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International anti-racism approaches |
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Anti-racism – what's in a name?
The cultural state of a nation, that is, its demography in
racial[1] and cultural dimensions, is
a strong influence on the approach taken to racial discrimination and countering
racism in schools. The United States experience is characterised by a
Black-White dichotomy with lesser emphasis on the multi-racial character of
modern America. The unique circumstances of indigenous Americans are clearly
separated from the central Black-White theme. The Canadian literature
characterises the country as growing in racial and cultural diversity 'in
recent years' but maintaining a European perspective in the schooling
system. The situation of indigenous peoples is again handled quite separately
due to a mix of political and historical factors.
Europe's efforts are strongly focused on building a new identity for
the European Union where citizens view themselves as both citizens of the Union
and citizens of a member State. The goal is active citizenship in Europe's
rich diversity of cultures, economies, polities and societies. Anti-racism
measures are firmly entwined within the broader goals for a People's
Europe driven by active citizenship.
In the United Kingdom (part of the European Union but worthy of separate
study as a country with a long history of immigration and substantial research
in the area), public debate and research have been driven by both assessments of
inequity in the provision of education to immigrants and ethnic minorities, and
also periods of racially driven violence in the society spilling over to
schools, with schools becoming the focus for racism among young people.
In Australia, multiculturalism, a policy driven by our history of post-war
immigration, provided the humanistic concepts for the wide-scale adoption of
multicultural education in schools. The social justice elements of
multiculturalism and the strong links made with human rights,
anti-discrimination, equity and equal opportunity have meant that anti-racism
education has developed under the rubric of multicultural education in most
states. The foundations of Aboriginal education incorporate anti-racism in
strategies to create greater educational opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander peoples. It is only very recently that threats to
Australia's image as a tolerant harmonious society have brought these
parallel developments in Aboriginal education and multicultural education
together to address the common concern of strategies to combat racism in
schools.
[1] The literature reviewed for this paper has mostly adopted the concept of race as a social construct, that is, race as a social taxonomy into which societies have divided people according to characteristics such as skin colour, shape of eyes, texture of hair, and facial features.
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