‘Not one day did I ever learn anything about African heritage or cultures’: The Mis/Non-Representation of African Cultures in Australian Schools
By Melanie Baak, Habibat Ogunbanwo, Shaza Hamed, Efon Luwala and Jeanne Munyonge, University of South Australia, UniSA Education Futures
melanie.baak@unisa.edu.au
About the African Diaspora Youth Belonging in Australia Project
Students from the African diaspora in Australia not only find that their voices are missing from schools, but also that their images, history and lives are excluded from what they learn. Listening to students means more than just hearing their words; it also means ensuring that subjects – and resources used within subjects – are relevant to and resonate with their life experiences and cultural heritages.
It is also important for all students that the curriculum represents the reality of Australian life, language, history and diversity. Non-African students need to learn about African diversity, histories, cultures, civilisations, leaders and more in a respectful manner.
As effort is made to ensure that the curriculum represents the voices and lives of the African diaspora, it is necessary to ensure that students’ voices and experiences inform the development of this curriculum in an active, informed way. This account is of one such project that is beginning to do that.
The African Diaspora Youth Belonging in Australia (ADYBA) project explores how belonging in Australian schools is experienced by Black African diaspora youth. The project is led by Dr Melanie Baak, a white Australian of English, Polish and Ukrainian heritage, who is undertaking a 3-year Australian Research Council funded Discovery Early Career Researcher Award study.1
The methodology of the project reflects the key idea of students as active creators of knowledge. At the beginning of 2023, four PhD students and 10 youth co-researchers, all of Afro-diasporic heritage, were recruited to work alongside Dr Baak on the project. Habibat, Shaza, Efon and Jeanne are four of the youth co-researchers. The PhD students and co-researchers have incredibly diverse heritages and connections to Africa - with some being recent arrivals through refugee or migrant pathways directly from countries in Africa, others born in Australia to parents from African countries and some with
ancestors who were taken from Africa through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and have come to Australia through migrations from the Caribbean and Americas. The co-researchers were aged between 17 and 21 years at the start of the project and were living in different states of Australia, with some in urban areas and others in regional areas. Some co-researchers were still in high school, some in University and others working after completing school.
Habibat, Shaza, Efon and Jeanne are representative of the diversity of these youth co-researchers:
Habibat was born in Nigeria and came to Australia when she was four years old when her parents migrated for employment. Habibat was 18 when she commenced working with the project.
Shaza was born in Australia and is of Eritrean heritage and was 18 at the start of the project. Shaza attended eight different schools in Australia.
Efon was born in Australia and has South Sudanese heritage. Her parents came to Australia through the humanitarian entrant program for refugees. Efon attended schools in both NSW and ACT.
Jeanne was born in Mozambique and has also lived in Zimbabwe but her family is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She came to Australia when she was about five years old through Australia’s refugee resettlement program. Jeanne was 17 when she commenced work on the project.
Habibat and Efon both currently live in the ACT and Shaza and Jeanne live in South Australia. Habibat, Shaza and Jeanne were all in their first year of University and Efon was in her second year of University when the project commenced.
Book Cover of ‘Growing Up African In Australia’ edited by Maxine Beneba Clarke (Black Inc. 2019). Cover design by Kim Ferguson; cover images by Louise Whelan.
In early 2023, the 10 co-researchers met fortnightly for three months on zoom as they began to develop the project. The four PhD students attended some of these meetings. The meetings were informed by reading ‘Growing Up African in Australia’, a book that is an edited collection of stories written by African Australians about their experiences living in Australia. By reading these stories, the co-researchers identified shared and differing experiences with the authors and each other. The co-researchers were also interested in understanding why books such as ‘Growing Up African in Australia’ are not a part of the Australian school curriculum.
During the fortnightly zoom meetings, the co-researchers developed a range of conversation prompts to be used to guide peer conversations with other African diaspora young people. One of the conversation prompts that was developed was “Do you feel like the content you learned at school gives you the opportunity to learn about Africa, Africanness, Blackness? If so, did it reflect your knowledge?” This question stemmed from the personal experiences of the co-researchers, with many identifying that at school there was a lack of opportunity for students to examine and explore their African heritage and cultures. This article is focused on the responses of young people to this question.
Once the conversation prompts were developed, Dr Baak modelled the conversations by having individual conversations with the co-researchers. These were recorded, transcribed and became part of the data for the research project. Each co-researcher then identified a few friends or acquaintances who were aged between 16-27 and were also from the African diaspora and living in Australia. To date, conversations have been had with 26 additional Afro-diasporic youth who were friends of acquaintances of the co-researchers. These young people have wide-ranging educational backgrounds and experiences, live in locations all across Australia, and have diverse connections with the African diaspora, with some born in African or other countries around the world and migrating to Australia, and others born in Australia. The conversations with peers were also recorded and transcribed and became part of the data. The process of this research project provides just one example of a way in which the voices of African diaspora young people can be given space to be heard as experts on their own lives. Not only are they enabled to learn about themselves and topics that are relevant to them, they are also enabled to speak out and be heard about these topics in a way that can improve schooling experiences for everyone.
What did we find out by listening to young people from the African diaspora?
This article focuses on the responses of 35 participants (nine youth co-researchers and 26 additional Afro-diasporic youth), specifically in response to the question above. Their responses illustrated an absence of African culture and representation in the Australian school curriculum. Below, we delve into the findings from these conversations by shedding light on the experiences of African diaspora youth in Australian schools and we propose solutions to combat this issue in the future.
Overall, almost all of the 35 Afro-diasporic young people indicated either limited or no opportunity to learn about Africa or Africanness during their schooling experience in Australia. The quote below indicates key experiences from across all the participants. Firstly, they had little opportunity to learn about Africa or content that they saw as central to their own identities, including languages that they spoke at home. Secondly, they describe the only experience they had of learning about Africa and Blackness was in learning about slavery.
Shaza: Did you ever feel like the content you'd learnt at school gave you the opportunity to learn about Africa within this Blackness? Or sort of reflect your knowledge?
Interviewee: No, no, no, without a doubt.
Shaza: Not even like home languages, like your languages?
Interviewee: It was none of them. It just pretty much just like learning about Europe history, and all that. Not one day did I ever learn anything about African heritage or cultures.
Shaza: What would you say was the closest you got to African culture?
Interviewee: It must be learning about slavery. That's the only time I ever learned about African cultures.
Africa is a continent of 54 countries and even more cultures and ethnicities within. A continent enriched with stories, perspectives, literature, music and more. However, it seems as though Africanness is being left out of the Australian Curriculum as it is taught in schools, with only some mention of opportunities for learning in the History and English curriculums. During our research, we learnt that many participants had no recollection of learning about Africa or Africanness within their high school studies. Participants stated they had never learned about themselves or history they saw themselves represented in, unless it was a discussion about apartheid in South Africa or the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.
Interviewee: …actually a little bit because we touched on apartheid. And my dad's side of the family originates from South Africa. So he's like, a second generation Zimbabwean. So yeah, it was nice to learn a bit about that.
Mel: What subject area did you learn about apartheid in?
Interviewee: Year 10 history, I believe, modern history.
For most students, learning about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a particularly discomforting experience, and for many this was their only opportunity to learn anything about the African diaspora.
‘Year 10, that was when we finally got to learn about the African diaspora, but that was just through one lens, and that was through the lens of slavery.’
Almost all students described feeling like a spectacle in their classrooms with all eyes turning to look at them whenever slavery was mentioned or studied.
‘…we usually learn about slavery during history or something. And then people just look at you as if like, you know, as if there’s a picture of you on the textbook or in the video…It just becomes awkward …’
‘I mean, we did have one like, short topic on slavery. And that was one of the most uncomfortable classes I've been in, because every time they would show videos, or every time they'd talk about something all those around me… So it was quite uncomfortable. … like, ‘okay, I get it, I look like them. But it doesn't mean you have to absolutely stare the hell out of me’. …So that was an uncomfortable thing. So I didn't really like that class’
The only books within the English curriculum that students saw themselves reflected in were stories of struggle, oppression and Civil Rights. Books like Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird are read across the country; however it is important for stories of Blackness to be expanded beyond deficit terms and side characters to white protagonists.
‘In secondary school … we started to explore…English topics about race…the book …Othello….So he was like from Africa …And the way he was portrayed was very, very, very racist….And I think reading that made me so uncomfortable in class. Just because I really don't think it's necessary to keep perpetrating these stereotypes and whenever I want to learn about African history, I want it to be positive. I think, as a society, we've spoken about all these negative things about Africa, and, you know, all these stereotypes. And that's what they keep pushing out in schools. ‘
‘I understand the importance of reading old literature, but it's just disheartening. It's just going to break your passion for literature. Like I love books, like, literally, worst comes to worst, I really want to be an English teacher. And that didn't even come about until after I got out of high school. It wasn't something that I enjoyed, particularly. And that was probably because I didn't relate to anything. I don't relate to Romeo and Juliet, I didn't even relate to anyone in Of Mice and Men.’
Unfortunately, many participants shared their negative experiences when discussing Africa in classrooms. Through our research, students recollected discussions of race being heavily stereotyped among peers and within their learning content. Descriptive words like poor and slums, as well as Humanitarian Aid posters allowed African students to feel like their culture was flawed and deficient. For example, one young person who was originally from Kenya, described an experience in her class of being asked during a lesson if it was true that Kenya ‘actually has the biggest slum’ and then other classmates just started laughing. She described
‘I feel like a lot of the things that were said were definitely spoken in a negative manner when talking about Africa unless it came to things like seeing wildlife, which was when people recognised that there were definitely some positive aspects to it’.
The negative attitudes towards African and Africanness went beyond language. Students revealed their hairstyles and their cuisine were also met with lack of understanding from teachers and peers. These narratives have been socially constructed; however they are maintained in places like the classroom from very early on. Africanness within school and Africanness at home felt like two very different things for many students. Many participants expressed their desire to study the truths about their cultures but were never able to. Disrupting the negative narratives of Africa within classrooms can help expand discussions to include African students to speak about themselves and allow peers to learn about their fellow students.
In addition to not having the space to learn about their own cultures and histories, participants described not having the opportunity to learn their home languages at school, with the exception of one participant from a French speaking country in Africa who was able to study French at school. Participants spoke a wide range of languages, with some participants fluent in four languages, but across all states of Australia not one participant described the opportunity to have their multilingualism recognised at school. Participants had learnt languages like German, Italian, Japanese and Chinese at school which they saw as having no relevance to them, and their own language expertise was not valued.
Future initiatives to promote belonging for African diaspora youth in Australian schools
There were limited examples that participants shared of having opportunities to learn something about Africa and Africanness in a positive light in Australian schools. We consider some of these now in concluding on a positive note of what could be possible. In order for Australian schools to create educational environments in which everyone sees themselves represented, an array of approaches can and should be utilised.
African diaspora students have valuable and diverse knowledges and histories that could become important resources for diverse learning environments. Utilising students and families and resources for and experts on their own learning interests could create a curriculum that is more culturally relevant and responsive. If curriculum is understood as a verb, rather than a noun, it becomes possible to see African diaspora young people and their families as a positive resource for the co-construction of curriculum. For instance, a participant reflected on a childhood memory where their mother visited their school to share cultural artifacts and stories. This is something that could be incorporated into a range of curriculum areas and in different year levels of schooling, not just the early years.
‘I can think back to a memory where I think it was maybe like Year 2 or 3, where my mum came in to talk at school. She gave sort of the background, cultural history and some artifacts and stuff. And it was like, I just think it was a really good experience. My classroom and my teachers got to see a different side and a different culture. So I guess to expand on that, I think that's something that needs to be done more to be honest. It's not saying neglect what's going on now, because obviously our Indigenous culture is very important here. But I do think, you know, especially in a school where it's very multicultural, I think it's important that we understand where they're coming from, you know, why they believe what they believe.’
Another participant identified having a history teacher who enabled an environment in which she was encouraged and supported to learn about histories that were relevant to her. But most importantly she felt safe in learning about this content in the classroom. Providing respectful warnings and follow ups when addressing sensitive topics such as slavery, allows African Australian students to mentally prepare for these discussions, prevent emotional distress and allow for positive student engagement.
One participant described having more opportunities in senior secondary school to undertake learning about topics that related to themselves. That participant gave the example of the ‘Research Project’ subject completed in South Australian schools as part of the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE). This subject enables students to choose a topic, pose a question and perform extensive research on a topic of interest to them. This participant studied the effect of news bias on young Africans in Australia for their research project which they described as ‘really interesting, like eye opening…the way people speak, the information that they choose to put on the news, their wording. It all affects how Africans and Black youth are perceived.’ The curriculum and pedagogy enabled the participant to make decisions and direct their learning in ways that reflected and included their culture, experiences and interests. In senior secondary school there seem to be more opportunities for students to learn about themselves and their heritage. Senior secondary students have a greater array of opportunities, more freedom in choices and self-directed learning. However, there is no reason that these flexibilities and opportunities for self-directed learning that connects with the life experiences and interests of students couldn’t be extended into younger years of schooling.
It is important for students to learn subjects that are relevant and resonate with their life experiences and cultural heritages. Teaching both African and non-African students about African cultures, civilisations, leaders etc. in a respectful manner will not only lead to African diaspora students feeling more seen in the education system, but will also break down the stereotypes of Africa and its people. Showing students that Africa and its people have a diverse history, with a wide range of multiculturalism and thousands of languages spoken throughout the continent. In addition to teaching about African cultures in a nuanced manner, other African Australian youths would like to integrate initiatives like leveraging social media platforms and family knowledge as educational tools to bridge cultural gaps, and learn about home languages.
Having the opportunity to read books that reflect all students could enable opportunities for students to explore more about themselves and other peers. African countries have their own unique literature, rich history and offer deep knowledge that can be taught and learned by all. There are also increasing numbers of books and other resources, such as ‘Growing up African in Australia’, that could be utilised to connect with the lives and realities of students in diverse classrooms in Australia.
By embracing these approaches, Australian schools can create culturally enriching environments, foster understanding, acceptance and appreciation for the diverse backgrounds of all students.
