When many of us reflect on our childhood, there is at least one unforgettable incident where we have seen, or been subject to, casual racism at school.
I can recall many instances. In primary school, I felt prejudice from the shape of my eyes and the smell of my food. Then towards the end of high school, the eruption of COVID-19 came with a resurgence of comments usually starting with “You Asians…” and “Go back to…”.
As I got older, I became more equipped with the appropriate words to describe these microaggressions. I knew that derogatory comments based on ethnicity or nationality were ‘racism’, and that common preconceptions profiling a certain group of people were ‘stereotypes’.
However, in the mind of my six year old self — freshly initiated into the schooling environment — the only language I knew to use to describe my experiences was that the other person was “mean”.
When younger children do not have the appropriate vocabulary to address instances of racist discrimination, their simple words may inadvertently diminish the gravity of their experiences. This widens the possibility of unreported racism, especially in early primary education.
The New South Wales Department of Education has attempted to effectively implement the Anti-Racism Policy since 2005, which sets out the Department’s commitment to uphold their belief that “[n]o student, employee, parent, caregiver or community member should experience racism within the school environment.” The policy applies to all New South Wales public school staff and students.
Although the policy sets progressive objectives to facilitate a less discriminatory environment for all children, there is little mention of the precise ways in which this will be achieved.
Amongst the few reformed methods of actively tackling racism, one of the notable changes implemented across New South Wales government schools was the establishment of an Anti-Racism Contact Officer (ARCO). The Department of Education describes the role of the ARCO as a “teacher or executive member of the staff who has been nominated by the principal to support anti-racism education in school”. Other than aiding the Principal in integrating Anti-Racism education into the curriculum of the students, their main purpose is to handle complaints.
As outlined in the Anti-Racism Policy, the ARCO’s main purpose is to:
- Provide advice on the complaints handling process to students, staff and members of the community
- Manage complaints of racism made by students against other students
- Provide impartial support to the complainant where the complaint involves staff or a member of the community
- Support the complainant during the process
To support the teachers who are stepping into this role, the Department of Education’s ARCO online training course and its supplementary materials provide an opportunity for them to first develop the skills and knowledge required to adequately address complaints of racism and textbook situations. However, there is little material in teachers’ resources and the body of policy itself to show that there is consistency in the application of this knowledge. Whilst it is understandable for policymakers to leave room for flexibility in how individual schools want to handle cases of racism, there are no provisions that outline, nor specify what kind of actions constitute racism, classify their severity, and overall ensure consistency in the approaches of the ARCO towards complaints of racist discrimination.
This vagueness that shrouds the process of identifying and validating complaints of racism leads to inconsistent reporting across schools subject to this policy framework. On a larger scale, such an issue raises the possibility that the Anti-Racism Policy takes on a more tokenistic role in progressive education.
The keyword ‘monitoring’ is used often in the Department of Education’s assertion that there are mechanisms in place to ensure the effective implementation of procedures to actively tackle cases of racism in schools. This word appears when assuring that “senior executive officers – monitor department practices and processes to ensure they are consistent with the policy…” and when providing that “the Leader, ‘Multicultural Education’ monitors the implementation of this policy, regularly reviews its contents… and updates it as needed.”
However, the policy does not specify the established procedures that are within the definition of ‘monitoring’. Nor does ‘monitoring’ ever coincide with the productivity of the ARCOs. Rather, the policy seems to prescribe the overseeing of practice on a more macro scale.
So if there is no external body overseeing the efficacy of the policy enacted through the ARCOs, is it in mere good faith that government schools promise to address all cases of racism in compliance with the object and purpose of the policy?
None of the mechanisms provided by the Anti-Racism Policy can work to provide justice for ethno-cultural and linguistically diverse individuals within the school community if the ARCO does not report the issue in the first place. To report the issue, the ARCO must first identify and validate an instance of racism. The policy does not set out uniform criteria nor a set of features that apply in this stage of the process. If the simple words of a young child do not do justice in conveying the gravity of the situation, and this is dismissed by the ARCO, silent racism will continue to be something witnessed and suffered by young children.
The main purpose of the Department and its policy application should be that children with simple words be given just as loud a voice. To bolster this, education policies need not be simply “updated” every few years but should instead address stagnant structures and reassess Anti-Racism officer roles, building enactable tools that listen to these young voices. To be effective, this policy must recognise this gap in comprehension and literacy.
