With partners:
Theme 1: Identity & Belonging
In this theme, students from Arabic backgrounds were invited to explore broad themes of identity and belonging. Students’ stories demonstrate the complex meanings of place, ethnicity and “home”. Students from Arabic-speaking backgrounds are often keen to articulate their stories. Second generation Australian-Arab youth discuss growing up in suburban Melbourne as migrant youth. Overseas-born students speak of their journey to Australia, experiences in their country of origin and family ordeals in relocating. These stories help other students and teachers to better understand the Australian-Arab members of the school community. These students are also interested in exchanging stories beyond their own cultural group so they can better understand other students, the ones they themselves refer to as “Aussie” kids. At times some Arabic-speaking background students seem genuinely perplexed about “Aussie” kids’ behaviour, especially to do with some social norms, or attitudes to interpersonal relationships which may be unfamiliar.
One student highlights the importance of context in shaping identity, suggesting that “it depends who you’re hanging around with”. Other students give an impression of social dislocation, a feeling of “in-between-ness” that is commonly experienced amongst young people from migrant backgrounds. This experience of being in-between, sometimes referred to as “cultural hybridity”, becomes evident when reflecting upon family life. One student said that “I speak Arabic at home half the time. Always with my parents, but I speak English with my brothers and sisters…” Another student stated that “On cable, we watch the news in Arabic, because my parents watch that, and others shows in English.” In their private lives many students of Arabic-speaking backgrounds live within traditionally ordered, and often quite conservative, family structures. Conversely, the public world they inhabit emphasises equal access to a range of employment or lifestyle choices, and quite different ideas about personal relationships. Tensions must inevitably arise between these two conflicting spaces and the expectations they carry with them.
The school is often an important place for many Arabic-speaking background students to learn more about Australian society in the process of cultural change.
The experience of teachers illustrated within this theme of "Identity" highlight the need for students to re-establish identity as they experience varying degrees of alienation from their own cultures.