At the beginning of 2013, I was able to attend Ashfield Boys
in Sydney for 10 days of practical teaching experience, which only involved
observation. I was amazed about how much I saw, heard and learnt in only 10
days. I spent a lot of my time in shock (at the teachers, not the boys!), but
there were a few moments where I felt relieved and impressed. What does this
have to do with culture and identity? What I soon came to realise was that
behind the behaviour of the lazy and rude teachers, were assumptions about
students’ cultures and identities.
Ashfield Boys has an ICSEA value of 1028 (just above
average), 59% of its student population lies in the middle quartiles of the
population, and 73% of students come from a LBOTE (ACARA, 2012). From this
data, it would seem that its students are not harshly disadvantaged; the school
is really just an average school- neither extremely well off nor extremely
disadvantaged. The perception surrounding the school though is one of low SES
families who do not achieve well academically.
What I soon discovered was that the academic success of the
boys was being put down to their different cultural backgrounds. Their culture
became synonymous with their identity- you didn’t just have Lebanese
parents- you were Lebanese and your ‘Lebanese’ identity
explained everything about you, including your academic success. I found this
to be extremely problematic, as teachers assume that ‘Lebanese’ students are
one large hegemonic group who all have the same values, motives, backgrounds
and personalities. We could call this stereotyping. Researchers such as Steele
(1997) have called this stereotype threat and have identified it as an
obstacle to student learning.
In my classes I saw boys in year 8 from Middle Eastern,
Pacific Islander, African, Indian and Asian backgrounds whose reading, writing
and numeracy were at primary school levels. It was evident that their low
levels of reading and writing directly contributed to their lack of interest in
class, but somehow teachers did not make this link. I saw boys from specific
backgrounds constantly targeted, blamed and punished for off task behavior in
the classroom. What I realized was that these particular boys happened to have
some of the lowest literacy rates in the classroom, and thus not being able to
keep up with the class, they would begin talking to someone else. The teacher
believed that because these boys were from a particular background, they did not
have respect for the teacher or a desire to learn- because that was just part
of their culture. The fact was that regardless of where these boys’ families
were born, they had been left behind in their literacy, and this had nothing to
do with their backgrounds. The teacher was doing nothing to help them, but in
fact frustrating and disengaging them more and more.
This stereotyping of students’ culture and identity was
something I saw every day at Ashfield Boys and which was truly damaging. I
think in the context of wider Sydney or Australia, not just Ashfield Boys, this
is a commonplace occurrence and has really just become a norm which nobody
really sees and issue with. What I saw is that this stereotyping of cultures
and student identities is very damaging and causes disadvantage. On a larger
Sydney scale, this stereotyping affects parent’s choice of schools. As we can
see in Ho’s (2011) research, parents send their children to mono-cultural
schools. It so happens that the majority of students from LBOTE in Sydney
cannot afford to attend private schools, resulting in the monoculture of
Sydney’s elitist schools. Ho does not state directly in her article that these
parents are purposefully trying to avoid low SES families with LBOTE, but if we
read the comments of parents or even some politicians, we can see that the idea
permeates that public schools (where the majority of middle-low SES families
send their children) are not good places to get an education (for example see
my Blog about the North Sydney Coalition MP). The stereotypical link
between bad education = public schools = LBOTE students is being reinforced by
public comments such as these- and is extremely problematic.
References:
ACARA, (2012). Ashfield Boys High School MySchool website, Accessible
at http://www.myschool.edu.au/SchoolProfile/Index/67908/AshfieldBoysHighSchool/41189/2012
Steele, C.M. (1997) A Threat in the Air: How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity and Performance. American Psychological Association 52(6): 613-629
Ho, C. (2011) Respecting the Presence of Others: School Micropublics and Everyday Multiculturalism. Journal of Intercultural Studies 32(6): 603-619
No comments:
Post a Comment