Racism causing students to doubt

themselves: the evidence

Successful learning experiences are dependent on the sustained
engagement of students which racism has proven to limit and disrupt.
New research by Dr. Bodkin-Andrews of Macquarie University has
highlighted such experiences could also negatively impact students
academic performance.
In a sample of more than 500 high school students more than half the
Indigenous and Asian students reported experiencing racism. Results
suggest that greater experiences of racism are significantly associated
with increased levels of hopelessness across all groups and lower level
math and English ratings. One in three students from Anglo backgrounds
reported experiencing racism and lower university aspirations, however,
endured less of the negative effects of racism due to a strong sense of
identity and perceived cultural respect.
This further emphasises inequities faced by Indigenous Australians high
school students who on average miss one day of school per week and
remain 2.5 years behind their peer.

So what is racism? We could probably have a whole two-hour

discussion just on that today but this is the definition that we
use in our work. So it really focuses on an inequitable
distribution of opportunity of benefit or resources across ethnic
and racial groups. And a key point here is that it occurs through
avoidable and unfair actions, there are always going to be
differences between different groups of people but it's when
those are resulting from unfair and avoidable actions. And it can
be expressed in a range of different ways, and this feeds directly
into the debate over the RDA at the moment but it can be about
attitudes, about beliefs, behaviours and norms and practices
and it can be intentional or unintentional and that's a really
important factor to think about particularly in relation to just
children and young people. And of course it's only one
manifestation of a broader phenomenon of oppression and
we're going to be talking about racism today, but there's a lot of
discussion too around how do we think about racism within the
context of other forms of oppression and imperfectionalities
and I'm happy to talk to anyone who's interested about that
later.

It's also important to think about racism within the context of

both prejudice and power. So whenever there's oppression
there is one group that's been marginalised, they're oppressed,
but there's also another group that's being privileged and that's
very important to recognise both conceptually and also when
we're thinking about addressing racism is that when you're
trying to counter prejudice and prevent racism there is another
group that is being privileged and that is often why we get so
much resistance when we're talking about addressing racism
and promoting diversity because you're challenging another
group's privilege, whether it's recognised or not by that group.

Recent US research also shows racial discrimination impacts

not only mental health but can accelerate biological ageing at
the cellular level and trigger physiological markers of "wear and
tear". This can contribute to chronic disease such as diabetes,
dementia, stroke and heart disease and reduced life expectancy.
Harmful effects of racism can also occur even when children
themselves arent the direct targets. Vicarious racism, where
someone else such as a carer, family member or peer
experiences racism that may or may not be witnessed by the
child, has also been found to have harmful health and wellbeing
effects for children and young people.
It is a common myth that children dont notice difference or
"see" race, as well as that talking about issues of race, racism
and diversity with children is inappropriate. Such "colourblind" approaches that tend to focus on a shared, common
humanity without also explicitly acknowledging difference and
diversity are pervasive. However, research also documents they
reinforce rather than counter prejudice in children.
Other than simply getting a job, getting and keeping a house is
often a difficult task for those of color. The job of a landlord is to
rent out houses to reliable people or families, though a racist
landlord could make it difficult for a family of color to find a home.
Widespread housing discrimination against Americans of color in
U.S. neighborhoods is sometimes referred to as a national
problem, something that must be fixed by new government policies.

Housing segregation in the United States developed slowly and

deliberately. By law, property owners may not refuse to rent or sell
housing, make housing unavailable to, set different conditions or
privileges for sale or rental of a property, impose different rates and
terms on a loan, refuse to make a mortgage loan, or discriminate in
appraising property due to a clients ethnicity, and because racism
cannot be seen, these rules are very vague. Available evidence
suggests that blacks and Hispanics face higher rejection rates and
less favorable conditions in securing mortgages than do Whites with
similar credit characteristics (Ross & Yinger 1999). It has been
reported that blacks pay more than 0.5% higher interest rates on
home mortgages than whites do and that this difference persists
with income level, date of purchase, and age of buyer.