102083 Diversity, Social Justice, Teaching and Learning

Jacqueline Bryson, 17883304

Tutorial: Tuesday 1pm, Bettina Roesler

Assessment 2b Critical Personal Reflection

Before commencing this course I had the expectation that I would learn about how

social justice is relevant to education and the importance of understanding and

implementing equity and equality to students as a future teacher. These expectations

were met as I have gained important knowledge about the issues Australian schools

face in regards to social justice issues and the strategies teachers can use to cater to

diverse learning needs and equitable teaching. At first my expectation of the second

assessment task of creating a culturally responsive resource was that I did not see how

I could implement this as a teacher in the history and English teaching areas. However

after completing the task, I can now see how effective the expo task was and it has

broadened my understanding of how to raise awareness about social justice issues in

many teaching areas with creative and engaging games.

The knowledge I had about diversity social justice and learning prior to this course

and assessment tasks was a basic understanding about what social justice issues were

and how they marginalised groups or individuals in society. I did not consider how

inequalities are formed for students through educational policies, the environment the

teachers and how sociological theories convey the power imbalances locally,

nationally and globally. Bourdieu’s theory on cultural capital was influential in my

understanding of how the gap between private and public education marginalises

students from low socio-economic status. Children from wealthy backgrounds achieve

greater success in schooling systems because the knowledge and skills distributed in

education is catered to the elite (Ferfolja et al, 2015, pp. 167-168). Government

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 102083 Diversity, Social Justice, Teaching and Learning
Jacqueline Bryson, 17883304
Tutorial: Tuesday 1pm, Bettina Roesler

policies that have given parents choice and more funding to private schools aligns

power and control with those of privilege and is reproduced into society (Rowe &

Windle, 2012, p.139). Therefore parent’s power in their choice of school is a way of

safeguarding their cultural capital and middle class values (Ferfolja et al, 2015, pp.

167-168). This influenced my teaching philosophy about how education should not be

an economic market and students should not be marginalised in public school

education because of their diversity.

This is also influenced by how teachers perceive their students and the cultural

assumptions they may have about them. Teachers have the power to damage self-

esteem and reproduce stereotypes that could harm students from achieving their

potential because of their diversity (Hatton et al, 1996). However they also have the

power to change their preconceived conscious and unconscious cultural perceptions of

their students. Understanding the power I will have as a teacher to implement social

justice perspectives in my teaching areas has changed my teaching philosophy and

shown the relevance of the culturally responsive game and how that can be an

effective tool in teaching students the implications of making cultural assumptions

about people or groups.

In the second assessment task I gained further knowledge about ethnicity and how the

theoretical frameworks of symbolic interactionism and conflict theory can be

incorporated into a board game for a history and English lesson. Symbolic

interactionism explains how race and ethnicity define who you are and are what

people believe to be true about you. Our socially constructed views of race and

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 102083 Diversity, Social Justice, Teaching and Learning
Jacqueline Bryson, 17883304
Tutorial: Tuesday 1pm, Bettina Roesler

ethnicity can determine negatively how we interact with people (Powell, 2014, pp. 6-

7). This is applied in the board game when students have to guess the identity of the

person by their face or facts that demonstrate how race and ethnicity are part of how

we are presented to the world. The individuals on the cards may have been

marginalised and disadvantaged by stereotyping, their appearance, faith, and cultural

and linguistic backgrounds. By using historical figures from ancient history,

Australian culture, modern European history, popular culture and sporting figures,

students are able to see how negative perceptions and racist stereotypes are

reproduced over time and are still relevant in society today.

Conflict theory is also applied in the game to demonstrate how conflict arises in

society when resources, status and power are not distributed evenly between groups.

Those that have power control politics, wealth and values of society and the minority

groups suffer to protect themselves (Esteban et al, 2012). This is applied in some of

the fact and face card personalities such as Adolf Hitler who used his power and

resources to disadvantage ethnicity groups such as the Jews and homosexuals and

Vladimir Putin who was part of the KGB secret service during the Cold War that

monitored peoples’ political activities. This theory is also applied in the discussion

part of the game where students are asked to reflect on the concept of ethnicity and

how power imbalances exist for minority groups in society. History has in the past

been taught as a grand narrative with a passive learning approach and students are not

challenged to think critically, question sources given to them and investigate topics on

their own (Cooper, 2013). By having students reflect on the game and discuss their

own cultural assumptions they had that may have surprised them, they are gaining a

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 102083 Diversity, Social Justice, Teaching and Learning
Jacqueline Bryson, 17883304
Tutorial: Tuesday 1pm, Bettina Roesler

deeper understanding of how people can be marginalised by their ethnicity and

developing their own critical thinking skills and analysis of equity and diversity.

The Ethni-city game is also an effective tool to use in an English lesson because it

caters to students from a diverse range of literacy levels. By using Vygotsky’s zone of

proximal development (ZPD), the board game is scaffolding students to build on their

knowledge as a group at the beginning and then asking students to investigate and

reflect on the issue further towards the end of the game (Clarke, Pittway, 2014, p.27).

This can give more confidence and independence in students who find literacy tasks

challenging and those that lack engagement and motivation (Hardy, Grootenboer,

2013 p. 698). By using the game as a tool to create group work, students are able to

feel safe and comfortable in their classroom environment as well as develop language

skills from social interaction (Clarke & Pittaway, 2014, p. 26). This is a pedagogical

strategy that conveys shared decision-making, positive relationships and enhanced

learning (Callow & Orlando, 2015, p.361).

The culturally responsive resource and expo assessment task has been beneficial to

me in the future to find ways to incorporate social justice and equity issues into

teaching. It has broadened my ideas on how to make history and English lessons more

creative and active for students who may struggle with engagement and learning. This

course has conveyed to me how you can make a difference as a teacher in changing

the way students understand and embrace their diversity as well as being more aware

of how dominant discourses in society can disadvantage students.

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 102083 Diversity, Social Justice, Teaching and Learning
Jacqueline Bryson, 17883304
Tutorial: Tuesday 1pm, Bettina Roesler

References

Callow, J., & Orlando, J. (2015). Enabling exemplary teaching: A framework of

student engagement for students from low socio-economic backgrounds with

implications for technology and literacy practices. Pedagogies: An

International Journal 10:4, 349-317. doi: 10.1080/1554480X.2015.1066678

Clarke, M., Pittaway, S. (2014). Marsh's becoming a teacher (6th ed.). Frenchs

Forest, Australia: Pearson.

Cooper, H. (2013). Teaching history creatively. New York: Routledge.

Esteban, J., Mayoral L., Ray, Debraj. (2012). Ethnicity and conflict: Theory and facts.

Science 336 (6083), 858-865, doi: 10.1126/science.1222240

Ferfolja, T., Jones-Diaz, C., & Ullman, J. (2015). Understanding sociological theory

for educational practices. Port Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University

Press.

Hardy, I., & Grootenboer, P. (2013). Schools, teachers and community: Cultivating

the conditions for engaged student learning. Journal of Curriculum Studies,

45(5), 697-719.

Hatton, E., Munns, G., & Dent, J. (1996). Teaching children in poverty: Three

Australian primary school responses. British Journal of Sociology of

Education 17(1), 39-52. doi: 10.1080/0142569960170103

Powell, Jason L. (Eds). (2014). Social perspectives in the 21st century: Symbolic

interactionism. Hauppauge, United States: Nova. Retrieved from

http://www.ebrary.com

Rowe, E., Windle, J. (2012). The Australian middle class and education: A small-scale

study of the school choice experience as framed by ‘My School’ within inner

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Jacqueline Bryson, 17883304
Tutorial: Tuesday 1pm, Bettina Roesler

city families. Critical Studies in Education 52(2), 137-151. doi:

10.1080/17508487.2012.672327