Racial Discriminatory Views of Indigenous Australians Are Often the Product of an Individual’s Upbringing. How Might Teachers’ Challenge Their Own Beliefs as Well as Provide Opportunities for Their Students to Think Critically About This Issue?

Racial discriminatory views of Indigenous Australians are often the product of an individual’s upbringing. How might teachers’ challenge their own beliefs as well as provide opportunities for their students to think critically about this issue? In your answer discuss how recent events have increased the focus on disadvantage in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, and how this has impacted on pedagogical and whole school interventions. The notion that people are a product of their environment has significant implications for the ways in which such people view, understand and learn about the world. With regards to students, their upbringing (including both family and schooling environments) is one of the most influential and plays a crucial role in constructing student’s subjectivities. In this way sustaining the dominant power relationships that exist in society and perpetuating dominant social discourses (Robinson & Jones Diaz, 2006, p.89). The resulting experiential knowledge acquired from parents and teachers through such an upbringing has major implications for the ways in which students filter information that ‘encompasses a variety of social, cultural, economic and symbolic meanings that shift across socio-economic class, ethnicity, gender, ‘race’, age and sexuality’ (Robinson & Jones Diaz, 2006, p.82). Thus, the filtering of such meanings suggests that racially discriminatory views of Indigenous Australians are often the product of an individual’s upbringing. Recent events such as: the development of the Aboriginal Education Policy (AEP) in 1996, Cherbourg State School appointment of Chris Sarra as principal (1998), the Redfern Riots (February, 2004), the Mulan Community Shared Responsibility Agreement (March, 2005), the Noel Pearson Hope Vale community welfare agreement, and the Northern Territory Intervention (2007); has increased the focus on disadvantage in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. This increased