices, as well as the teaching resources, content and modes we draw on. Fundamentally, it involves positioning ourselves as learners alongside our students.

And of course, this responsibility doesn’t just fall on Asian Australian or other minority educators. In addition to the aforementioned steps, white educators can likewise be allies in the fight against racism by educating themselves about all forms of racism, understanding their privilege, and listening non-defensively with empathy.

Racism affects students and teachers alike, and it’s high time that we thought/taught about it differently.


Aaron Teo is a lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy at the University of Southern Queensland’s School of Education. He is convenor for the Australian Association for Research in Education Social Justice Special Interest Group. His research focusses on the raced and gendered subjectivities of migrant teachers from “Asian” backgrounds in the Australian context, as well as critical pedagogies in white Australian (university and school) classroom spaces.

What I know about racism. What I learned about bullying.

I am waiting for my daughter on the playground, amid the chaos of three o’clock, enormous backpacks hurtling over tiny shoulders, tenni balls are flying through the air and  kids are running to their mums, Dads and baby brothers and sisters. Finally the one I am looking for is bounding towards me. Her arms go about my waist and her head plants straight into my chest. I know immediately something is wrong and resist the urge to ask. I wait. Once we are a safe distance from the playground, out of the school, across the road and down the street my 7-year-old daughter begins to share with me an incident in school. How a group of girls, including her best friend, playing a seemingly innocent game in which the rules involve finding something of a certain colour, ended up with her friend, telling the other three girls, after a whisper to, “touch something brown”. Laughing, they ran to touch my Rosie’s face.

Rosie is African American.

Through silent tears as we make our way home, Rosie tells me she knows that I tell her to be “black and proud” . . . …”But I want to be white.”

I emailed her teacher, something I rarely do, and she called me straight away and then went to discuss the matter with the school deputy. She phoned me again to inform me of the school response, which involved a meeting between the girl and the deputy. She mentioned she ‘might’ follow up with a book and some additional discussion about ‘difference’.

“I don’t want to hear about ‘difference’ ,” said Rosie. “Every time they talk about it I am reminded of being different and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I thought we are all different”.

Valuing Difference: The concept of bullying in the early years.

We are all different, but the moment above is not really about “difference” it is about power and the perception that those who are “different” are less because of their difference. It is about bullying. Schools and early childhood programs are critical spaces for children to learn about social relationships, to explore their identity and value the identities of others. It is natural for children to explore their own power and bullying  behaviours may be part of this process. It is also essential that adults support them in this exploration.

Australian Institute for Teaching and Leadership (AITSL) defines bullying as Bullying is an ongoing misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that causes physical and/or psychological harm. This definition is aligned with that in early childhood settings, with educators agreeing that bullying involves an imbalance of power, an intention to diminish or hurt another repetitively, bullying is not fighting, it is the ongoing expression of dominance over another viewed as weaker

A recent study of 95 early childhood educators showed that many were able to define the characteristics of bullying, yet unsure how to distinguish it from other childhood behaviour. When educators do respond, the focus is typically on addressing the actions of the child or children involved in bullying at the individual level. I think we need to do more and consider the learning communities we want to establish for every student.

As with children in other studies, my daughter did not want to be the focus of a discussion about bullying, she did not want ‘help’ from the teachers. This response makes her the problem and also problematizes the actions of the other children, her friends. The reluctance of children to report bullying is highlighted in recent research. My daughter did not want to “be a snitch” this would only have added to her low feelings of self worth as well as her value in the eyes of her peers. She was exercising her power perhaps not to disclose. Yet understanding what took place on the playground, how she felt about it and the other children’s feelings are essential to address bullying. 

The Problem of Bullying

It is important for educators and parents to listen to children share their experiences of being bullied and to talk about bullying. It is here that we can learn to identify bullying and understand its causes in each context as well as prevent children from engaging in bullying behaviors and developing their social selves in a way that respects others.

It is particularly important right now, as many of our children are learning online and we have seen a sharp rise in cyberbullying. The impact of Covid 19 on young people has made the need to consider all forms of bullying even more important.

I argue that as educators and parents, we need to explore these concepts early and throughout schooling. To engage children in social justice education and prepare teachers to understand, identify and respond to bullying as part of their professional development. My recent research included the use of puppetry to expand the play behaviors of a group of 4 year old boys. The boys were described by their teachers as engaging in bullying-like behaviours, with repetitive acts of aggression and exclusion of other children during outside play. A series of puppet workshops opened up the space to learn about the boys’ perception of their actions, to support their understanding about the concept of bullying and provide them with the support they needed to expand their repertoire of play. 

Bullying is about exclusion, it is about power. Educators are in a unique position to model caring behaviours and devote time to supporting children to value their own difference and the difference in others. This should include the classroom, when learning online and on the playground. It is here that we can understand and support children in learning how to interact and respect one another, to explore the factors that influence their behaviour and their intentions. While the evidence on the impact of anti-bullying interventions is mixed, some actions by educators have been shown to be beneficial for creating a positive learning environment. These include using pedagogical strategies that help children and young people to collaborate, learn from each other and work independently. In many cases, teachers may need to guide children and young people by creating spaces in which children can ask questions and feel equipped to take responsibility for their own learning.

All of which takes time, time for teachers to spend with students, time for schools to work with families and time for schools to work together in creating spaces that welcome and value all. This asks us to do much more than just respond to bullying after an incident, it requires us to cultivate relationships that are caring, thoughtful and a reflection of the classrooms we wish to build in schools and online. 

Olivia Karaolis teaches across the School of Education and Social Work at Sydney University. She completed her research at USYD after working in the United States in the field of Early Childhood Education and Special Education. Her focus has been on creating inclusive communities through the framework of the creative arts.

Racism in Australian schools: here’s new research that can help your school deal with it

Most Australians think multiculturalism is good for Australia and only a very small percentage believe racism is a problem. According to the 2015 Scanlon Report 86% of Australians think multiculturalism has been good for Australia while only 1.5% think racism is a problem.

Yet, if we are to believe recent news reports, race hate among school students in Australia is on the rise, particularly through social media and on-line. Certainly around 70% of Australian school students have experienced some form of racism, ranging from verbal comments to violence, and 67% of these incidents have been at school.

So who do young people believe is responsible for racism?

We examined this issue in focus groups with Year 7-10 high school students as part of larger research project Doing Diversity: Intercultural Understanding in primary and secondary schools.

Almost all students said they’d been ‘taught to accept’ that Australia is a ‘very multicultural society’ and that ‘we’re all alike, yet we’re different’. All children said they were anti-racist and that racism ‘just shouldn’t happen, it’s disgusting’.

Nevertheless, students also said that racism was a problem in Australia. They attributed responsibility for racism to one of five factors.

  1. Racism is normal. Racism is a ‘fact of nature’, a universal characteristic of all humans, and ‘inevitable’. Attributing responsibility for racism in this way removes it from the possibility of human intervention: ‘you can’t control it; ‘you can’t stop it’; ‘you can’t get away from it’. For these children, it didn’t matter what teachers or schools did, stopping racism was ‘not going to happen’.
  2. It’s the racist bully. The idea that one type of individual, the racist bully, is responsible for racism is widely promoted in anti-bullying and anti-racism programs in Australia and internationally. Assigning all responsibility for racism to the ‘racist bully’, however, removes the responsibility of others to recogniseand reform how their own attitudes and behaviours contribute to racism. For example, through subtle acts of exclusion, as bystanders who ignore racist incidents, or through social practices and structures that discriminate and disadvantage different ethnic and cultural groups.
  3. It’s ethnic minorities who don’t assimilate. Ethnic minorities who fail to adopt national social and cultural norms were seen to be responsible for racist behaviour. It is okay to maintain language and ‘other multicultural stuff’ (food, dress, dances) but practices that were unfamiliar and foreign to the social majority should be abandoned (such as the burka and polygamy). This was because ‘if you’re going to come to Australia…you’re going to have to follow, kind of, our way’. Ethnic groups that did not modify their own behaviour were responsible for any racism that resulted from failing to comply.
  4. Whites are the real victims. Students insisted that racism is ‘not a good thing’ but denied any individual or collective responsibility for racism by the ‘white culture’. The argument is that whites are the real victims of racism because most accusations of racism were untrue or unreasonable, and this put an unfair burden on whites to alter their behaviour to avoid allegations of racism. This inverted racism attributes responsibility to the historical victims of racism.
  5. We’re all responsible. Racism is seen as a mutual responsibility for everyone. Students used humourous, racialised nicknames as an example. It was OK, they said, to call a Greek-Australian friend ‘Souvlaki’ and an Indian friend ‘Curry’ because this was an accepted, cultural practice in Australia: ‘that’s just how we live today, like, in our society’. But everyone was responsible for ensuring that their jokes were ‘funny’ and did not cause ‘hurt’ for managing their responses: ‘it only hurts if you let it…you’ve got to not let it get to you’. In short, this view attributed all individuals with equal responsibility for managing their attitudes, behaviours and responses to prevent racism.

Australia is a nation of immigrants. Ensuring that it is also a tolerant nation means that we have to help future generations in our schools view racism as an individual as well as a collective responsibility. Our research can be of use to Australian schools and school systems as they help create a genuinely anti-racist, multicultural nation.

 

ChrisHalseProfessor Christine Halse is Chair in Education, School of Education, Faculty of Arts & Education at Deakin University. Christine was President of the Australian Association for Research in Education from 2011 to 2012. Her research interests include Sociology of Education, Social and Cultural effects of curriculum and policy, Doctoral Education, and Ethics in Research and Education Practice.

 This blog is based on an article published in Discourse: Cultural Studies in the Politics of Education as part of special issue on Responsibility and Responbilisation, edited by Christine Halse, Catherine Hartung and Jan Wright.

Christine Halse is presenting at the at the 2015 AARE conference in Fremantle, Western Australia, this week.