Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation
Faculty of Arts and Education
Symposium convenors:
A/Prof Fethi Mansouri, ICG, &
Dr Steve Francis, CMYI
Jointly hosted by the Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ICG) and the Centre of Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI).
Sponsored by the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), the ARC Asia Pacific Futures Research Network (Islam Node) and the
ARC Asia Pacific Futures Research Network (South Asia Node)
Supported by VicHealth
The key objective of this symposium is to explore youth identity and well-being among young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds. The aim is to build knowledge and identify effective strategies to support this disadvantaged and marginalised group of young people create social capital and a sense of belonging.
(Names in alphabetical order)
Dr. Kalissa Alexeyeff,
University of Melbourne
Kalissa Alexeyeff has a BA (Hons) in Sociology and Anthropology, La Trobe University, a Masters in Critical Theory and Cultural Studies, Monash University and a PhD in Anthropology, The Australian National University. Her doctoral thesis 'Dancing from the Heart: Gender, Movement and Sociality in the Cook Islands' is based on 2 years fieldwork in the Cook Islands and New Zealand. It explores the significance of dance in the Cook Islands throughout colonial history and in its contemporary manifestations. Her research interests include expressive culture in particular dance and music in the Cook Islands and the Asia-Pacific region more generally, gender politics cross-culturally, colonialism and contemporary feminist thought.
Recent Publications:
Dr. Ruth Arber,
Deakin University
Ruth Arber lectures in English, second Language and international curriculum studies. Her research explores postcolonial, language and cultural theories and their application for the study of race and ethnic relations in schools undergoing rapid demographic and global change. Her more recent work explores the implications of these notions for the internationalisation of education. She has published in a number of journals including. Discourse, Race Ethnicity and Education, The International J. of Inclusive Education, J. of Intercultural Studies and J. of Educational Change. Her book Race, ethnicity and education in globalised times, (2008) is in publication.
Dr Bob Birrell,
Monash University
Bob Birrell is the Director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research and Reader in Sociology at Monash University. He is the joint editor (with Katharine Betts) of the quarterly demographic journal People and Place, published by CPUR.
Bob has a degree in economics from Melbourne University, in history from London University (first class honours) and a PhD in Sociology from Princeton University. Most of his academic work has been at Monash University and since 1991 this work has focussed on running the CPUR. He has acted as an advisor on immigration issues to both Labor and Coalition governments and was a member of the Commonwealth Government’s National Population Council from 1987–1993. Recently he was a member of the independent Review of the General Skilled Migration Program which reported in May 2006. Bob is currently a member of the Department of Education, Science and Training’s International Education Advisory body.
Prof. Jill Blackmore,
Deakin University
Jill's research interests include:
Recent Publications:
Dr. Hass Dellal,
Australian Multicultural Foundation
Mr Hass Dellal OAM has been the Executive Director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation since 1989 (the Foundation is currently chaired by The Hon Sir James Gobbo AC CVO). Hass has extensive experience within Australia and internationally in multicultural affairs. He is currently Special Adviser to the National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau, a Trustee of the European Multicultural Foundation and a former commissioner of the Victorian Multicultural Commission.
Dr Steve Francis
Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI)
Steve Francis is the Policy Manager at the Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues. He has extensive experience within both the academic and community sectors in policy development, project management, government and non-government organisation liaison, research and evaluation design. Steve has been instrumental in developing and implementing action research and evaluation process both within CMYI and with other key community agencies seeking to better engage with CLD communities. Steve’s recent work has focused on the experiences and settlement needs of refugee and migrant communities in Australia, with a particular focus on young people.
Steve has a PhD in Anthropology and is an Honorary Fellow with the School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Melbourne.
Prof. Ghassan Hage,
University of Melbourne
Ghassan Hage is a professor for anthropology and social theory at the University of Melbourne. He is an associate researcher with Pierre Bourdieu's Centre de Sociologie Europeenne in Paris, and the Centre for Behavioral Research at the American University of Beirut. His early research work has centred on the experience of nationalism, racism and multiculturalism among White Australians. It has been published in the book 'White Nation' (Routledge, New York, 2000). His more recent work on Australian nationalism appears in 'Against Parnoid Nationalism: searching for hope in a shrinking society' (Pluto Press, 2002). He has also recently edited Arab-Australians: citizenship and belonging, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2002.
Recent Publications
Dr Geoff Holloway,
Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth (ARACY)
Geoff is a Project Officer at ARACY providing project, research and planning assistance to the Chief Executive Officer on a range of projects and issues associated to improving the wellbeing outcomes for Australian children and young people.
He has a PhD in sociology (University of Tasmania); has taught in Curtin University, with specialties in Applied Sociology (three-year Degree course) and the Sociology and Anthropology of Health and Illness, with a focus on people with disabilities and people from multicultural backgrounds.
Geoff has also worked with the Disability Services Commission in Western Australia in research, planning and performance reporting; in Child and Family Services in the Department of Health & Human Services in Tasmania in the same area; and with the Children’s Commissioner in Tasmania.
He has also published four books of poetry and spent almost two years recently in Patagonia (Chile and Argentina) participating in Regional Park planning and tourism strategies. He believes that we can only address the serious issues facing children and young people in society today by joining up practice, policy and research sectors, between jurisdictions and across communities, using collaboration as a first principle.
Dr. Liza Hopkins,
Swinburne University of Technology
Liza Hopkins is an ARC funded post-doctoral research fellow currently working on a project investing media use, community formation and identity amongst Australians of Turkish descent. She completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2000 with an ethnoarchaeological study of a settlement site in north-eastern Turkey. Since then she has been working at the Institute for Social Research on a variety of projects investigating the intersections between new media, social inclusion and ethnic diversity, including Wired High Rise and Carlton Community Lifelong Learning Hub.
Dr. Siew-Ean Khoo,
Australian National University
Siew-Ean Khoo is a Senior Fellow in ADSRI. She was previously a Senior Fellow with the Demography and Sociology Program and was Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Population Research at ANU from 2001 to 2005. A graduate of Harvard University, she has worked with the East-West Population Institute at the East-West Center in Hawaii, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the Australian Government’s Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. She has also been a consultant to the Australian Institute of Family Studies and the World Health Organisation and a member of the Ethics Committee of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Researchand teaches a graduate research seminar on International Migration in the Graduate Studies in Demography Program at ANU.
Her current research is on Australia ’s population and demography, particularly in relation to changes in international migration patterns and their demographic implications. Recent research and publications have examined the factors motivating temporary skilled migration to Australia, settlement outcomes of immigrants and their children, and Australia’s changing ethnic demography. She has also written on gender and migration and family formation patterns in Australia.
Recent Publications:
Dr. Rim Latrache,
University Paris 13
Rim Latrache is a Maître de Conférences (Associate Professor) in American civilization at the English Department of the University of Paris 13, France. She has a BA (Honors) in English, University of Tunis I (Tunisia), a Masters (Honors) in American Literature, University of Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle (France), a PhD (Honors) in American civilization, University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, (France).
Her doctoral thesis ‘The Arab Community in the United States: a History of Immigration and the Dilemma of (in)Visibility’ is based on research in the United States. It examines the status of the Arab American community within the American society and analyses the different policies of the American governments towards the Arab Community especially in response to international events. The dynamics of the Arab American identity is examined in order to explain the mechanism through which the ‘invisibility’ of the Arab American community, once considered as a sign of assimilation, became a sign of isolation and marginality. Her research interests include Arab/Muslim community, immigration, identity, assimilation, discrimination and terrorism.
Recent Publications:
Dr. Helen Lee,
Latrobe University
Most of Helen's publications are concerned with the people of Tonga in the South Pacific and Tongans who have migrated and settled in countries such as Australia. The main focus of her research with Tongans has been the question of cultural identity, especially the ways in which identity is formed by children and young people. Her research has also looked at family relationships both in Tonga and in the Tongan populations overseas, and the networks of ties between those overseas Tongans and the ‘homeland’ in the Pacific. Overlapping with her research with Tongans is the work she has done on ‘cyberspace’, some of which has explored the ways Tongans are using the Internet as a new means of communication across their scattered global population.
Recent publications:
Prof. Michael Meehan
Deakin University
Michael Meehan has a Personal Chair in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. He holds a BA (Hons) from Monash University and a PhD from Cambridge University, both in the field of literature, and has an LLB from the University of Adelaide. Professor Meehan has taught and published across a range of disciplines, including literary studies, law, commerce and legal studies, and is a prize-winning novelist, with novels published in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. He recently completed two terms as Head of the School of Communication and Creative Arts. He has a new novel, Mount Deception, coming out with Allen & Unwin in October 2008.
A/ Prof. Greg Noble,
University of Western Sydney
Greg researches and writes in the intersecting areas of:
His current research includes being co-Chief Investigator on the ARC Linkage project, 'Cultural Practices and Learning' (with the NSW Department of Education and Training as the project industry partner). This project examines the links between ethnicity, socio-cultural background and the embodied dispositions and education capital necessary for successful participation in the Australian educational system.
Recent Publications:
Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli,
Deakin University
Senior Lecturer in the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli writes and researches on social justice, diversity and equity issues in education and health. Her primary areas of interest are cultural diversity, gender diversity and sexual diversity. Maria is also an External Faculty Member of Saybrook Graduate Centre, San Francisco, the Honorary Patron of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) Victoria in Australia, and Founding Member of AGMC Inc (Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council), which is a member of FECCA (Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Australia).
Apart from academic chapters, research monographs and journal articles, her publications include: Someone You Know, Australia’s first AIDS biography; Girls Talk: Young Women Speak Their Hearts And Minds, which involved researching with culturally and sexually diverse girls and young women; Tapestry, a biographical narrative on five generations of her Italian family. Tapestry was short-listed for the NSW Premier’s Award in the Ethnic Affairs Commission category and in the Children’s Book Council Non-Fiction Award; ; When Our Children Come Out: how to support gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered young people which is being translated into Spanish; and the following three books co-researched and written with Dr Wayne Martino: Boys’ Stuff: Boys Talking About What Matters, which was shortlisted for four awards: a Western Australian Premier’s Award; the Australian Book Design Award; a Human Rights Award; and was Highly Commended in The Australian Award for Excellence in Educational Publishing; So What’s A Boy? Issues of Masculinity and Schooling which has been translated into Spanish and "Being Normal is the Only Thing To Be": Young People’s Perspectives on Gender in Schools.
Dr. Ninetta Santoro,
Deakin University
Ninetta Santoro is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University. Her research interests lie in teacher identities, the intersections of ethnicity and social class, and what constitutes socially-just pedagogies across a range of education contexts. She has published widely in the areas of research methodologies, teacher education and teacher practice.
Recent Selected Publicatons:
Professor Zlatko Skrbiš,
The University of Queensland
His research includes nationalism, cosmopolitanism, immigration and globalisation. He is currently working on a collaborative research project on life pathways of young Queenslanders (www.uq.edu.au/ourlives)
Recent Publications:
Ms. Monique Toohey,
Arabic Youth in the North project
Monique Toohey has a Bachelor of Social Science (Family Studies), and an MA in Psychology (Child and Family) from ACU National. She has worked as an adolescence counselor and psychologist and a community educator and trainer, in both the private education and community development sectors. Monique has particular expertise in the psychology of Muslim young people and families, and in capacity building projects with Muslim young people.
Monique runs Nasihah Consulting, which offers and supports culturally safe psychological services and project management for a range of quality projects that are valuable to the community. Recent projects have included the Islamic Council of Victoria’s Young Australian Muslim of the Year awards and volunteer programs, Whitelion’s ANSAAR mentoring project for Muslim young people, and event management for a range of Melbourne, Sydney and National events for young people including the Muslim Youth Summits and the Aspire2Inspire conferences. She is currently running the ‘Take a Closer Look: Arabic Youth and Family Project’ for the Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues.
Mr. Ben Waterhouse
Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre
Ben Waterhouse is a Provisional Psychologist and currently employed as a Youth Project Officer with Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre. In his current role Ben has developed and delivered a variety of youth programs working along a diverse range of young people, including newly arrived migrants and second or third generation Australians.
Ms. Kim Webster
Mental Health and Wellbeing Unit, VicHealth
Kim Webster is a Senior Project Officer at Vichealth, working in the area of mental health and wellbeing focusing on racism and discrimination. Her work looks at the effects of racism and discrimination on health and wellbeing, as well as looking at good practice responses to racism and discrimination and strategies and approaches proven effective in building welcoming and accepting attitudes and environments.
Abdinur Weil
Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre
Abdinur Weil is the Youth and Small Projects Team Leader for the Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre. In his role Abdinur is responsible for overseeing the delivery and development of numerous youth based programs aimed at engaging young people from migrant backgrounds. Abdinur is also a community religious leader and is currently the Imam of the West Melbourne Mosque for the Islamic Council of Victoria.
Mr. Joel Windle,
Monash University
Joel Windle taught in French and Australian schools, and lectured in sociology and education in both countries before commencing his position at Monash University. His PhD research is in the field of comparative sociology of education, and analyses the implications of cultural diversity for pedagogical and social relations across institutional settings. His research interests include ethnicity, comparative education, sociolinguistics, representations of Islam, models of inclusive education, cultural studies, sexuality, sociological approaches to the place of schooling in stratification, socialisation and social domination.
Recent Publications:
Youth Identity and Migration Symposium Program (pdf file)
Abstracts for the program follow -
Dr. Ruth Arber,
Deakin University
Discourses of antagonism and desire: Interrogating racist conception in cosmopolitan times
By the beginning of the 21st century, Australian secondary school communities became, almost unawares, drawn into a complex, often turbulent global world. People, finances, technologies and ideas shift within the local and across the global in ways that they never could before (even as some remain tied to place more securely then ever).
This paper explores new direction for the discussion of identity and difference in schools in times of immense demographic, technological and global change. It’s particular focus are the ways that community representatives discuss local and international students and their impact on the community of the school. Recent literatures describe communities such as those of schools as ones of perception and materiality whereby some are included differently than others. Real attempts by school representatives to understand the academic and pastoral needs of all students become confused as these requirements are negotiated in relation to Government demands for economy and accountability, student demands for international and western education and the marketing and educational imperatives of the school.
Discourses of identity and difference take on new forms as local/global interaction and the individualistic and market/driven changes which lead to the implementation of international programs have has consequences for the everyday lives of school community members. As the object of our dreams and our desire international students become fickle commodities negotiated for within disparate discourses of antagonism and desire.
Dr Bob Birrell,
Monash University
Labour market change, immigration and opportunities for ethnic youth.
Most of the workforce growth in Australia over the past decade has been in jobs requiring university credentials. However there has been little growth in the output of resident graduates during this time. Immigration has helped fill the gaps. But where does this leave young Australians as regards employment opportunity? The presentation will look at the specific circumstances of ethnic youth.
Prof. Jill Blackmore,
Deakin University
How race and culture inform adolescent lives: how discourses of risk make it difficult for schools to make a difference
This presentation draws on research projects that have focused on how class, gender and race mix to produce student identity in schools in ?disadvantaged? communities (rural, suburban). It draws on post colonial and feminist theorisations about the notion of identity, place, hybridity and how these interact with dominant popular and educational discourses that pathologise particular cultural groups as both being ?at risk? but also ?risky? for dominant cultural beliefs.
It considers how student attitudes to schooling are shaped by the relationship between their school, community, family but also structural and cultural factors within the education system and wider society through illustrative case studies, and also what schools can do that produce more inclusive schools and societies, often against systemic and dominant educational trends.
Dr. Hass Dellal,
Australian Multicultural Foundation
Views from the Muslim Youth Summits - Local and International students
The National Muslim Youth Summit was proposed by the Australian Multicultural Foundation in 2005 to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, as a way to progressed some of the outcomes from the then Prime Minister’s Muslim Reference Group.
The aims of the National Muslim Youth Summit and state based summits were to bring together a range of students and young Australian Muslims to discuss issues of concerns, their aspirations, identity and emerging trends and issues; to further build levels of civic engagement; acknowledge some of the positives, to learn and develop support networks for cooperation.
The presentation will present views, issues and solutions expressed at the summits.
Dr Steve Francis
Centre of Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI)
&
Dr Kalissa Alexeyeff
University of Melbourne
Pacific Island young people and Overrepresentation in the Juvenile Justice System
Pacific Island young people are overrepresented in the juvenile justice systems of Australia. The increasing incidence of Pacific Islander engagement in the system is of developing concern within the youth and juvenile justice sectors in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, New Zealand and the United States. This paper examines issues that contribute to this overrepresentation particularly those of visibility and identity, poverty and the gendered dimensions of crime. The perceptions of government department, non-government agencies and service professionals including youth workers and police are also significant. These perceptions directly affect policy development and implementation in relation to Pacific Islands communities and can be detrimental to access to, and provision of, basic services.
Prof. Ghassan Hage,
Melbourne University
Explosive selves: on second generation experiences of racism
This paper is a comparative cross-cultural and cross-generational analysis of racism and experiences of racism among Lebanese first and second generation in France, US and Australia. The emphasis will be on the differential capacity for self-reconstitution in the face of the shattering effect of racism. I will argue that racism is experienced far more intensely by second generation youth everywhere and that a far greater amount of psychic energy is expanded on maintaining the appearance of a coherent self among such youth. I will use some ethnographic data concerning the racializing effect of the French, American and Australian government's positions towards the Hizbollah-Israeli conflict and how this was managed by first and second generation shi'a Lebanese youth.
Dr. Geoff Holloway
Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth (ARACY)
& Dr Steve Francis
Centre of Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI)
Collaboration and coordination in policy, practice and research: reflections on why this is important in terms of youth identity issues.
On the 1st March 2007 ARACY commissioned the Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI) to undertake the preparation of two ‘Evidence into Action Topical Papers’ on Multicultural Youth Issues (Stage 1). These papers review and summarise the existing evidence on the needs of this group, and the current policy and program responses to these needs. The first paper addresses problems/issues and the second paper covers programs and strategies for addressing these needs. The Topical Papers focus on evidence rather than opinion, summarise the key messages from the evidence, and are accompanied by a stock-take of all the main programs operating across Australia. However, in the paper to be presented here only Stage 2 of this Evidence into Action process will be considered, and this will be done in two parts. The first part concerns the theoretical structure of collaboration and integration, as has emerged from Stage 2 of the ARACY process. The second part attempts to illustrate why an integrated service delivery structure is important in real terms, using a ‘case study’ of a particular, extended Chilean family that came to Australia twenty years ago as political refugees.
In Stage 2 expanded workshops were conducted in six capital cities to reflect upon what had been learnt from these papers and how that evidence about current issues, programs and strategies could be applied through collaborative activities for advancing the policies, practices and research in multicultural and research sectors in each State and Territory. One of the key practical issues that emerged from almost all of these workshops was that of ‘identity’. One of the key theoretical developments that came out of these workshops was further development of the ARACY concept of the relationship between ‘collaboration’ and, in this case, in terms of ‘coordination’ in terms of specialist service/pollcy/research multicultural youth centres. The two dimensions of this conceptual development comprise: (a) degree of integration in terms of policy/practice/research; and (b) degree of cooperation/coordination/collaboration.
In this paper the results of this Stage 2 will be presented briefly, along with a concrete ‘case study’ of how a fully integrated structure of service delivery could have contributed to different outcomes for particular, in this case Chilean, families, and how maintaining multiple cultural identities is important for the development of a secure sense of self across not just first but, particularly in terms of young people, across second and third, if not subsequent, generations. Some of the acculturation issues affecting this case study family include: religion (Catholicism; 7th Day Adventist; Hill Song Community; Islam); youth identity in a step family; citizenship and patria – national identity; language (Chilean Spanish; Australian English); familism and individualism; employment and health; gender roles; music; and sense of place. These issues affect at least the first three generations in different ways.
Dr. Liza Hopkins,
Swinburne University of Technology
Culture, religion, ethnicity: Notions of identity amongst young Turks in Australia.
The key points will be:
In order to understand the nature of identity formation amongst second generation migrant youth in Australia, a recent research project has been investigating identity amongst young Australians of Turkish background.
In particular the project has focussed on how both tradition and new forms of media are impacting on the way these young people see their place in an increasingly globalised society.
Migrant youth of Islamic background face a particular challenge in maintaining their cultural heritage in the face of an increasingly hostile public and media discourse.
Their experience in the real world of geographical location and in the mainstream of Australian media sometimes positions these young second generation migrants as separate or different, but within their own personally constructed media worlds they move comfortably within a globally connected youth culture.
Dr. Siew-Ean Khoo,
Australian National University
Immigrant youth's social connectedness: some findings from the 2006 General Social Survey.
The presentation will examine the social connectedness of immigrant youth in comparison with their Australian-born peers as measured by their social networks and participation in social and community groups and activities. Data for the study are from the 2006 General Social Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which collected nationally representative data on friendship and social support networks, attendance at community events, active involvement in various types of social and community groups and organizations, and engagement in a variety of civic activities, allowing us to compare immigrants with the Australian-born population on these issues for the first time.
Dr. Rim Latrache,
University Paris 13
Arab youth in the United States and in France: identity formation, discrimination and the struggle to belong.
This paper examines identity formation as well as discrimination and the struggle to belong among Arab youth in the United States and in France. This is especially important in the light of recent international events and recent presidential election in France that have highlighted controversial and contested connections between issues of minority status and immigration policies on the one hand and national security and identity on the other hand.
Dr. Helen Lee,
Latrobe University
The trouble with transnationalism: Tongan youth and the struggle to belong.
Tongan migrants have maintained a complex network of transnational ties linking them to their homeland of Tonga in the South Pacific. Their children’s lives in the diaspora have been profoundly shaped by these ties, particularly the practice of sending remittances, which often consume a significant portion of their family’s income. This paper examines the impact of transnationalism on young Tongans’ sense of identity and belonging, in relation to both Tonga and Australia. Using this case study I will look more broadly at the impact of transnationalism on the children of migrants and argue that while there can be positive outcomes, it can also pose some difficulties for their development of a sense of belonging and social connectedness.
Prof. Michael Meehan
Deakin University
Impersonation in fiction as an exercise in youth 'migrating consciousness'....
This paper argues the case for the fictional technique of impersonation as the key component for a new literature that is effectively iurisgenetic in the sense in which theorists in the domains of constitutional and international law now use the term. Increasingly, we are seeing a turn, in legal and social theory, towards aesthetic models, ‘fractal patterns’, narrativity and other fluid, pre-conceptual modes of representation and analysis as ways of ‘catching culture on the run’ (Spivack), not only in the realm of multicultural analysis, but in the wider context of globalisation and migration, the fracturing and traversing of national boundaries and the decline of the nation state. Commentators speak of the need for a new kind of ‘narrative supplement’, a new iurisgenetic base and context for when law is drawn across cultural boundaries, for situations where the law is called upon to 'migrate', and for when law simply ‘runs out’. This paper explores Lloyd Jones’s recent novel Mr Pip (winner, 2007 Commonwealth Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker) as a radical exercise in boundary-traversing, impersonation and self and cultural reconstruction, in a world which has run out of law. In Mr Pip, Jones writes through the persona of an adolescent girl, deconstructing boundaries of race, age, education, nation and gender in order to explore 'from within' Mathilda's reconstruction of self and commmunity from the fragments, both local and imperial, of a world that has come apart. The paper suggests ways in which imaginative literature - and in particularly, the business of impersonation – might provide new ways of 'migrating consciousness' and constructing community, laying out a basis for new forms of law, and a context for refreshed interpretation of the old.
Assoc. Prof. Greg Noble
University of Western Sydney
'From the politics of recognition to the sociability of acknowledgement: youth, connection and ethnicity'
This paper draws on data from several research projects on young people, ethnicity and identity over the last decade, and particularly those from non-English speaking backgrounds. It engages with debates about the ‘politics of recognition’ that informs much of our understanding of cultural diversity and interethnic relations in contemporary Australia. I argue that emphasis on the primacy of ethnic identity often embedded in the ‘politics of recognition’ fails to capture the complex nature of social being for young people from migrant backgrounds. It instead opts for a focus on ‘acknowledgement’, which foregrounds questions of respect, sociability, multiple attachments, the temporality of being and the situated and provisional nature of subjectivity.
Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli
Deakin University
&
Prof. Zlatko Skrbiš
The University of Queensland
Bringing Communities Together: Critical Reflections on a Federal Australian Government Initiative
In 2007 the Federal Australian government authorised several community events and workshops under the auspices of the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. The aim was to receive feedback on issues relating to the social participation and social inclusion of Muslim communities in Australia. The workshops were held in all major cities around Australia and the participants ranged from young second generation Muslim community members and community leaders to representatives from the governmental and non-governmental sectors. While the issues discussed were highly diverse, this paper draws on workshops held in Melbourne and Brisbane with a specific focus on two sets of issues. Firstly, we focus on questions of youth, representation, and experiences of belonging. Secondly, we critically address some of the themes that were notably absent or marginalised in the workshops: gender, sexuality and internal community diversity.
Dr. Ninetta Santoro,
Deakin University
‘Outsiders’ and ‘Others’: Indigenous and Ethnic Minority Teachers in Culturally Diverse Classrooms
This paper draws on data from two separate research projects that investigated the experiences of Indigenous teachers and ethnic minority teachers in Australian schools. It explores how teachers who are not from the Anglo-Australian majority are grounded in knowledge of self in regards to their ethnicity and/or Indigeneity. I suggest that this knowledge potentially allows them to empathise with minority students, to contextualise their students’ responses to schooling through an understanding of their lives beyond school and to ‘come to know’ them from perspectives unavailable to the dominant cultural majority. Implications for teacher education and the recruitment and retention of Indigenous and ethnic minority teachers are also raised.
Ms. Monique Toohey,
Arabic Youth in the North project
Take a Closer Look: the Arabic Youth and Family Project
In response to increasing demands of agencies in the Northern corridor of Melbourne to attend to a group of disconnected Australian-Lebanese young people, the Victorian Office for Multicultural Affairs (VOMA) agreed to fund the Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI) to identify and explore issues pertaining to the social disengagement of Australian-Lebanese young people living in Melbourne’s Northern suburbs. The ‘“Take a Closer Look: the Arabic Youth and Family Project” has aimed to work collaboratively with young people, family and community, and a wide range of services in the local government areas of Moreland, Darebin and Hume. Consultations confirmed current issues for Australian-Lebanese young people and pervasive service gaps were identified, and a strategic framework was developed to enhance the engagement of this particular demographic of young people and their families. Identification of useful interventions to foster a sense of belonging, community participation and family connectedness were generated. These will include efforts to enhance access to local services through capacity building of ethno and religious specific service providers, and local youth and family services. This project will also provide youth personal development initiatives and develop and trial culturally appropriate models of intergenerational family mediation. The outcomes of this project and ongoing work in this area will be presented at a community and service provider forum on the 31st March/1st April.
Mr. Ben Waterhouse
& Mr. Abdinur Weil
Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre
Chances to have fun: Authentic practice & lessons from the field
The presentation will outline best practice in engaging and reaching out to migrant young people from Non-English speaking backgrounds that are recently arrived to Australia. The presentation will outline three key projects:
Examples will be drawn from these specific projects about theoretical frameworks adopted and their practical application when working with migrant young people from new and emerging immigrant communities. The key themes covered shall include:
Ms Kim Webster
Mental Health and Wellbeing Unit, VicHealths
The impact of race and ethnic discrimination on young people’s health and wellbeing
Drawing on recent research supported by VicHealth, the presentation will explore:
Does ethnic and race based discrimination contribute to poor health among young people? Is it an issue those working with young people need to be concerned about? If it is, how we would address it and where would we focus our efforts? These are the questions VicHealth addressed in a recent program of research summarised in the report More than Tolerance: Embracing Diversity for Health. This research was undertaken by a team of national experts in discrimination as part of a larger VicHealth program designed to address the social and economic factors known to contribute to poor mental health.
A summary of the research will be presented, with particular emphasis on its implications for those involved in research and policy and program development to support young people’s health and wellbeing.
Mr. Joel Windle,
Monash University
Two strategies of ‘marginal integration’: the management of educational
disadvantage in Victoria and France
This paper looks at how academic and social integration are managed in contexts which combine high levels of ethnic diversity with educational disadvantage across two contrasting national systems. When the rewards of education are few, the task of finding meaning in school becomes particularly challenging, and students and teachers alike tend to emphasise the social and affective dimensions of school life as sources of value and identity. This has important implications for engagement with academic tasks and the development of, or rejection of, an academic persona. Working-class migrant-background students whose parents have little experience with senior secondary school are particularly vulnerable the messages they receive from schools, which combine with family and community expectations to produce distinctive effects, the implications of which for policy are discussed in this paper.
The symposium will be held at Deakin University Melbourne Campus, 221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood, Victoria 3125. in Building C, room 3.19 (Moot Court). Please see Campus map.
Deakin University Melbourne campus at Burwood is located in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. The campus is well served by public transport and is about 20 minutes by car and 45 minutes by tram ( Route 75) from the city centre.
Melbourne Airport is approximately 25 kms north from the Melbourne CBD — less than 30 minutes by car. Bus and taxi services are easily accessible to help you get to and from Melbourne Airport to the CBD. Allow 1 hr for a taxi trip from the airport to the Deakin Burwood campus.
Information on flight to and from Melbourne
Transportation to and from airport
Participants are advised to book their own accommodation. The following accommodation establishments are listed to assist interstate and overseas enquirers not familiar with the Melbourne area.. The symposium organisers have no commercial arrangement with these places nor offer any endorsement of them. A range of other accommodation options and general tourism information can also be found at Visit Melbourne.
Punt
Hill Hotel Burwood
300 Burwood Hwy, Burwood 3125
Reservations
phone: +61 (0)3 9631 1111
fax: +61 (0)3 9650-4409
Toll Free 1300-662-161
email: info@punthill.com.au
Online Booking
5 minutes walk to the Symposium
venue.
Burwood East Motel
355 Blackburn Road
Burwood East, Victoria 3151
Ph: +61 3 9803 8211
Fax: +61 3 9887 8080
email: info@burwoodeastmotel.com.au
Opposite 24 hour Supermarket and K-Mart Plaza
Catch City Tram no.75 (Tram stop 150 metres from Motel)
Box Hill Motel
77 Station St, Box Hill
Ph: +61 3 9808 3622
Easy walk to the Symposium
venue
For further information, please contact:
Mr Robert Budd, Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ICG), Deakin University
Dr. Andrew McNess, Deakin University
Ms Sarah Cornfoot, Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI)
This is a free event but registration is essential. If you wish to attend, copy the following into an email, complete the details and forward to <shupin@deakin.edu.au> by 14 Feb 08 - You will be advised by return email notifying if a space is available for you.
Youth Identity And Migration: Culture, Values And Social Connectedness
21-22 February 2008Title:
First Name:
Family Name:
Email:
Telephone:
Organisation associated with:
Days Attending:
21 Feb- Yes / No
22 Feb- Yes / No
Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ICG), Deakin University
Centre of Multicultural Youth Issues (CMYI)
Australian Research Alliance for children and Youth (ARACY) ARC/NHMRC Research Network Program.
