102083 - Diversity, Social Justice and Learning Tran Tuong Vi Nguyen - 18075872

2. Classroom Diversity in the Media: Chose one contemporary social justice issue currently
being focused upon in the media such as: sexuality and/or gender diversity, linguistic
diversity, migration, race or ethnicity and discuss how Australian schools are meeting/failing
to meet the challenge of equity and access for impacted minority groups. 


In recent years, there has been a focus upon the challenge of fulfilling equitable and

accessible practices for culturally diverse students, with a specific focus on immigrant

students. The issue of migrants and asylum seekers within the institution of education has

been a significant social issue in the media. Migrant is an umbrella terms that includes

individuals who are recognised as refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants, as they are

identified on the basis of their “linguistic and ethnic background” (Watkins, 2011, p.842).

The prevalent mainstream discourse regarding migration suggests a predisposition toward

immigrant’s assimilating to the dominant culture. This is inclusive of the idea of immigrant

student’s continuity and attainment being impacted by policies which maintain the dominant

discourse and inherited culture-identity power imbalance. There is a perception that the

Australian curriculum suppresses linguistic and cultural diversity through the unequal

distribution of resources and policies that favours the dominant discourse. Migrant students

often encounter social exclusion and discrimination based upon perceptions from teachers

and peers on cultural difference. There is a need to critically examine the dominant discourse

and readdress the understanding of cultural differences within the classroom towards a

broader view of society. Moreover, it is crucial for the way in which teachers interpret

contemporary society to inform a sense of optimism and reproduce intercultural engagements

to prompt inclusive practices of equity and access. Post-colonialism and critical theory will

be applied to deliver an analysis of the favoured within the dominant culture. In addition, it is

important to examine the hegemonic structure of power within Australian institutions.

102083 - Diversity, Social Justice and Learning Tran Tuong Vi Nguyen - 18075872

An identified issue is around the preconceived notions of what immigrant’s student’s needs

are within the Australian educational system, a system that can be seen by some to only value

and normalise the dominant western culture. Migrants in Australia are facing a high level of

racism and discrimination in the news (ProBono Australia, 2016). The government, policies

and media discourse plays a major role in shaping and influencing public opinions and

attitudes towards immigrants. For those who do not speak the dominant language, English,

this can appear as a threat towards the society (Starks & Willoughby, 2015). Recently,

Australia and other countries with immigrants have strengthened their emphasis around

proficiency in English, while introducing policies that diminish the public support for

bilingual education and heritage language learning in the public education (Starks &

Willoughby, 2015). These policies have successfully perpetuated a monolingual education

institution that exclusively values the westernised culture. This raise concerns regarding

Australia being a society that does not attach significance to other languages (Bense, 2014;

Bialystok, 2007; Jones-Díaz, 2016). Furthermore, this process of exclusion indicates that

minority groups, such as immigrants, are socially discouraged and restricted in the dominant

culture, Australia. For instance, the strict border control and different visa types implicitly

acts as “social boundaries” (Joseph, 2014, p.425), marking the difference between Australian

citizens and immigrants. These immigrants are categorised by their differences from the norm

(Ferfolja, Jones-Diaz & Ullman, 2015). This form of categorisation is echoed by educational

institutions, where the dominant culture maintains supremacy through the grouping of others,

ideologically based on the constitution of their differences. Subsequently, it can be seen that

educational settings at their micro level mirrors the complex practices and biases of society

on a macro level.
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A postcolonial perspective analysis sheds light upon understanding the power relations within

our society, in an attempt to dismantle the western hegemonic beliefs informed by

preconceived historical legacies. It challenges the validity of the dominant culture

conceptualisation of the ‘other’ and seeks to destabilise the inequitable dynamics of

domination and subordination. The dominant culture centralises itself through the mainstream

language, speech function as a “vector of power” (Quaicoe, 2005, p.4) that perpetuate

inequalities sand societal bias. The dominant culture values the western ways of perceiving

and describing the world through the instructed language, English, while other languages are

marginalised. Language plays a key role as the voice and personal maker of one’s cultural

identity (Kouritzin, 1999; Ouaicoe, 2005). Subsequently, the need for language practices is

being overlooked due to the dominant language and limited understanding of other languages

(Bialystok, 2007; Jones-Diá z, 2016), and this impacts negatively on the idea and practical

reality of Australia as a multicultural entity. The subjugation of the voice of migrant students

using minority language practices does prevail in schools, and publicly in recently reformed

policies. This is illustrated in the case study of Indonesian Muslim youth (Zulkar, 2016) in

public schools, adopting the “dominant culture for the sake of school universalism” (Zulkar,

2016, p.10), which could threaten their cultural identity. This explicitly conveys the idea that

these Indonesian Muslim students are constructed as the ‘other’. This examination of school’s

expectations reveals that the hegemonic power of a dominant group forces these immigrant

youths to conform to the new host society, through knowledge of the dominant

culture/language in order to prevent being excluded (Jones-Diaz 2015; Starks & Willoughby,

2015).

In Australian educational frameworks, the implicit process of normalising a

monolingual education is the result of the legitimisation of language practices through

pedagogical discourses that are embedded within the curriculum, policies and standardised
102083 - Diversity, Social Justice and Learning Tran Tuong Vi Nguyen - 18075872

testing (Creagh, 2016; Ferfolja, Jones-Diaz & Ullman, 2015). Moreover, the mandatory

requirements for language practices within the NSW curriculum are merely a hundred hours

in the time period from years 7-10 and it can be seen that the language subject has one of the

lowest requirements (NSW Education Standards Authority, 2016). The schools do facilitate

subjects such as History that attempts to touch on cultural diversity. However, it is

problematic in regards to the intercultural engagement in other subjects. While schools’

attempts to apply some of Principles of the Multiculturalism Act 2000, allowing students to

profess and practice language, there is no adequate enforcement on language practices as a

compulsory subject to efficiently promote linguistic and cultural diversity. Therefore, this

could be seen to result in ‘cultural homogeneity’ (Watkins, 2011; Zulkar, 2016) through

constructing a social system where all cultures assimilate into one (western) way of thinking,

rather than identifying each individual on their cultural differences. Such a construction could

be seen to affect the immigrant students wellbeing, while struggling on negotiating and

understating where they stand in this dominant society. Schools and teachers should aim to

avoid reductionism and over simplification in the process of constructing a cultural

hybridisation, a hybrid space within the classroom that allows diverse students to voice their

perspectives (Watkins, 2015; Watkins & Noble, 2016; Watkins, 2011). Subsequently this has

informed my understanding to question and move beyond the taken-for-granted beliefs that

the dominant westernised approach is normal and the only lens through which to view

educational practise.

Critical perspectives provide tools for analysis by focusing upon the social class

identification between the dominant privilege groups and the minorities as a social construct.

Challenging the social structure that categorises immigrant students through assessing their

“life chances, opportunities and consciousness” (Sever, 2012, p.664), while the dominant
102083 - Diversity, Social Justice and Learning Tran Tuong Vi Nguyen - 18075872

group maintains social privileges. Highlighting differences between inherited social privilege

within the dominant group and the marginalised minority group are linked to the hierarchical

positioning of insiders and outsiders, and inclusion and exclusion (Ferfolja, Jones-Diaz &

Ullman, 2015; Joseph 430). This is portrayed in the case study of Indonesian Muslim youth

(Zulkar, 2016), where the students of white background perceived themselves as more

“superior… untouchable and unbeatable” (Zulkar, 2016, p.13) than other non-white students.

This racialisation and deficit based representation of non-white backgrounded students as

inferior based on their physical descriptors is the result of the ‘ethnic capital’ of the

immigrant social status/class disadvantage (Naidoo, 2015; Zulkar, 2016). This draws on the

precis of the Bourdieusian concept of social capital (Ferfolja, Jones-Diaz & Ullman, 2015;

Stever, 2012), where the association of immigrants being identified as the working class has

positioned them on the bottom of the social pyramid structure. This supremacy of ‘whiteness’

is measured as hegemonic based around people’s perception, while continuing to

subordinates group of non-white background people, such as immigrants (Joseph, 2014;

Ferfolja, Jones-Diaz & Ullman, 2015). This raises the concern of whether the institution of

education operates as a mechanism of oppression in the way immigrant students are

positioned and subordinated in the classroom environment. This is done by not addressing or

talking about the issue of cultural differences, due to teacher’s lack of understanding of

cultural diversity. The scaffolding of the Australian educational environment implicitly

places emphasis on the discourse of normalising ‘whiteness’, often through legitimising

produces within the institutional policies and everyday social practices (Ferfolja, Jones-Diaz

& Ullman, 2015).

Recently, there has been a movement towards the removal of protections within the

Racial Discrimination Act (1975) through the Australian Attorney-General George Brandis’s

claim that “people have the right to be bigots” (Watkins, 2015). This demonstrate an absence
102083 - Diversity, Social Justice and Learning Tran Tuong Vi Nguyen - 18075872

of government commitment towards enforcing and promoting multiculturalism and

discrimination, suggesting that immigrant students are neglected and marginalised within

government policies. The act will only address the issue of discrimination if the offending

statement is made in public, with the distinct possibility that these attitudes and perceptions

towards immigrants do not change. The government did however implement the

Multiculturalism NSW Act 2000 to stimulate inclusion for diverse students. This is still

problematic in that the act itself essentialises ethnicity as a singular element of an individual

identity. The act presents a marker of difference with no additional dimensions of class,

economic status, education background and individual experience which will manifest this

inequality of ‘living-apart-together’ within the classroom (Watkins, 2011; Watkins, 2015).

The schools limited understanding surrounding the discourses that shape immigrant students

mean that schools can be seen to embody a ‘bureaucratic essentialism’ framework (Race &

Lander, 2014; Watkins, 2011). This model is formed on the basis of generalisation, the

grouping of students based on their assumed ethnicity and designed pedagogies for this

particular minority group (Watkins, 2011). Immigrant students often fall under the category

of language background other than English (LOTE), this will have negative consequences on

their education achievement and learning outcomes. Educational institutions only assist the

excluded to a certain extent within these policies, as there is no further support to address the

attitudes and concerns of these immigrant students. Schools should diminish the “educating-

apart-together” (Watkins, 2011) approach and focus on framing strategies that allows for

inclusivity. This has informed my understanding concerning the inequalities of cultural

diversity that operates within society that is reflected in the classroom, and to avoid the “one

size fits all” (Naidoo, 2015, p. 113) approach when teaching.

102083 - Diversity, Social Justice and Learning Tran Tuong Vi Nguyen - 18075872

Power is perceived as a means of dominance which positions those in power to have control

over minorities. There is a power cycle that operates throughout educational institutions,

which is created by a complex mix of the power dynamics. Drawing on Foucauldian

perspectives with a focus of governmentality, where the population is determined by

statistics, acting as a form of surveillance that monitors the progress of student’s performance

in school (Creagh, 2016). These statistics are generated through school standardised tests,

such as NAPLAN. The literacy area centralises the idea of attainment towards the

expectation of proficiency in English with no recognition for immigrant students who sit

outside this criterion (Creagh, 2016). This will place immigrant students at an immediate

disadvantage due to their LBOTE. Policymakers overlook this issue because the test results

do not recognise the different category of LBOTE and non-LBOTE (Creagh, 2016; Watkins,

2011). This carries ramifications for funding choices surrounding intervention, pedagogy and

resources that has the potential to assist these immigrants with LBOTE. However, most

public schools with a high percentage of LBOTE population will not be funded due to the

poor results from the standardised testing. This allow parents to choose private education

over public schools because of the perception of the differentiated results and greater

resources. Increased polarisation within the educational system is segregating students by

their abilities, which will produce inequality within education (Huppatz, 2015; Ho, Vincent &

Butler, 2015). Parents are able to exercise their power on ‘school choice’ through policies

which are established by the government. This process shows the way in which power

operates within the educational institutions, indicating that minority groups, such as

immigrants are constantly being disadvantaged and excluded from these largely unseen

structures that are designed to accommodate the dominant western culture.

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The case study of Indonesian Muslim youth (Zulkar, 2016), affords an insight into the social

issue surrounding the ways in which schools are failing to meet equity standards and access

for immigrant students. To unpack the injustices surrounding the misrepresentation of

immigrants within the educational institutions. This has allowed educators to question the

validity of policies that are implemented with the rationale of supporting minority groups. It

is important to seek a deeper understanding and knowledge of the dominant discourse that

manoeuvres within our society in order to effectively promote inclusivity. Employing the

framework of postcolonial and critical theory enables a deconstruction of the inherited

privilege imbalances within the current immigrant discourse, and helps breakdown the

hierarchal power relations that functions within schools. Additionally, policies may provide

supportive guidelines to reduce exclusion, however, there is insufficient research and

knowledge on inclusive pedagogies for diverse students and immigrants. Educational policy

must be revised to tackle the core issues on the acceptance of cultural differences, and to stop

the marginalisation of immigrant students. Therefore, acceptance of diversity is imperative,

to prevent assumptions that target those who have limited access and equity.
102083 - Diversity, Social Justice and Learning Tran Tuong Vi Nguyen - 18075872

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