The NSW bill that member for Sydney Alex
Greenwich is sponsoring will make private schools subject to the same
anti-discrimination laws as public schools. Discrimination occurs when an individual is treated unfairly or harassed. This happens because
people have prejudiced ideas or beliefs about other people. “Dominant
notions of distributive justice have tended to fail within two categories.
There is the traditional ‘weak’ liberal definition of justice as equality of
opportunity and more radical ‘strong’ liberal version of justice as equality of
outcome.” (Gewirtz, 1998) The equality of opportunity in education includes
equal rights to participate in school, equality of teaching quality and equal
learning environment.
In NSW,
the Anti-Discrimination Act says that it is against the law to discriminate people
based on certain grounds such as race, national origin, religion, age, disability or sexuality. The legislation
of anti-discrimination in education includes enrolment application, exclusion
or suspension of students, access to resources and examination. However, there are exemptions
for private schools and private institutions on all grounds except race. The
private institutions are allowed to discriminate against student in ways that
are illegal for public schools. One private student was openly gay throughout
2008 and 2009 in years 11 and 12 at an Anglican college. He was regularly sent
to the counsellor’s for being “sick” because he was gay. He remembers coming
home from school and locking himself in his room and crying for hours.
Another private school student, when the school found out he was
gay six weeks before the HSC, the school set up a meeting that concluded in him
not being able to talk about his sexuality, being excluded from school events
and have to see counsellor weekly regarding to his sexuality. “Students suffering from bullying by their peers
because of their [lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual or intersex] status are
less likely to report the matter to teachers if they know they could be
expelled” (Alex Greenwich).The school that allowed discriminating is less likely to stop with this type of bully if it is reported.
In my opinion, the school should not be a place where students are subject to harassment
and discrimination as it is a place to study and personal development. As
Gewirtz proposed, “Equality of opportunity can
be viewed as the existence of equal formal rights, equality of access and
equality of participation”. The school should promote acceptance and equal opportunity not
mater it is a public school or private school. I believe that make private schools subject
to the same anti-discrimination law as public schools are necessary. All students
should be treated fairly
and given the equal opportunity regardless of which school they attend, their
background, gender, sexuality or disability.
Reference:
Gewirtz,
Sharon. (1998). Conceptualizing social justice in education: mapping the
territory. Journal of Education Policy, 13(4), 469-484.
Hi Lizhen,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy reading your blog! Discrimination is definitely a tough problem to be solved. I appreciate what you wrote in the last paragraph, “… school should not be a place where students are subject to harassment and discrimination as it is a place to study and personal development”. School plays an important role in one’s early life and discrimination disturbs one’s equal opportunity for education and cognition of the world. Luckily, the government is trying to eliminate this by legalisation. This would effectively reduce the occurrence of discrimination.
However, in my opinion, if we could solve the interior problem instead of solving this by external force, then I think it’s more effective to eliminate the discrimination. The news mentioned that some private schools allow the discrimination. This is the same as saying that teachers from these schools discriminate students. Ouazad and Page (2013) proposed that students’ perceptions of their teachers’ expectations are crucial for their motivation. If the teacher discriminates the students, then he or she would not have high expectations for those who are discriminated, and these students are less motivated and thus the quality of education is reduced. Though discrimination is unlawful, the case I just mentioned could still happen. But if the government solve the problem from the perspective of teachers, say, educate these teachers about the concept of anti-discrimination, then it would be more helpful. Anyway, both actions taken simultaneously hopefully could help solve the problems as much as possible.
Reference:
Ouazad, Amine, & Page, Lionel. (2013). Students' perceptions of teacher biases: Experimental economics in schools Journal of public economics 105, 116-130.