Socio-Cultural Integration and Models of Education - Literature review Example

Running Head: Comparative Indigenous Studies Socio-Cultural Integration and Models of Education: A Comparative Indigenous Study on Educational Institutions of Maoris and Aborigines [Client’s Name] [Affiliation] Generally speaking, only a small fraction of the world’s indigent population are educated. Moreover, only a small fraction of these educated indigent population are able to achieve economic success and stability, being a part of the dynamic workforce of the economies they belong. More often than not, indigents are uneducated and constitute the big part of the unskilled labour force earning very low wages. While the observation is very generic, this somehow reflects the realities faced by indigents across the world – which is the social and economic success of indigent individuals are dependent on the level of acceptance and integration they obtain from the societies they belong (Neil, 2000). This generic observation on indigent people is also observed on the cultural minorities of New Zealand and Australia although in varying degrees. Australia’s Aborigines has remained the most educationally disadvantaged cultural group in Australia owing to the fact that their economic capacity does not allow them access to high quality education or immediate medical treatments to their illnesses which somehow affects their academic performances (Docket et al, 2006). The same thing can be said to Maoris of New Zealand. Only a very small number of Maoris are present in all levels of education of New Zealand (Smith, 1993). The poverty and lack of access to medical attention are among the reasons why a large percentage of the Maori populace remain uneducated (Titus, 2001). Apart from poverty and access to medical attention, what other factors could explain the gap in the access to education of the indigenous people? Various researches emphasized the importance of the social, economic, educational, and cultural factors that contribute to the access or the failure to access to education of indigenous people. This paper will attempt to answer how these factors affect the indigents’ access to education. Specifically, this paper will compare how two important factors affect the perspective on education of the Maoris of New Zealand and the Aborigines of Australia – socio-cultural integration and the models of education - in order to gain a better understanding of the prevailing concerns over the lack of participation to education of the indigents. Moreover, this paper aims to understand how and in what way do these factors affect the perception of the indigents towards education in general and what intervention programs have been introduced to close the widening gap in education. Poverty and Education Among the various reasons why indigents do not have access to high quality education, poverty and economic instability ranks the highest. Majority of the indigenous people of Australia and New Zealand are poor (Docket et al, 2006; Titus, 2001). Their poverty has limited their access to good education primarily because (a) they could not afford high quality education available in local public universities and colleges; if they could, (b) the transportation and/or board and lodging requirement are too expensive for them to avail given the circumstances; and (c) their poverty discourages them to continue their education after learning how to read and write because they could no longer afford to pay for their education and the expenses associated with it (Freire, 1970). However, poverty is a direct consequence of other relevant factors like social integration, culture-specific educational systems, discrimination in the job market, and other related factors (Adams, 1998). Two of the most popular reasons noted why indigents do not, and could not, access high quality education are socio-cultural integration and the existing models of education adopted by the societies where they belong. Socio-cultural Integration This paper operationally defines socio-cultural integration as the level of acceptance of the society towards the indigents, the social equity enjoyed by the indigents in their present societies, and the degree by which the indigents were able to exercise their rights and privileges. Socio-cultural integration in the context of this paper refers to how well or how bad the Australian and the New Zealand societies accept or treat the Aborigines and Maoris, respectively. Issues pertaining to socio-cultural integration have long been identified as a strong barrier for effective and successful education of indigent people (Titus, 2001). Social barriers to successful integration are best understood from the historical context. When the Westerners colonized Australia and New Zealand, the indigents were driven away from their homes or were forced to hard labour without or with minimal pay. The Aborigines and the Maoris were subject to massive racial and social discrimination in the past as well as during the present time and the treatment of the colonized societies towards the indigent cultural subgroup has greatly influenced the views, perceptions, and perspectives of these people. In the past, Aborigines and Maoris do not have social rights, or if they do, they do not have the avenue to exercise it in the society where they belong. Similarly, their social rights were constrained to a large extent by the existing social system prevalent during the colonized period. It was until very recently that these two cultural subgroups were able to gain their social and political identities (Reynolds, 2005). The history and the prevalence of racial discrimination have brought various issues that have strong negative impacts on the education of the Aborigines and the Maoris. First, the disparity in social equity experienced by the indigents discourages them from going to school frequented by non-indigents for a lot of valid reasons including the fear of further discrimination and oppression (Reynolds, 2002). As the Fitzgerald Report (1975, cited in Reynolds, 2002) puts it, “children who are members of a minority group held in low regard … are apt to be characterized by feelings of helplessness and inferiority, passivity, defeat and expectation of failure”. With the intrinsic perspectives towards failure, the probability of indigent students having bad performance at school is significantly increased. Racial discrimination and prejudice is also responsible for the marginalization of Aborigine and Maori students in educational institutions in Australia and New Zealand (Reynolds, 2009). With their limited access to social power, indigents are prone to discrimination in almost all aspects of the society, with no strong laws and solid implementation of the laws to back up their claims for their legal and social rights. As a result, indigent students were often subject to ridicule, bullying, and other forms of oppression from peers, classmates, and teachers alike (Docket et al, 2006). These adverse social conditions in schools prevents indigent students from pursuing higher education or worse, these elements keep them from having interests in going to school (Reynolds, 2002). For the Aborigines, cultural assimilation did not occur until sometime in 1970s and assimilation in schools was adopted even later (Reynolds, 2005). Cultural assimilation in education has begun earlier for Maoris with the compulsory provisions of the Education Act installed in 1903 (Bell, 1981). In other words, Australia and New Zealand opened their schools for indigenous people, allowing them access to the same level of education non-indigenous students get. However, such action was still unable to close the gap in educational and socio-economic achievements between the Aborigines of Australia and Maoris of New Zealand and that of the non-indigenous population. This implies that cultural assimilation in educational institutions is not the only factor that contributes to the academic success of indigents. Models of Education When the educational systems in Australia and New Zealand finally opened their doors for the indigents, there are no effort made in addressing their needs and learning requirements (Reynolds, 2002). Indigent students were placed side by side the non-indigenous students and are expected to perform on the same level in every curricular and co-curricular activities (Adams, 1998). The educational systems of Australia and New Zealand are patterned directly to the educational system of the European colonies (Bell, 2001). This educational system is geared towards educating the Europeans found in the colonies. Expectedly, this kind of approach to education has been tested to the European settlers but not with the natives. This means that the models of education adopted in schools of Australia and New Zealand are designed to alienate the indigent students and not to help them. In other words, the existing models of education are in itself a failure. The failures of the existing models of education in Australia and New Zealand are on three planes – the curricula, the teachers, and the lack of understanding of the needs of the indigent students. As was mentioned, the curricula followed in educational institutions across Australia and New Zealand are highly Westernized. New Zealand’s Maoris follow a different set of ideologies from that of the Western colonizers. Maoris follow a certain philosophy in their lives called the Kaupapa Maori which is the philosophical and practical basis of contemporary Maori consciousness (Smith, 1993). Kaupapa Maori, in the simplest sense, is the understanding of the power struggle within the Maori society through the understanding of the debilitating effects of hegemony as a result of the social context of unequal power relations. Aborigines on the other hand follow a certain philosophy unique to their Aboriginality where the basis of all understanding lies in the deeper understanding of the land and everything that dwells in it (Reynolds, 2005). Apparently, the Western educational system ignores the elements that are important for the Aborigines and the Maoris which results in the friction of knowledge in academic setting. As a result, the general society regards Maori and Aborigine students a failure to the existing educational system without taking into consideration their special social and philosophical inclinations. This is where the models of education failed first. According to Reynolds (2005), it is necessary for educational institutions catering to the educational needs of Aborigines (and the Maoris) to provide the knowledge and learning indigent students need in a context that students can easily relate with. This is true for all levels of education (Docket et al, 2006). Indigenous students need to be able to see the knowledge and learning passed to them through their cultural lenses. They need to be able to see strong parallelism between their lessons and their belief systems in order for them to be able to accept the knowledge and information offered to them. Without taking into account the uniqueness of the culture and belief systems of the indigents, successful assimilation in education would be hard to achieve. The paper identified the teachers as the second failure of the existing models of education in Australia and New Zealand. Until recently, teachers assigned to teach indigent students are Whites. While there is nothing wrong having White teachers teach the Aborigines and Maoris what they need to learn, the indigent students have the tendency to close their mind to what are taught to them. First, White teachers could not relate to the idealisms, perceptions, and perspectives of the indigent students. As Docket et al (2006) puts it, “If you have a White teacher trying to teach Aboriginal children their values and cultures…how can they? … They are going to come out as White people.” This simply implies that White teachers exude the racial bias in one way or another which deters the learning process of the indigent students. Indigenous students are more inspired to study, communicate their thoughts and ideas, and interact with other students coming from the same cultural background. Moreover, research found out that students can readily accept the lessons of teachers coming from the same racial background because there perception of intrusion is almost always not felt (Reynolds, 2005). The governments of Australia and New Zealand understood this fact and have reoriented its strategy to include cultural homogeny in the classroom. With the strong feeling against cultural assimilation in schools, budgetary issues and educational methodology designed to address the learning requirements of the indigents were not strongly established. Australian and New Zealand governments were unprepared for the Herculean task of changing both the curricula and the teaching strategy to cater the needs of the indigent students. As a result, only a very few percent of indigent students were readily included in the new educational system. Moreover, there have been various trial and errors of the new system to determine the effectiveness of this system to adapt to the demands of the indigent systems. In other words, there is no way as of now to determine the effectiveness of this effort. It is highly possible that the whole new model adopted could still be wrong and the gap in education could still widen in time. Evaluation Socio-cultural integration is one of the major reasons why a large percentage of the indigenous groups of Australia and New Zealand were still uneducated. Maoris and Aborigines find it difficult to normally integrate with their immediate society even if cultural diversity and plurality has been practiced in various aspects of the society. This is because of the perceived or actual racism and discrimination these indigents were historically subject to which could have conditioned their social views towards integration. Moreover, not all spheres of the societies of Australia and New Zealand are prepared to take such bold steps to eliminate discrimination. As a result, indigents shy away from people they consider outsiders. This invariably lowers their exposure to education which further increases the gap in education. The existing model of education is another major reason why there is a disparity in education between the indigents of Australia and New Zealand and the non-indigent populations. Apparently, the educational model adopted in these countries does not cater the special needs and requirements of the Aborigines or the Maoris. As a result, schools do not attract the natives simply because what has been taught in the educational institutions contradict (or are very different) from the belief system adopted by the natives. As a result, more and more indigents are poor and could not access to good education or a better life. Conclusion As noted earlier, both Aborigines and Maoris experience the same difficulties in their socio-cultural integration with non-indigents and have been exposed to Westernized models of Education. Non-educated Aborigines and Maoris are often exposed to low-paying hard labour simply because they were not educated. Moreover, both Maori and Aborigine students were subject to various forms of discrimination and racial prejudice in their schools which discourages them from continuing their education. In this regard, the Maoris of New Zealand and the Aborigines of Australia are no different from each other; that they fail miserably in schools because they have difficulties integrating with non-indigent students and that the existing educational model could not provide what they need to learn. This answers one obvious question. Maoris of New Zealand had access to Western education long before Australia’s Aborigines had and yet the socio-economic and educational gaps between indigents and non-indigents are too wide. This just proves that the disparity noted nullifies the effect of long-term exposure to education and emphasizes the need for the appropriate education to indigents in order to eliminate all possible gaps in the social and economic status between indigents and non-indigents. This can only be achieved though if the societies they belong to will be ready to accept their uniqueness and provide for the things they would need. References Adams, I. (1998). The Educational Plight of Indigenous Australian Students in the Early Years of Schooling. Unicorn. 24; 5-15 Bell, T. H. (2001). The Educational System of New Zealand. US Government Printing Office. Washington. Docket, S., Mason, T., & Perry, B. (2006).Successful Transition to School for Australian Aboriginal Children. Childhood Education. 82(3). 139 Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Books Neil, R. (2000). Introduction. In Neil, R. (ed). 2000. Voice of the Drum: Indigenous Education and Culture. Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Ottawa. Reynolds, R. J. (2002). The search for relevance and identity: The education and socialization of Australian Aboriginal students. International Education, 31(2), 18–32. Reynolds, R. (2005). The Education of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Students. Childhood Education. 82(1). Academic Research Library. p. 31 Reynold, R. (2009). The Education of Indigenous Australian Students: Same Story, Different Hemispheres. Multicultural Perspectives; 7(2). 48-55 Smith, G. (1993). Intervention in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Report on the United Nations International Commission on Higher Education for Indigenous People. 1 - 26 Titus, D. (2001). High Stakes Down Under: Learning from Maori Education in New Zealand: an Outsider’s Perspective. Annual Meeting of the National Association for Multicultural Education. Read More