Are Australian schools meeting the challenge of

equity and access in our democratic society?

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word democracy can be defined as an

organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights.
Refers to the educational field, as suggested by Levin (2003), equity does not mean
that all the students have the same achievement or outcome, but their difference in
outcomes should not be attributable to their inherent factors, such as possessions
and cultural background. Equity in education is important to the society for several
reasons: the society will loss human resources if there is an underutilisation of talent
due to the unfair distribution of educational resources (Levin 2003); it will cost the
society more to support the vulnerable group than provide them with fair education
for their life chance (Levin, 2003); inequity in education will lower the level of social
cohesion and trust (Green and Preston, 2001). However, equity in education is
seldom realised, even in Australia, a developed democratic society, the schools and
educational policies still have not meet the challenge of equity. This is reflected by
the fact that some minor groups of students, such as migrants, refugees and
international students, have been disadvantaged in the education.

In the recent years, more and more migrants, refugees and international students
from non-English backgrounds are involved in the Australian education. However,
they are disadvantaged in many aspects, these include but not limit to language,
culture and race. This essay mainly focus on their deficiency in literacy when facing
the dominant language, which not only reduces their ability or opportunity to access
equivalent educational resources as local students, but also hinders them from
adapting to the school community. This issue will be analysed and discussed based
on critical theories and symbolic interactionism.

As a global language, English is recognised as the official language in many countries,

like Australia. Regardless dialects and accent, English provides a standardised and
uniform instrument of communication. However, this standardisation has glossed
over the diversity in linguistic capabilities. It is purported that young peoples
linguistic capabilities are increasingly diverse and dynamic (Blommaert, 2010). Some
of the non-English background people are disadvantaged or even treated unequally
due to their low literacy level and linguistic capability in English in Australia.
Unfortunately this social justice issue has reflected in Australian school environment.

This issue refers to critical theory, supplemented by Bourdieus theory of cultural

capital (Bourdieu, 1977, 1990). Bourdieu (1977) defined the word capital in three
aspects: economic, cultural and social. The language or linguistic capability is
explained as an embodied cultural capital, which is acquired from ones surrounding
environment and inherit from ones family and background (Bourdieu, 1990). When
there exists a dominant language, the speakers of the dominant language is
generally legitimated and privileged, while the cultural capital of the linguistically
and culturally diverse in the society is less valued (Dwarte, 2015). As the
environment is build and the policies are framed to benefit the majorities in a
society, some marginalised groups within the society are further disadvantaged.

Reflecting to the educational environment, this social justice issued can be

represented as the reduced life chance for students from non-English backgrounds.
Basically, these students have to face the challenge that all of the subjects and
knowledge are delivered in English alone (Pugh et al, 2012), so that their effort in
study is expected to be doubled, as they need to not only learn their subjects but
also improve their English literacy. Even though their efforts can be considered as
necessary to catch up with the mainstream and meet the literacy requirement for
the society, there still exists some factors that hinder them from holding equity in
life chance, which are the English based examinations and the school placement or
admission regarding the performance in examinations. The Australian school
examinations and policies are designed in favour of the majority group of students,
who are English speaking and already adapted to the Australian educational
environment. The new migrants, refugees and international students are
disadvantaged directly in the English literacy tests and indirectly in the examinations
of other English-taught and examined subjects. Furthermore, when the
performance in the examinations is considered as one of the criteria of selective
school entry, opportunity class placement or higher education admission, they are
further disadvantaged due to the loss of life chance. The students from a diverse
linguistic background could be highly literate in a language other than English,
however, their literacy in a diverse language is less valued when facing the dominant
or standardised language (Dwarte, 2015). These students normally encounter
negative assumptions about their abilities to perform linguistically and academically
in English (Comber & Kamler, 2004), even if they are proficient in the content of the
subjects and can expression there understanding of the concepts clearly in a
language other than English. For example, the Higher School Certificate (HSC)
examines not only the English literacy alone but also knowledge in varies of subjects.
Although the some subjects are not purposed to examine the literacy proficiency of
students, their literacy level indeed impacts their ability to describe the concepts. In
the exams, it is a challenge for them to express their sufficient understanding of the
concepts by using their limited English literacy. This inconsistency will result in their
underperformance in the HSC exams. As the HSC result is a criteria of higher
education admission, the underperformed students are provided less option in
selecting institutions and courses of their tertiary education, which reduces their life
chance. This is regarded as a social justice issue because their loss of life chance is
due to their less valued linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1990) in the dominant language
environment. The educational inequity not only have negative impact of the
disadvantaged students life, but also result in loss of human and intellectual
resource due to the underutilisation of talent caused by the unfair distribution of
educational resource (Levin, 2003).

The Australian educational policies have made some effort to meet the challenge of
educational equity regarding the diversity in literacy and linguistic capabilities. This is
represented in the selective school entry and the curriculum design. In the selective
high school entry criteria, other than considering the result of placement test, the
selection committee will give special consideration to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait
Islander students and students with a language background other than English who
have been doing most school work in the English language for less than four years.
Nevertheless, there is no precise criteria of this special consideration and explicit
procedure about how it works. On the other word, there is no significant evidence
shows that the students from non-English background have the identical opportunity
with native English speaking students in selective high school placement. In order to
eliminate the inequity in the HSC English test for diverse English proficiency level
students, the Board of Studies created different level of English curriculums,
including English as a Second Language curriculum for the non-English background
students. This curriculum makes them avoid direct competition with native English
speakers in the HSC English test, which provides them with the opportunity to
achieve high bonds (bond 5 or 6) in English subject. However, it is only the case for
English subject. In other HSC subjects, which are taught and examined uniformly in
English, these students still face the challenge to compete with proficient English
speakers, as discussed before. Thus, although Australian educational policy framers
purpose to handle the existing issue in education, it is still not sufficient to meet the
challenge of equity.

The students from non-English backgrounds are not only disadvantaged in their
school studies, but also frequently excluded from school communities. In my high
school, migrants and international students made up above twenty percent of the
student population. Even the classes were not divided according to students
backgrounds, the local students and the international students naturally formed
different groups inside and outside the classroom. Not only different groups of
students seldom engaged with each other, but also within the group of international
students, everyone preferred to engage more with those from the identical
background. One reason behind this grouping behaviour is that the students are
literate in different languages, the deficiency of literacy in English, which is the
standard communication instrument, hinders them from engaging with each other.

This phenomenon also involves symbolic interactionism. As suggested by Blumer

(1969), peoples act towards things based on the meanings they ascribe to those
things, where meanings are derived from the social interaction that people have
with others and the society. In the schools, students from non-English backgrounds
are often symbolised as incommunicative due to their deficiency in English literacy
and linguistic capabilities, even though they are actually communicative and literate
in their home language, so that the communication with them are less favoured by
the native English speakers consciously or unconsciously. One the other hand, the
non-English background students also attempt to avoid communications with the
people who they can only communicate with in English, as the English-only people
means not easy to communicate with from their perspective. Although it is highly
subjective for people to symbolise others from their social interaction, the symbolic
interactionism has marginalised some minor groups within the society, which results
in a social justice. Reflecting into the schools, due to the diversity in English literacy
level, the communication between non-English background students and native
English speakers are less favoured, which results in losing opportunities for non-
English background students to improve their English literacy through
communication with proficient English speakers. This vicious cycle will hinder the low
literacy students from adapting to Australian school environment and strengthen
their alienation in the society. On the other hand, the English speaking students will
also feel uncomfortable about the existence of communicative obstacle within the
classroom, which reduce the overall level wellbeing in the school. As suggested by
Green and Preston (2001), inequity in educational will lower the level of cohesion
and trust for only the education sector but the whole society.

In conclusion, the students from non-English backgrounds are not only

disadvantaged in school studies but also hindered from adapting to the school
communities. This can be used as an example to reject the argument that Australian
schools meeting the challenge of equity and access in our democratic society. There
exists a duality in this issue. On the one hand, the school and the society are
expected to provide the disadvantaged students with equity in life chance. On the
other hand, these students should make great efforts in improving English literacy as
well as adapting to the Australian school environment, however, the prerequisite is
that they are provided with sufficient opportunities. The role of educational policies
in handling this issue is limited, as the over-focusing on a specific minor group will
cause injustice issues for the other groups of students. Also subjective or
psychological factors, such as symbolic interactionism, cannot be managed
effectively through educational policies. As asserted by Charon (2004), human action
is the result of present situation instead of the past experience. This suggests that
symbols assign to the disadvantaged students are possible to be rebuilt if the
students from diverse background are provided with sufficient opportunities to
understand more about each other. This also provides the idea that educators who
have a competent understanding of diversity and the pedagogies can play a role in
handling the educational justice issues.
Reference
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Blumer, H. (1969) Symbolic Interactionism; Perspective and Method. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of a practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
------ (1990). The logic of practice (R. Nice, Trans.). Oxford: Polity Press.
Charon, J. M. (2004). Symbolic Interactionism An Introduction, An Interpretation, An
Integration. Boston: Pearson. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-13-605193-0.
Comber, B. & Kamler, B. (2004). Getting out of deficit: Pedagogies of reconnection.
Teacher Education, 15(3), 293-310. doi.org/10.1080/1047621042000257225
Dwarte, J. (2015). Reflections on language and literacy. Understanding Sociological
Theory for Educational Practices. Cambridge University Press.
Green, A. & Preston, J. (2001) Education and social cohesion: Re-centering the
debate. Peabody Journal of Education. 76(3-4), 247-284.
Levin, B. (2003), Approaches to Equity in Policy for Lifelong Learning. OECD,
http://www.oecd.org/education/school/38692676.pdf
Pugh, H., Every, D. & Hattam, R. (2012). Inclusive education for students with
refugee experience: Whole school reform in South Australian primary school.
The Australian Educational Researcher, 39(2). 125-141.