Abstract
This chapter looks at racism. Most participants in this study reported that awareness of their distinct identity as a First Nations person, and tension engendered by the dissonance between their own worldview and that normalised within the school, was a constant at boarding school. For them, ethnic and racial stereotypes, internalised or externally imposed, meant that they felt ‘different’ at school. In many instances, this intersected with awareness that their background was materi-ally disadvantaged relative to their affluent middle-class peers. For many, implicit in their descriptions of difference was an assumption of inferiority that challenged their sense of self, and was a burden which in many cases became more onerous over time. This chapter begins by defining what is meant by racism and the notion of ‘culture’ before going on to present findings on how participants described encountering racism at three different levels: interpersonal, internalised, and institutional.
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Notes
- 1.
It is interesting to note that while AIEF claims a 92% retention and Year 12 completion rate (AIEF 2015), there is no clarity about whether this number includes students who drop out during their first year or otherwise fail to meet mandated outcomes. There are currently limited data on whether, when they do drop out, these young people re-engage with education, although what evidence does exist suggests that many do not (O’Bryan & Fogarty, 2020). This is an area that warrants further research.
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O’Bryan, M. (2021). Encountering Cultural Dissonance, Racial Stereotypes and Racism at School. In: Boarding and Australia's First Peoples. Indigenous-Settler Relations in Australia and the World, vol 3. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6009-2_12
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