Ethnicity has always
been central to societal construction demonstrating profound impact upon the level
of education, employment, income and housing ownership of a group of people.
Race can be recognised as the organisation and ranking of people and places
across time and space, according to a dynamic set of embodied and social
characteristics often linked to skin colour and always structured by unequal
power relations (International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography, Race, 2009). Race significantly
contributes to the maintenance of a relatively stable hierarchy thus the social
positions of a society, evident through social advantage and disadvantage. Indeed,
they are categorised according to the subordinate and the privileged, with
those lacking whiteness considered conceptually and theoretically inferior
(Fozdar, Wilding, Hawkins, 2009, 2). Historical preludes suggest that racial
categories are highly flexible, shifting their borders and content in response
to specific historical events and relations of power (Fozdar, Wilding, Hawkins,
2009, 2). Indeed, Race and Ethnicity have been a key determinant of mass
movements, state and foreign policy, indicating the social structures of a
particular society.
Historical Events and Conflict
among groups of distinct cultural heritage, have significantly contributed to
the formation of power groups and societal structure. According to Fozdar, the
efforts by minority groups to remove or at least reduce the race based
inequality that organise society have elevated discrimination, rather than
reduce it (2009, 4). Furthermore, Whiteness as a means of cultural supremacy
has come to be constructed not through ones class subordination, but rather
through the privileges associated with their identity as white (Fozdar,
Wilding, Hawkins, 2009, 2). Peake argues, Whiteness as a discourse is
ideologically associated with bodies that, in certain times and places, are
considered white, assigning them political, economic, social and psychological
privileges (International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography, Whiteness, 2009). Whiteness, which
continues to resemble superiority, is associated with geographical and
historical contextualisation as skin colour; facial features and the texture of
hair further resemble such advantage.
According to the 2011
Census, statistical data reveals that educational inequalities continue to
exist among Aboriginal Australians. The Drum revealed that more than 80 percent
of Indigenous students in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and
the Australian Capital Territory achieve minimum national standards (2013).
This is largely due to their psychological surroundings, and their cultural
affiliations that greatly influence their outlook on educational attainment.
This minority continues to lack basic literacy and numeracy skills, with
minimal improvements evident since initial NAPLAN tests began in 2008 (the
DRUM, 2013). Inequalities are prevalent among their standards of living,
physical and emotional health, employment opportunities and home ownership.
Such disadvantages are formulated in cultural apathy towards education, and the
belief that they are of minority and restricted of educational opportunity.
References
Fozdar, F., Wilding, R & Hawkins, M (2009). Race and Ethnic Relations. Oxford University Press, Page 2 – 4.
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