[Transcript] for literary Issues

Literary Issues in a multicultural school

This video will be addressing the literary issues faced by multicultural schools such as Arthur Phillip High School. It will focus on the contextual problems that rise with refugees (in APHS’s case these are mostly middle eastern or from other Islamic countries).

What are we dealing with when we have a high amount of refugees in our schools?

Lets take a look at the Yuogslavian breakup:

As the cold war ended, the states within Yugoslavia began to seek independence  which led to a major conflict that saw genocide, mass rape, bombings and total destruction of homelands. There were atrocities committed on every side. Deaths exceeded 140,000 people. In a study conducted by Lynne Jones (1998), research was done into adolescent Bosnian refugees and the resulting problems of the conflict. Amongst other findings it was seen that the atrocities had left psychological scarring with post traumatic stress disorder as well as subsequently findings a diminished ability to retain social ties.

     These findings are not seen just in Europe.

In Malawi, Conflict, crime and absolute poverty is a part of life. In a study of Malawian refugees conducted in 2000 by Gillespie, Peltzer and MacLachlan, it was found that the difficulties that refugees had included coming to terms with traumatic events, building self efficacy and overcoming mental health issues. Like in the Bosnian study, refugees in this case had severe psychological problems and social issues.

            Closer to the type of environment that many from Arthur Philip High School are coming from, in Afghanistan the conflicts and instabilities of government and life has shown similar problems again. The Taliban have been reported to have killed more than 30,000 people. Add to this the 15-20 thousand civilian deaths in the conflict that ousted them and it portrays a clear enough picture of the troubles that refugees are fleeing from.

One of the main findings of a study by Lipson (1991) was that Afghan refugees had difficulty in social support, language barriers and cultural conflicts. These have led to a higher instance of mental health problems and diminished sociability.

  Thus in the Australian context with refugees facing severe social and psychological problems from areas of conflict, poverty and instability, how can we improve modern Australian education to provide for the learning needs of these students?

         Here’s some quick stats on Arthur Phillip High:

-       In 2012 the school population had 90% of students who spoke a language other than English. 70% of students were from a refugee background.

-       67 languages were spoken in the school.

-       With the high proportion of refugee background students, the Refugee Transition program has become a major part of this school’s culture.

(New South Wales Department of Education, 2012).

With this context in mind, How can we be implementing lessons in stage four English that address both the curriculum and the literacy issues that follow?

        Literacy issues that follow from a multicultural school with a high proportion of refugee background children include the psychological and social problems that have been discussed. This can lead to a withdrawal from learning, reduced motivation, triggers of traumatic events.

With many students having a limited knowledge of English this makes communicating the content of stage four English quite difficult.

And also with Dominant Culture privilege as Peggy Mcintosh  (1987) identified, the Australian and western context bias will mean students unfamiliar with the language and culture of Australia will be less likely to understand cultural symbols and allusions.

Here’s an example of problem’s for students in a multicultural context:

The Hunger Games is a book that can be studied in stage 4 English. Like earlier this year when the “China Coin” was studied at APHS and a student broke down due to the themes triggering past traumatic events, The Hunger games could do the same and inhibit a students to be able to learn.

Or maybe the student doesn’t know English and cant read the book, how can they learn if they don’t understand what is going on in the lesson?

Even if the student learnt English and was able to read, they may miss the entrenched Roman Empire symbolism that is littered throughout the book and not understand that the reference of Katniss and Peta being star crossed lovers is from Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare.

         How can we, as teachers being helping students to learn in the modern Australian society that we educate in?

APHS is well known not just for its multicultural population but also for its integration of technology.

Could technology hold the key?