diversity

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‘Woke’: Australian teaching must hold tight to the fair go

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When asked last week what he would do about the “the woke agenda” in education, federal opposition leader Peter Dutton raised the prospect of tying government funding to teaching of the curriculum. He said: “Kids… should not be guided into some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities”.

No details were offered as to what exactly this woke agenda is. Nor could anyone point to specific examples of what is currently being taught in Australian schools or universities that shouldn’t.

Dutton is copying Donald Trump. “DEI” has been branded as “woke” by Trump’s MAGA movement.

As citizens of a sovereign country, Australians might not pay all that much attention to what the president of another country says and does. But those politics are rearing their ugly heads here. It is time to pay attention.

Importation of Trumpian ideals, such as his war on ‘woke DEI policies’, threatens our way of life, one that has long been underpinned by the idea of a ‘fair go’ for all.

This is the essence of the trick being played. DEI is an acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Turning these words into an acronym and dismissing them as ‘woke’ is a way of disguising what these groups are really against. They are against diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Let me say that again. They are against diversity, equity, and inclusion.

So, what are diversity, equity, and inclusion? Is the derisive branding deserved? Are they “an agenda that’s come out of universities”? 

Um, no. But these concepts do inform our teaching and it’s critical that they do. We will start with diversity and why it’s important to be aware of it.

Diversity

Recognising that people are not all the same and that we experience the world differently is not just common sense. It’s a necessity for good public policy decision-making. Let’s take what happened in Melbourne during COVID as an example.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, nine Melbourne public housing towers were placed in hard lockdown with no warning.  Bewildered residents were met by police who began locking entrances at the foot of the towers as the Victorian premier announced the lockdown via a televised press conference broadcast. In English. 

Many of the more than 3000 tower residents fled wars in their home countries. They were frightened because they could not understand what was being said. They did not, therefore, know what was going on. Imagine how they felt.

The whole situation could have been averted if those in charge of the emergency response had thought ahead about the need to communicate the need for the lockdown in a range of languages.

Looks like there were no bilingual people on that team, hey?

This is just one public policy fail due to lack of recognition that people are different and need different things. There are more. What about the Queensland government’s purchase of 75 new trains that did not meet disability access standards?

The lack of accessibility inconveniences people with a disability. It prevents them from getting to work or moving about freely as others do. But it also means the government must now spend even more to retrofit the trains.

Being aware of diversity, realising not everyone experiences the world the same way you do, and factoring it into decision-making is smart. It’s not ‘woke’. So is paying attention to equity.

Equity

The concept of equity is over 2000 years old, yet it is commonly misunderstood. It’s misunderstood – even by politicians, who really should know better, given our modern system of taxation is informed by the principle of distributive justice.

In a nutshell, equity is about fairness. The aim of equity policies is to reduce impacts of inequalities arising from circumstances individuals have no hand in choosing. This is what is meant by Aristotle’smaxim “Treat equals equally and unequals unequally”.

Right-wing commentators in the US and Australia have dismissed equity as ‘Cultural Marxism’ but they are wrong. It would be more accurate to describe them as Rawlsian, after Nobel Prize winning political philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002). His Theory of Justice articulates a range of principles aimed at resolving the tension between liberty (or freedom) and equality.

Veil of ignorance

One of  Rawls’s thought experiments asked us to imagine that we do not know our place in society, nor our abilities or talents. We are behind a ‘veil of ignorance‘. From this position, we are asked to design the rules and structures of society. 

When faced with making a decision without knowing our own position in society, Rawls reckoned we would each want to ensure that the least advantaged members of society are cared for because we might be among them. 

You can test this by getting two kids to divide a Mars Bar. The rule is that one divides it, and the other chooses from the results. Nine times out of 10 the divider will try to get the two halves as equal as possible because they don’t want to end up with the smaller bit. Smart, not woke.

In today’s world, Rawls might be described as a “latte-sipping leftie“, but he wasn’t and nor is the concept of equity. Extreme inequality is not a good thing. It dampens productivity, leads to revolutions, and is best avoided through mechanisms that enable a more even playing field. Mechanisms like inclusive education.

Inclusion

Within two months of Trump taking office, a teacher in Idaho was instructed by her school administration to remove a poster on her classroom wall because it was “an opinion” with which not everyone agrees.

The poster, which this brave teacher has since put back on her classroom wall, features images of children’s hands of varying skin tones with the statement, ‘Everyone is welcome here’.

Welcoming, respecting, and valuing diversity is a key principle of inclusion, an approach to education that seeks to remove barriers to access and participation with the aim of producing fairer (more equitable) outcomes for all.

While some right-wing commentators dismiss this as social engineering, greater equity in educational outcomes is good for everyone. Even those motivated purely by self-interest should be a fan of inclusion because more kids doing better at school means fewer unemployed adults on Jobseeker.

Removing barriers to access and participation is not “dumbing down” or “lowering standards”. It means getting rid of the things that get in the way so that everyone can achieve to their fullest potential.

That doesn’t mean that everyone gets an A or that everyone passes. It means that impediments that may prevent an individual from passing are no longer a factor in their achievement.

We’ve recently demonstrated that this approach benefits all students: those with a disability and those without. Why would anyone be against that?

Is any of this taught in universities?

Yes. Because Australia has laws against discrimination and university graduates must abide by them when they enter the workplace. 

As future architects, journalists, managers, doctors, teachers, nurses, and more (including politicians and political staffers), university graduates will one day make decisions that have the potential to impact other people.

Do we really want government procurement officers to continue purchasing trains that don’t meet accessibility standards?

And do we want government staffers to continue organising press conferences that exclude the very people at the centre of the crisis?

Do we want university graduates to find themselves in trouble with their employer’s Human Resources department because they have crossed the line in their interactions with others?

Ignorance of diversity, equity, and inclusion leave our institutions in danger of perpetuating unconscious bias and discriminating on the basis of race, gender, disability and other attributes that are protected by law.

Universities didn’t create those laws. Politicians did in response to public demand. And because history has demonstrated what happens in the absence of such laws.

Valuing diversity, aiming for equity, and being inclusive isn’t woke. It’s how mature liberal democracies survive, avoiding revolution through a social contract that prevents the depth of inequity that has upended so many nations over time.

We are now witnessing the wanton destruction of that social contract in the United States. Only someone who didn’t pay attention in their high school history class would invite that to Australia.

Linda J. Graham is director of the Centre for Inclusive Education and a professor in the School of Education at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She is the editor of the best-selling book, Inclusive Education for the 21st Century: Theory, Policy and Practice, and is lead chief investigator of the award-winning Accessible Assessment ARC Linkage Project.

The header image of Peter Dutton, taken in 2021, is from Wikimedia Commons and used under this licence.

Just like us: why Australian students need teachers from everywhere

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Our dwindling teacher workforce makes headlines every week and new Education Minister Jason Clare calls it “a massive challenge”. A wide range of strategies have been proposed: increasing the respect and reputation of teaching as a job, raising completion rates in university teaching programs, attracting more mid-career professionals into the teaching, offering bursaries, paid internships and reducing university fees for students studying teaching. There are also conversations about keeping teachers in the classroom by making the pay more competitive. 

Another option on the table is to fast-track visas for teachers from overseas. But can recruiting teachers internationally work?

Australia hasn’t previously welcomed teachers with overseas qualifications, especially those from language backgrounds other than English. The English Language proficiency scores required by AITSL are higher than is required for migrant doctors (and any other profession we could find). Likewise, the English proficiency scores to enter an Initial Teacher Education program are higher than for any other degree, including HDR programs. This creates expensive additional barriers for non-native English speakers, and could be considered discriminatory, given that native English speakers aren’t required to demonstrate the same level of proficiency.

These barriers are impacting the level of diversity of the teaching profession.  Less than one-fifth of of teachers (17 per cent) identify as being born overseas, compared with 33.6% of the wider working-aged Australian population. Further, it reinforces  a deficit view of teachers from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, overlooking the contribution that such teachers might make to school communities. 

Teachers in countries such as China are highly respected. In Japan and South Korea teachers are well paid and valued as highly educated professionals. Australian ITE programs go through rigorous accreditation to ensure that new teachers have the knowledge and skills they need to be effective teachers, as do other countries. Some countries require all teachers to hold Masters degrees, some require teachers to be bilingual or multilingual. Overseas teachers may actually be more qualified, not less.

A diverse teaching workforce allows culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families to see themselves reflected in their education system. Students will find role models that reflect their life experience, allowing them to feel more comfortable and more able to flourish in learning environments where their home culture is valued. Teachers from racial minorities can understand the experience of racism, and help prevent it from happening, as well as offer empathy to students experiencing prejudice. Studies from the USA have found that teachers of colour are more likely to have higher expectations of students of colour. Studies also found less absences and less disciplinary issues when students of colour were taught by teachers of colour. Most importantly, racially diverse teachers can play a key role in challenging stereotypes about racial minorities among the wider community. In short, everybody benefits from a diversified teacher workforce. 

However, our current highly homogenised workforce doesn’t allow for these benefits to be realised. While the few teachers that we have from minoritised and racialised backgrounds bring much needed diversity to the workforce, they can become victims of racism themselves. They regularly fend off criticism about everything from their accents to their dress, skin colour, religion or beliefs. Their pedagogies and knowledge of curriculum are often subject of criticism, whereas for their white anglo colleagues, nuances in teaching practices are accepted as part of individual difference in the profession. 

There’s sadly a lack of information about cultural diversity among teachers. Country of birth is a crude measure of diversity, and AITSL admits that it currently doesn’t have more detailed information.

Examining the experiences of teachers from different cultural groups, especially with regards to their intentions to remain or leave the profession, will become available in the ATWD in future, and will provide insight into our understanding of cultural safety in schools for students and teachers of different cultural groups. (ATWD report, 2021, p. 18)

However, we also need a far greater understanding of the contributions CALD teachers can make to school communities, and the circumstances that contribute to schools being the kinds of places where diverse teachers – and diverse students – can thrive.

Welcoming teachers from overseas can do much more than address our teacher shortage. While there does need to be some briefing and orientation into Australian teachers’ legal responsibilities, our curriculum and expectations of teachers, we can find ourselves enriched by a workforce that is more representative of our multicultural, multilingual population and our globally-oriented curriculum. More than just a solution to the teacher shortage: A diverse teaching workforce would add value to Australian schools.

Dr Rachael Jacobs is a lecturer in Creative Arts Education at Western Sydney University and a former secondary teacher (Dance, Drama and Music) and primary Arts specialist. Her research interests include assessment in the arts, language acquisition through the arts and decolonised approaches to embodied learning. 

Dr Rachael Dwyer is a lecturer in curriculum and pedagogy in the School of Education and Tertiary Access, University of the Sunshine Coast. She is also the president of the Australian Society for Music Education (ASME), Queensland Chapter.