Reflection Through my Eyes

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

 (Etwinning, 2013)

Grabbing hold of our ethnic identities were always an important aspect within my family. Born and raised in Australia has put me down significantly in understanding my true identity… whether I am Australian in a sense or  am I ‘Lebanese’. I understand the fact that you take upon your parent’s traits and cultures, however how am I able to create a Lebanese ethnic identity if I’m not sincerely familiar or aware of it.

Throughout the lectures and tutorials, identity has been a vital topic that has had me willing to seek and further enhance my knowledge in relation to creating my own identity. Identity is knowing who you are, it relates to cultural factors such as nationality, culture, ancestry, language and beliefs (Williams, 1989). It is one of the most important aspects of human identity that inform a sense of who a person is, where one comes from, and what one’s place in the world is(Williams, 1989). Knowing this it has lead me onto understanding who I am.

Through the course of my early private primary school years I met people from my cultural background who were sincerely happy with their ethnic identity. For this reason, it took great effort to begin to ask my family about my culture, so by the end of year 6 I had officially created my own ethnic identity.

As I was transitioning into a public high school, I did not know what type of system and people I was going to deal with as I had never interconnected with individuals from other cultures. With this, I began to question my ethnic identity within society. Haven’t you ever wondered how your ethnic identity may influence your education? Or how people may view you and react to you? Ethnic identities have a role in shaping how youth interpret and respond to their social and classroom contexts at school (Hattam & Every, 2010). Theory and research suggests that ethnic identity may serve as a risk factor for lower academic motivation and achievement (Hattam & Every, 2010). This can be due to disassociation with other students, communication and language barriers and differing learning styles.

During year 7 I negatively experienced disassociation with other students in my classroom. An individual interacts more easily with those whom they are able to relate life experiences with and seek places with particular sets of knowledge, norms and traditions (D. Hammond, Austin, Lit and Nasir, 2009).  So using this idea it can be said that students’ ethnicity is likely to shape education because of the experiences with other students. As soon as there is a disassociation with other students due to issues such as bullying, racism, stereotyping or even simply no recognition students can begin to feel isolated, causing demotivation to participate and cooperate within the classroom.

This immediately relates my primary school years where I received much higher results as I was always competing and comparing results with my friends. I experienced a sense of belonging to people who were ‘like’ me. But as soon as high school begun, isolation and exclusion in practicals and conversations within the classroom had a negative effect on my ability to cooperate and interact. Thus, impacting on my results immensely. So disassociation with other students is a factor in negatively shaping education for an individual’s ethnic identity.  

D. Hammond, L., Austin, K., Lit, I. and Nasir, N. (2009). The Classroom Mosaic: Culture and Learning. [e-book] Stanford University School of Education. pp. 106-109. Available through: http://www.learner.org/courses/learningclassroom/support/06_culture.pdf [Accessed: 1st September 2013].

Etwinning. 2013. eTwinning Newsletter. [online] Available at: http://newsletter.etwinning.net/en/pub/2013/etnl_032013.htm [Accessed: Sep 2013].

Hattam R. & Every D., “Teaching in fractured classrooms: refugee education, public culture, community and ethics,” Race ethnicity and education, Vol.13, No.4, 2010

 Williams, C. 1989. What is identity?. Oxford: Clarendon Press.