'West side' stories: visible difference, class and young people

‘West side’ stories: visible difference, gender, class and young

people

Chantelle Amber Higgs

Submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of

Master of Arts (Sociology) By Research

December 2012

School of Social and Political Sciences

The University of Melbourne

Abstract

The impetus for this thesis emerged from my job as a youth worker and my

dissatisfaction with the dominant ways in which young people are discussed and

managed as ‘at risk’ and ‘disengaged’. I argue that, far from being disengaged, young

people in Melbourne’s western suburbs are engaged in reading the power structures

that influence their lives and have developed a range of strategies to operate within

and against these classed, ‘raced’ and gendered structures. Throughout this thesis I

contend that young people have agency (that is, the ability to act), and argue for

young people to be recognised as astute social actors, from whom we can learn

much about the way power operates and the strategies people use to live with social

inequality.

‘West side’ stories explores how young people experiencing social disadvantage are

‘managed’ in public policy and how they are represented in academia. The

qualitative research presented in this thesis problematises the dominant

representations, by illustrating the ways in which visible difference, gender and class

intersect and how these social divisions shape the lives of young people living in the

west – a culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged region of Melbourne. It is

argued here that whiteness is marked in the western suburbs and that Anglo-‐Saxon

Australians are also visibly different because of their class location.

This is to certify that

i The thesis comprises only my original work towards the Master of Arts by Research

except where indicated in the preface,

ii Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used,

iii The thesis is less than 50 000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps,

bibliographies and appendices.

Signed

Acknowledgements

Without the friendship, support, guidance and generosity of many people from the

different facets of my life, this thesis would not have been possible. I am most

grateful to the young people involved in this research, my supportive supervisors,

work colleagues and my dear, long-‐neglected friends.

Thank you to the numerous young people who have allowed me to enter their lives

and worlds, to travel with them through good times and bad. Many of these young

people continue to inspire me with their deft ability to overcome what at first

appear to be insurmountable challenges. Others I have been blessed to know while

they roamed these earthly planes. The work presented here would not have

occurred without the doors you opened. Thank you for your generosity, the

inspiration and the education I have received under your tutorage. My life and this

thesis (and hopefully the wider public discourse) have been enriched by your

contributions.

Within another realm, academia, I am indebted to Dr Kalissa Alexeyeff for making

this experience significantly less awkward and daunting because of her patience,

guidance, good humour and practical tips – all most crucial as I crawled over the

submission line. Much gratitude needs also to be extended to Dr Juliet Rogers for her

encouragement and receptive ear to my occasional ranting, and to Dr Millsom

Henry-‐Waring for taking me on as a student in the first instance.

There are also several organisations and their staff that assisted me to connect with

young people, which might not have otherwise been possible, including Fatima at

Victorian Arabic Social Services and Dyanne at the Committee of the Western Young

People Independent Network. My current employers also deserve praise for

graciously accommodating my absences during the final stages of my studies.

Finally, those friends who still remain after the epic journey and the obsession that it

involved warrant praise. You know who you are, as do those who have faded into

the background along this path. I continue to miss you and will soon return to the

corridors of your life having appreciated your enduring faith during my academic,

professional and personal challenges. I hope to become reacquainted with you now

that this chapter is closed as I will no longer have to juggle what I never quite

managed – a suitable balance of work, study and life.

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WEST .............................................. 1

YOUNG WESTIES ......................................................................................................... 6

RESEARCH DESIGN....................................................................................................... 7

METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................ 8

AIM AND STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS .................................................................................... 16

CHAPTER 1 ‘AT RISK’, ‘DISENGAGED’ AND NEGATIVE REPRESENTATIONS: PUBLIC

POLICY AND ACADEMIC LIMITATIONS...................................................................18

YOUNG PEOPLE: IN CRISIS AND AT RISK ............................................................................19

STRUCTURAL APPROACHES TO YOUNG PEOPLE: THE YOUTH TRANSITIONS DISCOURSE ...................24

SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION...........................................................................................28

FEMINIST AND CRITICAL STUDIES ....................................................................................29

YOUTH CULTURAL STUDIES: A WHITEWASH .......................................................................32

VISIBLY DIFFERENT YOUNG PEOPLE: NEGATIVE REPRESENTATIONS ...........................................33

VISIBLY DIFFERENT YOUNG PEOPLE AND IDENTITY: HYBRID IDENTITIES.......................................... 34

THE NEW: UNHINGING HOMOGENOUS CATEGORIES................................................................. 36

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................38

CHAPTER 2 SCHOOLING: RESISTANCE, WITHDRAWAL AND HOPE..........................40

SCHOOLS AND STUDENTS IN THE WEST.............................................................................41

‘TROUBLEMAKERS’.....................................................................................................44

‘IT’S REALLY HARD’.....................................................................................................48

‘WHAT CAN I DO?’.....................................................................................................51

WHITE FRUSTRATIONS.................................................................................................55

‘BUT THEN I WENT TO SCHOOL … AND THEN IT STARTED TO GET BETTER’ ..................................57

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................58

CHAPTER 3 EMPLOYMENT: STRATEGIES FOR NAVIGATING UNEQUAL TERRAIN.....61

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT IN THE WEST: ‘I KNEW THAT THIS WAS HAPPENING TO OTHER PEOPLE’ .........62

‘YOU DON’T HAVE EXPERIENCE, YOU DON’T HAVE EXPERIENCE, YOU DON’T HAVE EXPERIENCE’.......64

‘I’VE ALWAYS GOT THE JOB’ ..........................................................................................67

‘YEAH THAT’S WHY I DON’T WANT TO GET A JOB! ... I WOULDN’T WANT TO CHOOSE’ ..................69

‘NOT UNLESS YOU LOOKED LIKE A TYPICAL AUSSIE GIRL’ .......................................................72

‘THEY’RE TRYING … TO GET US READY FOR WHEN WE GET MARRIED’ .......................................75

‘ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU ARE…’......................................................................................77

‘I DIDN’T SEE ANYONE WHO WASN’T WHITE’ .....................................................................79

‘WE GET THE HIGH-‐PAID JOBS’ ......................................................................................81

‘THE EAST SIDE IS MORE HIGH CLASS’...............................................................................82

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................84

CHAPTER 4 GEOGRAPHIES OF EXCLUSION .............................................................85

‘LARA BINGLE IS WHAT IS AUSTRALIAN’ ...........................................................................86

WHITE MULTICULTURALISM IN THE WEST .........................................................................90

EMBODIED DIFFERENCE, PRACTICAL NATIONALITY ...............................................................93

SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIES: SPACES OF EXCLUSION ....................................................................95

INTERNAL BOUNDARIES: ‘BUMS’ AND ‘BOGANS’.................................................................97

MULTICULTURAL BELONGINGS.....................................................................................100

CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................102

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION ..........................................................................104

YOUNG PEOPLE IN 2012............................................................................................106

EDUCATION: GENDER AND CLASS INEQUALITIES................................................................109

STRUCTURAL FORCES IN THE LABOUR MARKET .................................................................113

THE FUTURE ...........................................................................................................120

BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................122

APPENDIX ...........................................................................................................133

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Introduction: social geography of the west

‘West side’ stories: visible difference, gender, class and young people contains stories from the

culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. In

it, young people share their experiences at school, looking for work and with people from

different backgrounds. 1 In doing so, they illustrate the messy and complicated business of

negotiating visible difference, gender and class in their everyday lives. Visible difference in the

Australian context refers to non-‐Anglo-‐Saxon people (See: Colic-‐ Peisker and Tilbury, 2007,

Henry-‐Waring, 2007). The intersection of these three social categories is examined through the

lives of a group of individuals externally labelled ‘at risk’, ‘early school leavers’ and

‘disengaged’.2

This study was conducted during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)3 – a very difficult time for all

jobseekers, but particularly young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. During this time I

was employed as a youth worker supporting disengaged young people in the west to

‘reconnect’ to education, training and employment. My experience influenced the study into

the lives of young people presented here. Disengaged is a term used by governments and policy

writers to refer to young people who are not engaged in education and training or who are

unemployed (See for instance: Department of Education, 2012a, Beck, 2010, Burns et al., 2008).

In focusing on what young people are not doing, this term prioritises these activities above all

others, and has the effect of limiting a young person’s worth to their participation in these

1 The term ‘young people’ is used in this thesis rather than ‘youth’ as the latter speaks of a homogenous social category and a biological stage that do not exist. Furthermore, conceptually this thesis seeks to distance itself from youth as a category and from youth development approaches that typically produce an ethnocentric, masculine and class bias within youth studies (See: Wyn & White (1997); Lesko (2001); Nayak (2003); Harris (2004)). 2 Early school leaver refers to individuals who leave formal education before the completion of Year 12, and the term at risk refers to those individuals who are considered likely to leave school before Year 12. 3 The Global Financial Crisis began in 2008 and continues today with economies in Europe and North America still in recession.

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spheres. The use of this terminology in public policy and the public arena has the effect of

representing young people as ‘social and economic problems’ (Mc Leod and Allard, 2007).

In my youth worker role I worked alongside some inspirational young people, accompanying

them to Centrelink and to their first day back at school or their first job interview. I also spent a

lot of time building rapport with young people, and visiting parks, pool halls, family homes and

the beach, as much as I spent time advocating for better services and new opportunities. The

young people with whom I had contact had become marginalised from their families, schools,

employers and the wider community, and it was their personal circumstances that led them to

be labelled as disengaged, at risk and early school leavers. Some succeeded against the odds to

rise triumphantly from torn social fabric; others found different means to enrich their lives with

meaning. In the process, the young people in the west taught me a great deal about their ability

to name power structures and to operate within these so as to survive and overcome social

inequalities.

The experiences of young people in Melbourne’s decaying industrial hinterland– the ‘west side’

are presented in this thesis. In this landscape, the manual and factory jobs that once provided

the residents of suburbs such as Footscray, Sunshine and Laverton with a wage have steadily

declined. Its industrial history has brought to the west high levels of social disadvantage and

cultural diversity. The economic adversity is apparent in not only the dilapidated houses from

bygone eras that would be renovated in more affluent suburbs, but also the vacant industrial

land nestling up alongside these residential zones. Trucks congest the main roads and freight

trains rattle throughout the suburbs day and night, reminding residents that they live in the

transport and logistics hub of Melbourne. While the inner suburbs of Footscray, Seddon and

Yarraville have been discovered by hipsters and property developers, their expensive tastes

often rubs uneasily alongside those who frequent Footscray to access crisis services and

residents whose fashion palette borrows more from the mass-‐produced lines of Kmart and Big

W than from boutique designers.

3

When travelling to Footscray (often described as the gateway to the west), one sees a

magnificent gold Buddhist statue shimmering brightly, rising from the banks of the brown and

murky Maribyrnong River. The land around the river and the west is the traditional land of the

Kulin Nation. 4Today, the Heavenly Queen and the adjacent temple Mazu look westward, built

with funds raised by Chinese Buddhists here and abroad. A commanding presence, the Queen

pays homage to the strong South-‐East Asian population that made first Footscray, then later

Braybrook, Sunshine and St Albans, its home following the end of the White Australia policy in

the 1950s. The Queen and the temple are built on former factory land, used generations ago for

a glue factory and a tannery. The Queen’s arrival to the river is synonymous with the cultural

and religious diversity that characterises the west, while also symbolising the area’s history of

providing working-‐class employment opportunities to migrant communities (For instance see:

Pardy in Long et al., 2005, Pardy, 2009).

In this thesis, the west makes reference to the suburbs that fall within the six local government

areas (LGAs) that constitute western metropolitan Melbourne: Maribyrnong, Moonee Valley,

Wyndham, Hobsons Bay, Brimbank and Melton. The west is a patchwork of diversity home to

people of different socioeconomic and cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The multi-‐million

dollar postcode of Williamstown that white-‐collar professionals call home shares a border with

disadvantaged Laverton. The large and regal colonial era homes of Essendon contrast with the

high concentrations of public housing towers that puncture the skyline of North Kensington and

Flemington. Here, the inner west – including Footscray, Flemington and Yarraville – have or are

rapidly gentrifying. Out further, the young suburbs of Tarneit, Point Cook and the older Caroline

4 Kulin nation is a collective reference to the different Aboriginal clan groups that owned Port Phillip, an area of Melbourne prior to colonisation. The five different clans that lived in this region shared language from the Woiwurrung group and were understood to form a ‘nation’ of people referred to as Koori’s which is a self-‐identifying term from a local language. ‘Kulin’ translates from Indigenous language to human beings.

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Springs sit on the fringe of Melbourne, where ‘McMansions’ dominate growth corridors that

provide young professionals with access to the great Australian dream of home ownership.

Rapid suburban growth is replacing former farmland as new residential developments replace

paddocks and joining up the inner and outer suburbs. The gentrification of the inner west is

also transforming the outer regions. As the inner suburbs have increasingly become home to

middle-‐class professionals and young families there has been an exodus of working-‐class Anglo-‐

Saxon families and newly arrived migrants who can no longer afford to live in these areas.

Melbourne’s real estate boom is having a ripple effect, transforming the formerly majority

white outer suburbs of Werribee and Melton into ‘multicultural’ communities. This is seeing

young people and their families who are experiencing disadvantage relocate to poorly serviced

areas where infrastructure has not yet caught up with the population boom or where service

providers are unprepared to cater for the needs of newly arrived refugees, leaving them more

isolated and dislocated.

The west is the most culturally and linguistically diverse area in Victoria, having been home to

waves of migrants and refugees since the end of World War II. Initially, this settlement was by

people arriving from Eastern and Western Europe, and later by visibly different migrants from

South-‐East Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands and Africa. Approximately one third of its

residents were not born in Australia and one third speak a language other than English at home

(Department of Human Services, 2000: 16 -‐ 17). The diversity, often described as ‘cultural

vibrancy’ by state and local governments is evident in Footscray, where much of this research

was conducted. Here there is a proliferation of restaurants and specialty stores trading in

clothing, groceries and other items that migrants and their descendants seek out as they make

Melbourne their own. The strong Vietnamese presence is evident along Hopkins and Droop

Streets and the bustling Little Saigon Market. On the other side of Footscray, from Victoria

University’s Nicholson Street campus through to Irving Street, is an abundance of Ethiopian,

Somali and Southern Sudanese shops, restaurants and clothing stores as well as money transfer

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businesses. And in the middle of these two shopping precincts is the Nicholson Street mall.

Here many Anglo-‐Saxon and Vietnamese Australians, often heroin users or recovering addicts,

access local chemists that offer methadone programs or seek out the heroin dealers who are

both elusive and visible, move throughout the area during daylight hours.

More recent arrivals are the Indian international students and skilled migrants, whose presence

is reflected in the small Indian-‐owned businesses sprinkled throughout the Footscray central

business district. Indian restaurants and grocery stores are now found selling homemade

paneer and cheap tahlias. Almost weekly, a new café opens in this area, catering to the new

residents with higher disposable incomes. Both the colour and social inequality that sit on the

surface in Footscray are markedly absent in the neighbouring suburbs of Seddon and Yarraville.

In these spaces I am continually struck by the contrasting affluence, apparent in the

proliferation of boutique clothing and home ware stores, cafés and wine bars where Anglo-‐

Saxon Australians sip lattés and glasses of wine. Yarraville is an area I often hear residents of

the west describe as not like ‘the west’ at all.

Statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics illustrate the disadvantage that dimples the

western suburbs. The Index of Relative Socio Economic Disadvantage (IRESD) that identifies

areas of disadvantage in the 79 LGAs of Victoria demonstrates this divide in the west.5 IRESD

data comprises information on low incomes, low educational attainment, high unemployment

and employment in unskilled occupations. In 2011 IRESD data ranked Brimbank LGA, which

includes the suburbs of Sunshine and St Albans, the third most disadvantaged LGA in Victoria.

Maribyrnong, comprising Footscray and Braybrook, rose from the seventh most disadvantaged

LGA in 2009 to the 24th in 2011. In contrast, Melton, home to Caroline Springs, in 2011 was

ranked 50th and Melbourne, which includes Kensington and North Melbourne, is 70th in Victoria

(ABS, 2009: ABS 2011).

6

The wealth of suburb such as Williamstown in Hobsons Bay, which is ranked 49th masks the

disadvantage experienced by people living in clusters of public housing in the neighbouring

suburbs of Laverton and Altona North. Similarly, the affluence of Essendon and Moonee Ponds,

both suburbs of Moonee Valley, distorts the IRESD of this LGA which is ranked 60th which is also

includes the suburbs of Flemington and Ascot Vale – both of which have large proportions of

public housing, and are therefore home to some of Melbourne’s most socially vulnerable

residents (ABS, 2011). The IRESD statistics testifies to the concentrated disadvantage that some

young people in the west are born or move into, and in which they operate and navigate daily

life as they grow up. They amount to structural and material disadvantage, and thus a lack of

opportunity, for many of its young residents.

Young westies

Young people in the west often strongly identify with the region, naming themselves ‘westies’

or describing themselves as from the ‘west side’. As the statistics mentioned above suggest,

young people in this region are likely to come from socioeconomically disadvantaged families

and to occupy a space outside the dominant Anglo-‐Saxon community because of their cultural

and linguistic background. According to the 2006 Census data, 39.3 per cent of young people in

the west have two parents for whom English is not their first language, in comparison to the

state average of 21.9 per cent and the metropolitan Melbourne average of 29.3 per cent. In

addition, 36.4 per cent of young people in the west come from single-‐parent families,

compared with 19.4 per cent at the state level and 26.5 per cent for the metropolitan

Melbourne average (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2011: 74).

In 2009, 77 per cent of young people in the west completed Year 12 or an equivalent, in

comparison to the metropolitan region average of 82.2 per cent. They are also more likely to

come from families with low levels of educational attainment and success: 18.6 per cent come

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from two-‐parent families and 45.2 per cent from single-‐parent families that have a Year 12 or

equivalent qualification (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2011:

71). Young people in the west are also more likely to come from a home where a parent is

unemployed. This is particularly the case for single-‐parent households, where 36 per cent are

unemployed; while 23.6 per cent of two-‐parent households have a parent who is experiencing

unemployment (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2011: 71).

As this thesis will reveal, many young people carry the burden of intergenerational

disadvantage which permeates their educational and employment trajectories. It is against this

backdrop that the young people interviewed in this study must carve out a life for themselves

as they spend time with friends, study, attempt to find work and formulate goals and

aspirations for their future. The narratives of the young participants presented here animate

this disadvantage and show how young people experience and negotiate the multidimensional

disadvantage that encompasses their gender, class location and visible difference.

Research design

Between 2006 and 2009 25 young people (aged 16 to 19) from Melbourne’s western suburbs

participated in the qualitative component of this research project. The participants reflect the

cultural and linguistic diversity of the western suburbs. Some are second-‐ and later-‐generation

Australians of Anglo-‐Saxon, non-‐Anglo-‐Saxon and Aboriginal background. Others are new

arrivals of refugee background or international students.6 Several of the participants were at

risk, early school leavers, disengaged or Tertiary and Further Education (TAFE) students. All of

the young people who feature in this thesis are referred to by pseudonyms.

6 The term ‘new arrival’ is used by Australian Government departments to refer to refugees and migrants who have been in Australia less than five years.

8

Three young men participated: one is Australian born of Anglo-‐Saxon background; another is of

Southern Sudanese background and arrived in Australia as a refugee; and one young man was

an Indian international student who later gained permanent residency under the skilled

migration program. Of the 22 young women involved, 14 were born in Australia and are of

Lebanese descent. Of the remaining young women who were Australian born, two have

combined Aboriginal and Tongan heritage, one has Tongan heritage, and another has combined

Chinese and Vietnamese heritage. Three young women of refugee background participated:

one is Karen (from Burma), another is Southern Sudanese and the third is from Somali. One

young woman who is an international student from Mauritania also participated.

The participants shared stories about school and looking for work, while also talking of

independently raised topics. This generated a rich body of material that has been analysed to

capture the complex ways that young people negotiate visible difference, gender and class as

social categories in their day-‐to-‐day lives.

Methodology

‘Westside’ stories present the views and experiences of a small group of young people from

Melbourne’s western suburbs. While no claims are made to be representative of all young

people experiencing socio-‐economic marginalization the themes to emerge speak to the

broader structural issues that are faced by the individuals interviewed in this thesis. These

included the intersection of gender, race, class and different shades of whiteness. Whilst

Westside stories aims to present the views and experiences of male and females, it was

however difficult to recruit young men for gender specific focus groups. Of the four focus

groups held two were all female and two were mixed in gender. As a result of this, the data

is bias towards young women, thereby problematising the thesis intention to investigate

and speak to the experiences of young people generally. In future research projects the

researcher would seek to address the gender imbalance by implementing a range of gender-‐

specific recruitment strategies to increase the participation of young men.

9

A qualitative research methodology was constructed to place the words, thoughts and

experiences of young people at the centre of the analysis. It draws on the work of feminists

who have utilised focus groups and individual interviews to capture the lived experience of

vulnerable groups, including young people (Wolf, 1996, Sosulsk et al., 2012).

The analysis of stories and narratives was favoured as qualitative techniques because it allows

participants to describe how ‘race’ (what I term ‘visible difference’), racism and racialisation

impact upon their social encounters (Fernández, 2002: 48).7 Such stories act as powerful

counter-‐narratives to a discourse that seeks to deny the continued salience of ‘race’ and

ethnicity as social categories (Delgado, 1989: 2413). In addition, this type of data challenges

homogenous and fixed representations of social categories by illustrating the ways that

whiteness and visible difference operate in conjunction with other social divisions, including

gender and class (hooks in Back and Solomos, 2000: 17, Parker and Lynn, 2002, Valentine, 2007:

10, Tuhiwai-‐ Smith, 2008: 45).

The description ‘visibly different’ is used in this thesis to refer to people who are not of Anglo-‐

Saxon background. This term acknowledges that visibility matters because whiteness continues

to be the dominant means by which Australia’s nationality is conceptualised in the public arena,

and this is embedded within its institutions (Hage, 2000, Hage, 2003, Moreton-‐Robinson, 2004).

Within this dominant narrative, Australians are thought of as white and visibly different people

7 ‘Race’ is used here to refer to socially constructed social categories, the meaning of which is historically, geographically and socially bound. The term is cited herein with inverted commas to acknowledge the continued salience of this term. Racialisation refers to the process of creating a ‘race’ of people and when ‘complex social phenomena are refracted through and become explained primarily in terms of ethnic and racial categories’ DELGADO, R. & STEFANCIC, J. 2001. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, New York, New York University Press, POYNTING, S., NOBLE, G., TABAR, P. & COLLINS, J. 2004. Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other, Sydney, The Sydney Institute of Criminology.

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are seen as the Other. Non-‐Anglo-‐Saxons’ visibility marks them as different – a trend that

persists despite the Australian Government’s official multicultural policy. By focusing on visible

difference, this thesis acknowledges the complex social processes that produce social

categories and identities, including ‘race’, ethnicity and nationality.

Qualitative data therefore enables this study to capture the ways in which the visible

‘rearticulates’ sexism and the role that other divisions such as class play in the constructing of

femininity and masculinity (Dieckhoff, 2004, Gaganakis, 2006, Harris, 2004b, hooks, 1984,

McRobbie, 2000, McRobbie, 2007, Parker and Lynn, 2002, Reynolds, 2006, Shain, 2003, Yuval-‐

Davis, 2006). By exploring the intersection between social differences, this thesis is able to

contest ‘youth’ and ‘young people’ as fixed and monolithic categories, while also illustrating

how the research participants negotiate within these categories.

The focus on the 16 to 19 year old age range reflects constraints imposed by the ethics

committee at University of Melbourne, who accepted that 16 year olds could participate in

the research without the consent of their parents. The minimum age of participants was

also informed by researcher view that it was critical for potential participants be mature

enough to participate without the consent of their parents.

The researcher considered it crucial that research participants be able to be involved in this

research project without their parents consent because she had previously experiened

difficulties in relation to this issue. The issue of securing parental consent was particulalry

pertinent for young people with a history of disengagement who often have complicated or

fractured relationships with their parents. Often conflict in families has contributed to

young people becoming disengaged, or sometimes it is the behavior of the adolescent that

causes conflict with their parent, that may then lead to other issues such as disengagement

or homelessness. Requiring parental consent would have acted as a major impediment,

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potentially preventing the voices of marginalized young people, who were specifically being

sought for this project, being heard from.

The term young people or “youth” is problematised in the literature review. Typically these

terms make reference to a category of people, bound together on the basis of age,

encompassing the period between childhood and adulthood (Jones 2009: 1). There is however

no fixed or universally agreed upon age at which “youth” starts and ends (White and Wyn 1997:

1; Harris 2004: 9; Mizen 2004: 8; Jones 2009: 10). Often when the term young people is used in

policy circles it encompasses individuals aged 13, an age associated with adolescence and ends

at twenty-‐five. The extension of the term to include those in their early to mid-‐twenties is a

relatively recent phenomena and reflects the extended period that young people in Western

societies spend in education and training in preparation for employment. The social

ramifications of this have been well examined in the youth transitions discourse (see Wyn and

White 1997 for instance).

The data analysis in this thesis was guided by grounded theory – an inductive method that

involves generating and analysing data simultaneously (Martin and Turner, 1986). Such a

technique facilitated the continual and systematic comparison of the words of, actions of and

exchanges between the research participants (and the researcher) to identify similarities and

differences in their narratives. This enabled the research to be driven by the themes and issues

that emerged throughout the fieldwork rather than in response to a hypothesis.

A narrative focused, constructivist model of grounded theory informed the methodology of

Westside Stories. As Kathy Charmaz (2003: 250 in Denzin & Lincolin) states, this model of

grounded theory model recognises ‘the relativism of multiple social realities’ and ‘the mutual

creation of knowledge by the viewer and viewed’. As this grounded theory model allowed this

study to move towards ‘interpretive’ and ‘multiple’ understandings of young people

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perspectives and experiences it was favoured over classical grounded theory. In addition,

constructivist grounded theory was utilised as it gives voice to research participants

(Breckenridge, 2012). In contrast, the use of classical grounded theory would have elevated

young people’s experiences to a conceptual level rather than being examined for descriptive

and interpretative perspective.

The notion of ‘everyday multiculturalism’ is also used in this thesis to understand the everyday

practices young people adopt to negotiate cultural difference. This type of analysis looks to the

ordinary lives of young people, how they encounter people from different backgrounds, and

how they blur, encounter, negotiate, and recognise differences (Harris, 2009: 188). Insofar as it

captures the dynamics of social life, this method is being advocated as a means to develop new

directions for research on visibly different young people (Butcher and Harris, 2010, Collins et

al., 2011, Harris, 2009, Moran, 2011, Noble and Poynting, 2010). In addition, this method is also

specifically useful for studies concerning young people as it ‘gives descriptive and explanatory

priority to sites and literacies such as everyday neighbourhoods, locales, vernacular expressions

and popular culture’ – all of which are part of young people’s habitus8 (Harris, 2009: 193).

Two different data collection methods were utilised to generate two distinct types of

qualitative data. Focus groups were held to provide the researcher with an opportunity to

observe interactions between participants as they responded to topics and how social

differences emerged in a group context (Howarth, 2002: 246, Tonkiss in Seale, 2004: 194). In

contrast, the second method used – individual interviews – generated more in-‐depth

information about the participants. It also allowed the participants to provide detailed and

lengthy responses to questions (Schwandt, 2001: 135).

8 Habitus is a term developed by Bourdieu to refer to the lifestyles, values, culture that are evident in the body, practices, styles and forms of knowledge individual and particular groups (see Bourdieu, 1990).

13

A well-‐established limitation of focus groups is the tendency for one or two individuals to

dominate the discussion (Sagoe 2012: 7). This was certainly the case in the focus group with the

young women of Lebanese background, which meant the researcher draw upon the comments

of two and three young women more than the other participants. Whilst the researcher made

efforts to draw discussion from the quieter participants, they appeared shy and to lack the

confidence to share their views.

The three other focus groups (two with young people of mixed backgrounds, one of Pacific

Island background) were smaller in size with were three or four participants present. The small

size made it possible for the researcher, who was facilitating to encourage each participant to

share his or her views, although this was not always possible. Achol for instance shared very

little despite being individually being asked her opinion or about her experiences. The individual

interviews with Jacob and Joyce also provided rich data that was not matched by material

generated in focus groups. For this reason, their views and experiences were used widely.

Each young participant was each asked a series of questions about how they self-‐identified, e.g.

their cultural, religious, ethnic and or ‘racial’ background, about their educational levels and

their career aspirations. The same questions were asked of their parents as to provide some

insight into their socio-‐economic background. Following this the young participants were asked

a set of questions structured around three themes. These themes were visible difference and

national identity, experiences at school and experiences of looking for work. Whilst the

researcher had a set of fixed questions the participants often redirected the discussion outside

these topics. All the data collected was analysed, including material outside the initial research

scope as independently raised topics were thought to offer insight into young people’s

interests, concerns and their understanding of the world around them.

14

A distinguishing feature of the fieldwork activities was the use of visual aids at the beginning of

each session. Young people were shown a collection of images to introduce them to the

research topic and to create a space where they felt safe to talk about visible difference. It was

anticipated the visual tools would establish a foundation for the participants to freely discuss

the perceived role that social differences played in their experiences at school and looking for

work. The images were selected by the researcher and consisted of photos of Australians of

Aboriginal, Anglo-‐Saxon, Pacific Island and Arab appearance, some of whom are public figures.9

The use of visual aids elicited descriptive terms and references to phenotypic markers and

discussion on the perceived relationship between visible difference and other social divisions.

This method was employed as an inclusive strategy to counter research techniques that

typically favour the ‘literacy and verbalization skills’ held by ‘educated and middle-‐class

children’ from ‘monolingual societies’ (Hoerder et al., 2005:28, Young and Barrett, 2001: 389).

Following this exercise the participants were asked questions including “how would you

describe your experiences at school/looking for work?” “Do you think you have been

treated differently at school/when looking for work?” Other questions included “what are

some of the challenges or good things about school/looking for work?” “Do you feel like you

belong?” “Where do you feel like you do/do not belong?”

The qualitative data was analysed to identify recurring themes in the words and expressions

used by young people to describe and discuss differences as well as the subjects nominated

for discussion. The themes to emerge also reflected issues I was observing as a youth

worker in the west. Analysis of the data was driven by themes that emerged in the focus

groups and those presented reflect topics that young people preferred to discuss. Such

topics included negotiating social differences in their everyday lives, operating against

9 To view images used see appendix i

15

stereotypes of the western suburbs, theme prominent across ‘white’, visibly different, newly

arrived or Australian born research participants.

The personal and professional networks of the researcher were utilised to recruit young people

for this research project, with her ‘youth worker’ identity facilitating the majority of contact

with participants. Young people known to the researcher then acted as ‘inside’ informers,

assisting with the recruitment of their peers (Young and Barrett, 2001: 394). Recruiting young

people to participate in the project was particularly challenging. For each focus group

successfully convened, three other sessions did not proceed. The difficulty in recruiting

participants can in part be attributed to the disengaged status of the young people targeted for

the study, as they are frequently transient or experiencing problems in their lives. This made it

more difficult for the researcher to secure their participation.

It was also particularly difficult to locate and speak to young people of Anglo-‐Saxon

background. These young people were far more elusive than the newly arrived young people

and the young women of Tongan and/or Aboriginal background. I suspect this is because many

young people of Anglo-‐Saxon background in the west experience intergenerational

disadvantage and that is has lead they and their families to withdraw from support services

because they consider them ineffectual, have little faith in them or have had negative dealings

with state institutions such as Victoria Police and or Child Protection. This means that they do

not trust the agencies that are often responsible for criminalising social problems. In contrast,

new arrivals tend to be eager for assistance to learn about the ‘systems’ and to direct their

hopeful energy towards building a new life for themselves. In this regard, the conduct of both

new arrivals and young Anglo-‐Saxon people experiencing intergenerational disadvantage

represents different coping strategies.

16

Undertaking this study was possible because several young people involved had a pre-‐existing

level in trust in the researcher because of her youth worker identity. The relationship between

the young people and researcher meant the researcher had responsibility to remain open to

their lives, views and worldviews. As someone who was working with young people

experiencing multiple and intersecting levels of social disadvantage, the researcher was

conscientious that many were on already on relatively pre-‐determined trajectories. Throughout

this thesis and the researchers work with young people it was recognize that whilst it was not

possible to change the structural forces that restricted the possibilities available them (but they

could be alerted to these) they could be assisted to negotiate the systems that might otherwise

have left them bewildered. Being present and acknowledging the injustices many young people

face was just as important as to them as it was for the researcher.

Aim and structure of the thesis

The quotes and narratives presented in this thesis reflect the dominant themes that emerged

over the course of the research. The impetus for this thesis came from my work as a youth

worker and my subsequent dissatisfaction with the dominant ways in which young people are

discussed and managed as at risk and disengaged. I argue that, far from being disengaged,

young people in Melbourne’s western suburbs are actively engaged in reading the power

structures that influence their lives, and that they have developed a range of strategies to

operate within and against these classed, ‘raced’ and gendered structures. I argue for young

people to be recognised as competent and astute social actors, who have much to reveal about

the way power operates and the strategies people use to live with social inequality.

Chapter 1, ‘At risk’, ‘disengaged’ and negative representations: public policy and academic

limitations, is partly a literature review in relation to how young people are represented in

academic writing and partly an exploration of how they are framed within public policy. The

three subsequent chapters all present the narratives of young people, and work together to

convey young people’s perspectives on school and the labour market (as jobseekers), and to

17

depict them as competent cultural actors who negotiate social categories in their everyday

lives. Chapter 2, Schooling: resistance, withdrawal and hope considers young people’s

experiences at school. In this chapter, the young participants’ perspectives on school

personalise the difficulties that accompany multidimensional disadvantage and reveal the

strategies they use to operate against the stereotypes imposed upon them by fellow students

and teachers.

In Chapter 3, Employment: strategies for navigating unequal terrain, young people’s

experiences of looking for work are examined. A bleak picture emerges of how they are

disadvantaged in the current labour market, not only because of their age but also because the

intersection of gender, visible difference and class marks them out as unattractive to

employers. These young people describe the labour market as being class stratified and

racialised; there are some places where white people work and others where visibly different

people can secure work. Chapter 4, Geographies of exclusion, considers how young people in

the west negotiate their lives under the dominant field of whiteness and explores the strategies

they utilise to decentre this. The conclusion chapter contains a discussion of several of the key

findings of this study and outlines some of the major challenges faced by all young Australian’s.

This serves to contextualize a consideration of how several of the research participants have

faired in the current political and economic climate.

The data analysis chapters and the thesis as a whole demonstrate how young people struggle

under the weight of accumulated layers of disadvantage. I argue throughout that young people

have agency (that is, the ability to act) and have developed a range of strategies to live with

social inequality. However, structural forces including visible difference, gender and class

continue to shape their social realities, and narrow their choices and opportunities. In doing so,

this study demonstrates that ‘youth’ is not a homogenous category; rather, social differences

permeate the experiences of young people, giving them very distinct experiences of growing

up.

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Chapter 1 ‘At risk’, ‘disengaged’ and negative representations: public policy and academic limitations

In this chapter I argue that there has been a key shift in social policy directed towards young

people that reflects widespread assumptions based on neoliberal ideals of individual

responsibility (Bulbeck, 2012, Harris, 2004b, Jones, 2009). Despite the continuance of social

stratification, visible difference, gender and class are obscured by individualisation processes,

resulting in the representation of disadvantaged young people as ‘at risk’. Similarly, the

labelling of those young people not participating in education, training and employment as

‘early school leavers’ and ‘disengaged’ leads to the conversion of social problems into individual

problems. Public policy decisions flowing on from these neoliberal assumptions reframe the

structurally disadvantaged positions that many young people in Melbourne’s western suburbs

hold as ‘risks’ that they must manage.

The literature review conducted for this study reflects my journey to find academic work that

has captured what I was observing as I supported early school leavers, at risk and disengaged

young people. In particular it has a focus on young people experiencing social inequality and

visibly different young people as this reflects the demographics of the west, the young people I

was working with and also therefore the research participants. It commenced by examining

youth studies, a discipline that incorporates a number of approaches to considering young

people including youth transitions. The review began with youth transitions as its consideration

of young people’s journey from school into further education and training or employment

because it mirrored the space I was working in as a case manager assisting young people to

reconnect with education, training and employment. However, as this chapter will outline,

dissatisfied with the prevalent discourse within youth studies, I ventured into the sociology of

education where the intersection of visible difference, gender and class is rigorously

considered. Then, as I wondered where the activities of young people who are outside the

school system were being considered, I read widely within the youth cultural and sub-‐cultural

19

studies discourse. Here, I found that the lived experiences of young people received greater

attention, as did their agency – both of which proved helpful to my own study.

During this journey I became increasingly aware of the conceptual limitations within youth

studies. I consequently turned to feminist and critical studies to consider how visible difference,

gender and class intersect. In particular, the contributions of critical feminists and critical

whiteness theorists provided the conceptual tools necessary to capture and present the

perspectives of the young people from Melbourne’s west side in my own research. The

multidisciplinary literature thus informs my critique of neoliberalisms influence on public policy

on young Australians experiencing social inequality. This chapter first considers public policy on

young Australians who experience disadvantage. It then outlines the limits of youth studies in

adequately accounting for the lives of visibly different young people and those experiencing

disadvantage. To conclude, some of the more recent and positive theoretical developments on

visibly different young people within the academic arena are considered.

Young people: in crisis and at risk

Young people occupy an ambivalent position in the public arena as they are presented as

‘perpetually in crisis’, ‘troubled’, at risk or delinquent (Best, 2007: 17, Nayak, 2003: 172). Fears

about the declining state of capitalist societies are projected onto particular groups of young

people who are portrayed as a threat to the fabric of the wider society. Their troubling

behaviour is often cited as evidence of the decline of social and moral standards (Lesko, 2001:

2, Mizen, 2004: xiii, Nilan et al., 2007: 141, White and Wyn, 1997). Such fear often manifests as

a form of moral panic apparent in the media’s preoccupation with young people, particularly in

relation to violence, drug and alcohol misuse and sexual promiscuity (Back, 1996, Cohen, 1997a,

Jones, 2009: 59).10 In addition to these negative stereotypes of young people, worries about the

10 The term ‘moral panic’, developed by Stanley Cohen in Folk Devils and Moral Panic (1972), has repeatedly been applied to consider how young people, in particular young men, are presented as a threat to the social order. See

20

erosion of white hegemony due to globalisation are transposed onto those who are visibly

different from the white majority (Alexander, 2000, Alexander, 1996, Alexander and Knowles,

2005, Back, 1996, Harris, 2009).

In the 1980s and 1990s key theoretical developments occurring outside youth studies

influenced how ‘youth’ as a life stage came to be conceptualised as a period of transition into

adulthood. The decline in employment for young people as industrial societies became de-‐

industrialised resulted in this stage of life becoming associated with increased uncertainty and

risk. In addition, at this particular historical juncture the individual came to be seen as more

responsible for their own future as Beck’s notion of the risk society gained popularity within

public policy (Jones, 2009: 85). He suggested that the established structures of reproduction in

society (such as gender and class) had been eroded and that the decay of traditional institutions

(such as fixed gender roles and nuclear families) meant that individual social roles were no

longer clear. The certainty of moving from school to work, which solidified a young person’s

transition into adulthood, became far less available. Young people, free of these structures,

have thus increasingly been made responsible for their own life chances, which they are

expected to create by making a series of choices (Bulbeck, 2012: 23 -‐ 25).

The need to improve the transition for young people from education into the workforce has

assumed greater importance for governments in light of the decline of the youth labour market

and subsequent insecure pathways to employment (Dwyer and Wyn, 2001: 22, Harris, 2004b:

22). In response, governments (and society) have come to expect young people to spend longer

periods in education and training in preparation for the workforce (Nilan et al., 2007: 8). The

changes to the economies of post-‐industrial countries and the subsequent public policy

responses have led to the emergence of the terms ‘at risk’, ‘early school leavers’ and

for example Collins, J., Noble, G., Poynting S., Tabar, P (2000) Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime: Youth, Ethnicity and Crime, and Hall, S & Jefferson, T (Eds) (1967) Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-‐war Britain.

21

‘disengaged’ to refer to individuals who leave school before completing their final year – Year

12 (Taylor, 2009: 2, McDowell, 2003: 2).

An example of how the idea of the risk society has permeated governmental policy is apparent

in Australian state and federal government moves to increase the minimum level of education

for all young people. In 2010, the then Labor Victorian Government set a target to have 90 per

cent of all young people complete Year 12 or an equivalent (a Certificate II obtained as part of a

Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning [VCAL] or from a vocational training provider).11 In

2009, the federal government under Kevin Rudd similarly set the goal of increasing high school

completion retention (meaning Year 12 completion rates) to 90 per cent by 2020. Both of these

policies are presented as evidence of a governmental commitment to young people rather than

as an expectation of young people. These goals and the resultant policies enacted to achieve

them are premised on the idea that improving young people’s qualifications will protect them

from unemployment, by responding to increased demand for qualified employees. However,

such policies are problematic, not least of all because they position young people as deficient

rather than acknowledging that it is the characteristics of the labour market that cause young

people to be vulnerable to unemployment.

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 crippled European and North American economies and

resulted in dramatic rises in youth unemployment. Some economies were hit harder by the

GFC. Australia’s economy emerged from the crisis relatively unscathed due to its reliance upon

mining industries and its strong links to the emerging economies of Asia. Factors such as these

sheltered the Australian economy from the issues being experienced in Europe and North

America.

11 VCAL is commonly described as a ‘hands-‐on’ option for students to complete Year 11 and 12 as an alternative to the Victorian Certificate of Education. It comprises practical work experience, work-‐related competencies, literacy and numeracy, and personal skill development units. VCAL is formally recognised as a Year 11 or Year 12 equivalent.

22

In response to emerging issues in Europe the Australian Federal Government released the

Compact with Young Australians (Australian Council of Social Services, 2010). As part of the

Compact, the government implemented legislative changes via the Human Services Centrelink

Act (Centrelink Act) which made it mandatory for young people to remain engaged in full-‐time

education or training until the age of 17 in order to qualify for Youth Allowance or the Family

Tax Benefit. The Compact also specifically targeted young parents in disadvantaged areas by

introducing a special policy that subjects them to the same youth participation requirements as

those imposed on their childless peers. Previously, young parents were exempt from such

participation requirements. At the state level this goal was supported by the Victorian

Government increasing the minimum age at which a young person can legally leave school to

17 (Centrelink, 2012, Department of Education, 2012b). As a result, completing Year 10 became

a mandatory requirement for welfare recipients, enforced through access to Centrelink

payments.

As part of the Australian Government’s mutual obligation framework, the second component of

the Compact focused on increasing the provision of education and training to 15–24 year olds

as a means to strengthen their employment prospects. Just as the government expected young

people to ‘earn or learn’, it had a responsibility to increase the availability of education and

training opportunities for young people. Enhancing opportunities for early school leavers was

particularly important as the changes to the Centrelink Act meant that young people must hold

or be in the process of completing a Certificate II in order to receive welfare payments.

Governments at both levels at this time turned their attention towards disengaged young

people – that is, individuals who are not engaged in education, training or employment. An

example of this is the federally funded Youth Connections program – an initiative that assists

young people at risk of leaving school before completing Year 12 (or an equivalent) and those

who have already disconnected from one of these three domains. The Youth Connections

program uses ‘case management’ and ‘assertive outreach’ to identify and assist young people

23

to address the barriers that contribute to their early departure from school or training

(Department of Education, 2012a).

The Compact led to the emergence of a number of issues for disadvantaged young people and

early school leavers at the practical level. One of the most obvious to someone like myself, who

supports young people to navigate their Centrelink obligations, was the emergence of small

private training providers competing for government funding. As a result of increased funding

for low-‐level vocational training, a crowded privatised education and training market has

emerged, in which poorly delivered and poorly monitored vocational programs are common

place. For instance, it is possible for young (and adult) jobseekers to obtain a diploma in eight

weeks. Often such courses are spread over two to three days per week or may be undertaken

by correspondence. Yet an equivalent course delivered by Victoria University (VU) takes at least

one year part time.

An additional factor that continues to influence the availability of education and training

programs for disengaged young people and early school leavers is the allocation of government

resources towards the provision of training in areas where there are recognised skill shortages.

Most often these shortages are in manual industries and trades (Taylor, 2008). These courses

therefore have a gender bias that favours young men as the majority have traditionally

provided employment for males, including the building and construction and automotive

industries. The few courses that do provide alternative employment pathways for young

women are in children’s services (childcare), business administration and to a lesser extent hair

and beauty. Many of the courses on offer as part of the Compact lead young women into

industries that offer minimal wages and insecure employment options, and are characterised

by casualised and part-‐time workforce participation (Harris, 2004b: 31).

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The GFC continues to impact government spending and public policy. In 2012, a contracting

state economy has been cited by the current Liberal Victorian State Government to rationalise a

$300 million reduction in funding to the Tertiary and Further Education (TAFE) system (Millar,

2012). Concurrent with this government reducing expenditure on educational programs it has

announced a $1 billion commitment to the expansion of Victorian prisons in the western

suburbs. It is difficult to comprehend the logic of removing tangible education and training

opportunities for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as those provided by

VCAL and the TAFE sector, which are known to prevent individuals from entering the justice

system in the first instance (See for example: Wilson, 2007: 11, Richards, 2011: 7).

In the west these cuts are being felt at VU – the largest vocational education provider in the

region – which is reported to have lost $40 million in funding (Millar, 2012). The reduction in

funding has led to the forthcoming closure of one campus (Newport) and the loss of programs

that assist at risk students. Programs that will not be available in 2013 and beyond include

those providing additional teaching support for young people from low socioeconomic

backgrounds, such as those with low literacy levels and those from non-‐English speaking

backgrounds. The funding cuts are predicted to severely reduce the delivery of courses that

enable young people to develop the foundational English necessary to undertake other training

(Cunningham, 2012). The Compact and funding cuts reflect a governmental blindness to

structural variables including gender, class and visible difference have lost their potency

because these policies do not even acknowledge their existence (Colic-‐ Peisker and Tilbury,

2007).

Structural approaches to young people: the youth transitions discourse

The youth transition discourse is typically concerned with young people transitioning to

adulthood. Much attention is paid to their movement into full-‐time or permanent work and the

creation of nuclear families as signifiers of adulthood (Ball et al., 2000, Dwyer and Wyn, 2001,

25

Furlong and Cartmel, 1997, Mizen, 2004, Wyn and Woodman, 2006). Since the 1960s, studies of

school-‐to-‐work transition have increasingly focused on ‘statistical explorations of the

associations between class and gender and access to education and jobs’ (Jones, 2009: 113).

The transition discourse has attempted to resist the dominance of neoliberalism by presenting

evidence that social inequalities continue to be generated by gender, class and visible

difference, and documenting the ways these shape the opportunities available to young people

and the decisions they typically make (See: Andres et al., 1999: 236, Harris, 2004b: 38, Tilleczek,

2011: 20, White and Wyn, 1997: 16). By illuminating the continued existence of structural

inequalities, the youth transition discourse shows how these divisions are masked by neoliberal

policies of individual responsibility.

This statistical analysis and the exposure of neoliberal dominance effectively illustrate how

social differences including visible difference, gender and class are reworked as ‘risk factors’ the

management of which young people are held responsible for in order to make a successful

transition into the workforce (Furlong and Cartmel, 1997, Aapola et al., 2005, Tilleczek, 2011).

Neoliberalism reframes the successes and failures of young people at school and in the labour

market as the product of their attitude to work, individual decision-‐making, and individual

choices (Bulbeck, 2012, Harris, 2004b).

By interrogating the continuing role of visible difference, gender and class in the performance

of young people at school and in the labour market, critical theorists problematise the

existence of a ‘smooth and successful transition’. Instead, they argue that the ideal model is

built upon masculine, white, middle-‐class experiences (Dwyer and Wyn, 2001, Harris, 2004b,

Tilleczek, 2011, White and Wyn, 1997, Miles, 2000). A great cost of this myth is the production

of a binary system whereby young people, including those from Melbourne’s west, who do not

possess this combination of qualities are represented as at risk (Raby in Best, 2007: 42,

Tilleczek, 2011: 4, White and Wyn, 1997: 22). The idea of a ‘smooth’ transition legitimates

26

public policies such as the Compact with Young Australians and the subsequent ‘management’

of young people who are socially disadvantaged.

In addition, neoliberalism expects young people in structurally disadvantaged positions (who

are deemed at risk) to perform the same as a privileged few (Harris, 2004b: 48, McRobbie,

2007: 28). Feminists have demonstrated that the ‘myth’ of a linear pathway into the workforce

results in young women, young people in marginalised socioeconomic positions and those who

are visibly different being measured against the experience of an elite minority (Aapola et al.,

2005, Bettie, 2003, Harris, 2004b, McRobbie, 2007). Such a discourse results in the

pathologisation of the majority of young people as deviant and deficient, rather than

questioning of the legitimacy of the idea of a seamless move from school into work (and thus

adulthood).

As shown here, the structural analysis within the youth transitions discourse has effectively

illuminated the ways in which social differences continue to influence young people’s success at

school and in the workforce. However, by focusing on structural analysis, the transitions

discourse has not adequately examined the complex reasons that lead young people to become

early school leavers or disengaged. Statistics do not acknowledge that individuals may opt out

of an inflexible formal education system that fails to provide them with meaningful or

interesting opportunities to learn or because their local school does not deliver curriculum

content that accommodates their literacy and numeracy levels. The youth transitions discourse

typically stops short of presenting the ‘actual views, experiences, interests and perspectives of

young people’ (Miles, 2000: 10, Smyth et al., 2004: 4). It therefore does not provide the insight

into the actual experience of young people or their own understanding about their situation

that I was seeking.

In addition, the language and the idea of the transitions discourse and the idea of a fixed and

linear transition are limiting: they do not adequately address young people’s agency and

27

effectively transfer complex social and structural problems onto the individual by forcing young

people to carry the stigma of being disengaged and at risk. Fortunately there are signs of hope

with theorists proposing alternative models for studying the complex and non-‐linear ways in

which young people transition into the worlds of work and adulthood (See for example Jones,

2009, Tilleczek, 2011).

A biographical approach is used in Snakes and Ladders: In Defence of Studies of Youth

Transitions (2001) in order to reconcile the division between structural and cultural approaches

to considering young people’s lives. The biographical method integrates these two disciplines

by presenting the experiences, life stories, voices and agency young people whilst also

acknowledging the structural constraints that shape these experiences. In doing so it

demonstrates the complexity and multiplicity of young people’s transitions into the workforce

and adulthood rather than privileging or normalising the idea of a single, linear transition from

school to work and adulthood. Snakes and Ladders represents a positive development within

the transitions discourse.

When the term disengaged is utilised by government and policymakers they are overlooking

the various ways in which such young people are engaged in other activities. For instance, while

young people may not attend school they may take part in a raft of other activities, such as

managing considerable carer responsibilities for a family member/s, having strong friendship

circles, volunteering, or participating in sub-‐cultural groups or sport. All such activities are not

considered productive by governments or mainstream society in general. By overlooking the

different types of activities young people are actually engaged in, the term disengaged neglects

the multidimensional and multifaceted ways in which young people live their lives beyond

education, training and employment. It is often such activities that provide meaningful and

empowering ways for young people to engage with each other and the wider community on

their own terms, in alignment with their own social realities, where they do have social capital

and where their skills and knowledge are valued. The preoccupation with how young people

28

are faring in relation to education, training and employment means that the spaces inhabited

by at risk, disengaged and vulnerable young people, and the activities they are engaged in, are

neglected. A shift towards considering these aspects of disengaged young people’s lives would

offer a more holistic image of all young people.

Sociology of education

Within the sociology of education the intersection of gender, class and visible difference has

been widely considered. Studies in this discipline have proved useful as they explore the

complex relationship between social differences and how this shapes young people’s schooling

experiences. Three themes emerged from the literature review within this discipline

undertaken for this study. First, stereotypical images of visibly different and working-‐class

young people prevail in schools (See for instance Andres et al., 1999, Archer et al., 2003, Ball et

al., 2000, Bettie, 2003, Mansouri and Kamp, 2007, Plummer, 2000, Teese et al., 2007). Second,

these stereotypes result in schools and teachers holding lower expectations of such young

people (See for instance Aapola et al., 2005, Cohen, 1997a, Dwyer, 1999, Dwyer and Wyn, 2001,

Harris, 2004b, Lesko, 2000, McRobbie, 2007, Mirza, 1992, Omar, 2005, Raffe, 2003, Shain, 2003,

Teese et al., 2007, White and Wyn, 1997, Young and Petty, 1980). Third, young people actively

resist these stereotypes, often to their own detriment (Shain, 2003, Willis, 1981). Such studies

have revealed that, by resisting or fighting against the stereotypical views of working-‐class and

visibly different students, individuals actively reinforce such negative views and (re)produce

class inequality.

Research in England has considered the lives of visibly different young women and how their

visible difference, gender and class positions shape their experiences at school and in the

labour market. A notable example is seen in the work of Safia Mirza (1992), who looked at the

lives of young ‘black’ women, as has Tracey Reynolds (2006, 2007), whose analysis of the utility

of friendships among young Caribbean women at school found that associating with peers of a

29

similar background acts as a buffer to negative interactions at secondary school. As these

particular studies do not merely focus on young women’s education and employment

experiences they were instrumental in assisting me to understand how racialised, gendered and

class subject positions are informed by young people’s interactions in all facets of their lives.

Similarly, the work of Farzana Shain (2003) on young women of Asian background, and

Lenhman’s (2004) and Louise Archer, Anna Halsall and Sumi Hollingworth’s (2003) analyses of

visibly different young women from diverse backgrounds in the schooling environment assisted

my own study to identify how young women operate in relation to stereotypes of them and the

creative means through which they subvert these stereotypes while also being constrained by

them. In addition, in each of these studies, the relationship between class, gender and visible

difference and the influence of these upon young women’s understanding of the opportunities

available to them and the potential futures they imagine await them is examined.

Feminist and critical studies

As gender emerged as one of the key influences on young people’s understanding of visible

difference, which also relates to their class position, I found the concept of ‘intersectionality’

particularly helpful. This concept, used by critical feminists to examine the complex relationship

between social differences such as visible difference, gender, class, nationality, and sexuality,

proved to be especially beneficial (See: Delgado and Stefancic, 2001, Yuval-‐ Davis, 2006). It

enabled me to understand how embodied notions of femininity and masculinity operate in

conjunction with class and visible differences in the lives of young people. The work of feminist

and critical theorists also assisted me to understand how the meaning given to these

differences are socially, economically and politically bound, and shifts across space and time

(hooks in Back and Solomos, 2000: 17, Anthias and Yuval-‐Davis in hooks in Back and Solomos

2000: 92, Parker and Lynn, 2002, Tuhiwai-‐ Smith, 2008). For example, young people often

describe ‘white boy’ jeans (fitted) or shoes (Dunlops), which contrasted with African male styles

30

(baggy jeans) and Nike shoes. By explaining the different dress styles, the young people in my

research revealed an understanding of how masculinity intersects with ‘racial’ and ‘ethnic’

differences.

Critical whiteness studies also contributed to my understanding of the production of visible

difference and the ways in which white people live racially structured lives (Frankenberg, 1993:

1, Nayak, 2003: 173). The concept of whiteness provided a theoretical framework to support

what young people in the west frequently make reference to: whiteness as an ethnicity that

differentiates white ‘Aussies’ from ‘yellow’ Asians and ‘black’ Africans, for example, and the

cultural practices associated with ‘Aussies’ as ‘whites’ as social categories and identities.

Whiteness also enabled this study to look beyond mere racism to detect the system of privilege

and dominance that would have otherwise remained unnamed.

While I needed to learn this language, the young people who participated in this study were

fully aware of the existence of whiteness: its limits, who it excludes, and what makes people

more or less white in Australia. This is most likely attributable to the fact that ‘visible minorities

have a sharper appreciation of what constitutes whiteness and a more intimate understanding

of the multi-‐layered range of privileges it affords’ (Nayak, 2003: 172). On this point, Ghassan

Hage’s work has mapped out the nature of white multiculturalism in Australia and how whites

consequently act as ‘managers’ of the ethnic and Aboriginal Other (See: Hage, 2000, Hage,

2003). Hage’s work assisted me in my own study in developing my appreciation of the particular

dynamics and dimensions of Australian whiteness.

Aileen Morteon-‐ Robinson, an Aboriginal academic also critiques multiculturalism as a liberal

and racist discourse that maintains whiteness at the core of Australia’s nationality. In Whitening

Race: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism Morteon-‐ Robinson argues multiculturalism

reinforces ‘white ownership of the Australian nation’ and which continues the unequal

31

distribution of resources and this reinforces and perpetuates ‘structural inequality’ of

Aboriginal and non-‐white Australians (Moreton-‐Robinson, 2004: viii). The essays in Whitening

Race documents the particular manifestations of whiteness and how it operations in relation to

Aboriginality, migrants and refugees, thereby making it visible. In doing so it exposes the

relationship of whiteness to nationality, sovereignty and dispossession of Aboriginal people and

post-‐colonial identity formation.

Nayak proposes that the study of whiteness is critical to decentring it from its privileged

position as invisible and normal (Nayak, 2003). In seeking to demonstrate the complexity of

whiteness Nayak has directed her attention to studying working-‐class young people in

economically disadvantaged parts of England. In particular, Nayak’s study (2003) of whiteness

facilitated greater acknowledgement of the textures of whiteness in my research, and how it

operates to include and exclude some people on the basis of economic and cultural markers.

Another study that enriched my critical understanding of whiteness is that of Linda McDowell

(2003), who also interrogates white, masculine working-‐class identities in England. Through her

research into masculinities, McDowell illuminates the ways in which whiteness interacts with

gender and class and how this shapes young people’s experiences. McDowell’s study also

captures the internal hierarchies of whiteness which operate to make working-‐class people

morally and culturally inferior and subordinate to an imagined middle class (McDowell, 2003:

16). The findings of McDowell resonated with the perspectives of the young Anglo-‐Saxons

involved in my own research – that white identities are classed, and that the working-‐class

white class position is ‘marked on the body, the home and the locality, identifying its bearers as

subordinate and inferior’ (McDowell, 2003: 16). McDowell’s work, like Nayak’s, assisted this

study in comprehending the complexity of the disadvantaged position of young Anglo-‐Saxons in

the west, and the role of geography in the production of visible difference as both classed and

‘raced’.

32

Youth cultural studies: a whitewash

Not entirely satisfied with the structural focus of the youth transitions discourse and its limited

application to analysing the ways in which young people themselves understand and negotiate

their disadvantaged, marginalised structural positions, I turned my attention to youth cultural

and sub-‐cultural studies. In this field, class analysis has been applied to bring into academic

focus the experiences of working-‐class young people. These studies have presented the

activities of working-‐class young men as a form of ‘resistance’ to middle-‐class culture.

Prominent studies in the 1960s illustrated the relationship between class (re)production by

investigating the conduct of working-‐class young men in school, which was seen as preparing

them for working-‐class jobs in the labour market (Hall and Jefferson, 1967, Willis, 1981). Such

studies are widely celebrated for having illustrated the agency and perspectives of working-‐

class young people (Amit-‐Talai and Wulff, 1995: 3, Bettie, 2003: 45, Jones, 2009: 113, Nayak,

2003: 16).

As Nayak (2003) notes, times have changed for young people, working-‐class young men in

particular. Today’s social and economic situation is profoundly different from that of the 1960s

and 70s, requiring new frameworks to examine the lives of young people. The working-‐class

jobs that previously existed – providing security, about the future, hope about the prospect for

work and faith in traditional gender roles – have eroded, as have the guarantees for working-‐

class women as mothers and wives (Nayak, 2003: 169). While working in a factory job during

industrial times was somewhat bleak, these pathways at least provided security; whereas

today’s de-‐industrialised landscape provides no promises for working-‐class young people.

Instead, such young people face insecurity, high rates of unemployment and live in a world

characterised by a growing disparity between the ‘wealth, income and opportunity’ available to

working-‐class young people and wider society (Nayak, 2003: 169). In this regard Nayak observes

the importance of historicising studies of young people, and of grounding the discussion in

relation to wider political, social and economic forces.

33

While youth sub-‐cultural and cultural studies discourse is notable for its observations on

working-‐class young people, its focus on white, working-‐class young men has produced a

gender and ‘race’ bias. Indeed, young women are widely noted as absent in this arena and the

focus on particular activities such as individuals’ movement in the workforce has resulted in the

almost total exclusion of young women from these studies (See: Best, 2007, Bettie, 2003,

McRobbie, 2000, Harris, 2004b, Back, 1996, Aapola et al., 2005). Visibly different young people

are also largely invisible within this discourse (See: Cohen, 1997a, Jones, 2009, McRobbie, 2000,

Shain, 2003, Amit-‐Talai and Wulff, 1995, Cohen, 1997b, Nayak, 2003). The failure to adequately

examine the lives of young women and visibly different young people has meant that the

complex relationship between class, gender and ethnicity or ‘race’ has received little academic

attention within youth cultural and sub-‐cultural studies (Bettie, 2003: 33).

The neglect of visibly different young people within youth cultural and sub-‐cultural studies

illuminates the issue of representation for these individuals. As Alexander (1996), Nayak (2003)

and Noble (2008) have all argued, many studies of visibly different young people narrowly focus

on their membership of minority ‘racial’ or ethnic groups, and this supersedes other outward

expressions of identity including participation in sub-‐cultural groups. Visibly different young

people, because of this difference, are not afforded the same freedom and flexibility to choose

and express their identities as that available to young white people.

Visibly different young people: negative representations

When visibly different young people do appear in the public arena and academia it is often for

the wrong reasons. For example, visibly different young men typically grab headlines,

frequently portrayed as criminals or gang members, or the behaviours of a few are

sensationalised and upheld as representative of the ‘racial’, ethnic or cultural minority group

with which they are associated. Regrettably, the negative portrayal of young men appears to

have also limited the academic gaze, with the majority of discussions concerned with the

34

following: young men as the Other and/or folk devil, the perceived threat that they present to

social order and the subsequent moral panic their behaviour generates (See for instance:

Alexander, 2000, Alexander, 1996, Hall and Jefferson, 1967).

Much Australian scholarship on visibly different young people also focuses on masculine

experiences, demonstrating the systematic racialisation and criminalisation of young men akin

to that imposed on Lebanese and Pacific Islander men, for example, in the media (See: Collins

et al., 2000, Guerra and White, 1995, Poynting and Mason, 2007, Poynting Scott, 2004). Such

research has used ‘moral panic’ and ‘folk devils’ as concepts to understand social phenomena in

Australia whereby young men are presented as a threat to Australian society and its values (See

for example: Akbarazadeh and Yasmeen, 2005, Hage, 2003, Manning, 2003, Mason, 2004,

Padggett and Allen, 2003, Poynting and Noble, 2003). These studies have been particularly

useful in my research in highlighting how the meaning given to visible difference varies at

particular historical junctures and different cultural contexts (Gilroy, 1987, Yon, 2000,

Alexander, 2000, Hage, 2003).

Visibly different young people and identity: hybrid identities

Another dominant lens through which the lives of young people of migrant backgrounds are

considered is the notion of hybridity. In its early application hybridity led many studies on

visibly different young people to adopt the premise that their migrant heritage means that they

awkwardly ‘straddle’ two worlds. In one world, the cultural norms and traditions of their

parents dominate. In the other, the values of the ‘mainstream’, comprising their peers, the

state and its institutions, are omnipresent. The application of the concept of hybridity often

results in young people being represented as struggling to fit between two discrete and fixed

worlds (For further cosnideration of hybridity and diaspora communities see Bhabha, 1994,

Gilroy, 1987, Hall, 1997).

35

The idea of ‘hybrid’ identities often generates the view that young migrants are confused about

their identity, which leads to low self-‐esteem, behavioural problems, poor performance at

school and unemployment (Yon, 2000:xi, Poynting et al., 2004). Consequently, visibly different

young people are often ‘typecast’ as culturally dislocated from their parents and family, and the

wider society (Alexander, 1996: 5, Harris, 2009: 187). Such a perspective operates from a

negative premise, which presents visibly different young people as either a threat or at risk of

social problems because of their difference.

Cultural hybridity theory has been reworked by British academics and notable examples of this

include Stuart Hall (1997), Les Back (1996), Phillip Cohen (1999) and more recently Anoop Nyak

(2003). Hall in New Ethnicities (1997) for instance argues identities are influenced by external

factors including history and culture and are therefore continually being produced, reproduced

and transformed into new and different forms. Hall, like Back (1996) and Nayak (2003) moves

beyond conceptualizing identities as fixed, static and discrete entities that awkwardly rub up

against each other to create a range of hybrid forms.

In the Australian context, the subject of cultural hybridity is being reformulated and advanced

with research on young people revealing hybridity to be a resource they can draw upon. For

instance, Greg Noble, Scott Poynting and Paul Tabar’s studies during the 1990s on young men

of Lebanese background in western Sydney demonstrated how these young men utilise both

‘strategic essentialism’, or the idea that there are two discrete social categories such as

‘Aussies’ and ‘Lebos’, and ‘strategic hybridity’, or the notion that they can belong to both of

these categories to facilitate their movement between different spaces in their lives. Such

studies capture how young men strategically resist, (re)produce or minimise their (and other

people’s) ethnicities and nationalities in order to subvert the social categories externally

imposed upon them. In reworking hybridity, Poynting et al. present young people as social

actors who are able to choose either to affirm or subvert fixed social categories (See: Noble et

al., 1999, Poynting et al., 1991, Poynting et al., 1997).

36

Poynting, Noble, Collins and Tabar (2000, 1999, 1997, 1991) also present the masculinity of

these young men as situated accomplishments that are performed and influenced by structural

factors. By viewing identity as relational and accomplished, this approach recognises that

masculinities (and femininities) are informed by individuals’ ‘economic and social position’,

‘peer circles, schools, families’ and encounters with ‘public institutions’ (Collins et al., 2000:

145). The conceptual shift towards understanding identity as changing at different moments in

time acknowledges the multiple influences upon the production of identities.

Gill Valentine and Deborah Sporton’s (2009) study on the experiences of young people of

Somali background in England also positions identities as situated accomplishments. This

interpretation recognises that identities are ‘performed in and through different spaces’, and

that particular identities are deployed to ‘differentiate from another in specific contexts’ and

take on increased meaning in some spaces, and of less importance in others (Valentine and

Sporton, 2009: 736). Conceptualising identities and social differences in this way was

particularly useful to my own research as it enabled the social differences under consideration

(visible difference, gender and class) to be seen as emerging in response to social context,

rather than as fixed and static.

The new: unhinging homogenous categories

The recognition of identity as complex and dynamic that occurred within the field of youth

studies in the late 1990s and early 2000 is a positive shift. Drawn to these studies, I found the

ethnographic research of Daniel Yon (2000) and Clare Alexander (2000, 1996), who examine the

lives of young people at the micro level, especially relevant for my own study. Yon and

Alexander’s work shows how gender, class and visible difference are generated through social

exchanges and that the meaning given to these categories is the product of wider power

relations. These studies were applicable to my research as they conceptualise young people’s

identities as the product of dynamic processes. In doing so, they transform young people into

competent social actors (Harris, 2009: 189).

37

Yon’s study of a multicultural high school in Canada presented young people’s identities as

constructed through an ongoing process and formulated in relation to both internal discourse

and external factors (Yon, 2000: 13). Likewise, Alexander’s research into visibly different young

men in England captured how identities are continually created and recreated in response to

‘externally defined’ ideas about blackness, Asian culture and white British nationalism. While

Alexander acknowledges the ways in which these social forces constrain the identities available

to young black and Asian men in England, she also points out that these young men are

creatively involved in the identity-‐making process by responding to the traditional and

essentialised cultural or ‘racial’ identities imposed upon them – including stereotypes of Blacks

and Asians in British society – while also re-‐imagining themselves in ways that subvert

exclusionary stereotypes (Alexander, 2000, Alexander, 1996). Thus, Yon and Alexander do not

present young people as passive; rather, they appear as actively involved in creating new

identities that subvert stereotypes of visibly different young people.

An Australian study by Melissa Butcher and Mandy Thomas, Ingenious: Emerging Youth Cultures

in Urban Australia (2003), which conceptualises how young people of migrant background

formulate identities, was also of use to my research. Butcher and Thomas present young

people’s identities as ‘situated within a series of concentric circles to which they are connected,

which may include a sense of belonging to’ multiple social categories. This approach recognizes

that young people can be comfortable with ‘Australian culture’ as much as their own ‘cultural

heritage’ as well a youth culture and sub-‐cultures such as hip-‐hop or ‘surfie’ cultures (Butcher

and Thomas, 2003: 15). Their approach was particularly helpful in aiding my understanding of

the ways in which young people hold multiple and shifting identities. It sensitised my own

research in being able to capture what I was hearing and seeing in the field – that young people

belong to multiple social categories and that they shift between identifying with Australian

nationality; a particular cultural background, ethnicity or ‘race’; gender, age or youth cultural

group at different moments in time.

38

The research of Yon, Butcher and Thomas, and Alexander into the everyday practices of young

people resonated with what I was hearing and observing as a youth worker. In this regard, I

observed young people unfasten and assign contradictory meanings to terms such as ‘race’,

ethnicity and nationality. These studies assisted me to understand that, by acknowledging the

‘ambiguities, inconsistencies’, shifts, changes and contradictions in how young people

understand social differences, my own study could capture their identities as an ongoing

process (Yon, 2000: 26 & 128).

By presenting the dynamic cultural contributions of visibly different young people, who are

altering Australia’s national identity and contesting the ‘myth’ of Australia as an Anglo-‐Saxon

nation, Ingenious is a milestone in Australian youth studies because it decentres the nation’s

white core (Butcher and Thomas, 2003: 14-‐ 16). Similar to the work of Alexander and Yon, in

documenting the cultural competencies of visibly different young people Butcher and Thomas

position these young people’s experiences at the centre of youth studies. In doing so, they

‘mainstream’ the diversity of young people, thereby challenging the white legacy of youth

studies.

Conclusion

Giddens’s concept of ‘strategy’ is applied in this thesis to recognise young people’s ability to live

with the social inequality imposed on them because of their class position and visible difference

(Giddens, 1992 in Jones, 2009). The young people whose voices appear in this thesis have

agency, although it is important not to exaggerate the extent of this as their behaviours and

strategies are grounded in disadvantaged positions. As other studies on young people of

migrant background have shown, my research reveals how these young people operate within

multiple fields of power (Back et al., 2012, Nayak, 2003). These fields include their age, visible

difference from the Anglo-‐Saxon community, family’s migrant heritage, socioeconomic position,

and geographic location (Harris and Wyn, 2009: 328). These factors limit not only the

39

opportunities available for education and employment success, but also the strategies they can

formulate in response to barriers such as racism, discrimination and economic disadvantage

(Butcher and Thomas, 2003: 14).

‘West side’ stories now moves to consider the perspectives of young people in three data

analysis chapters. These will demonstrate how location, in particular living in a stigmatised part

of Melbourne – the industrial western suburbs – marks its residents as visibly different both

because of their class position and because they do not belong to the dominant Anglo-‐Saxon

community. The narratives and experiences of young people managing visible difference,

gender and class as social divisions, currently framed as ‘risks’ they must manage in the pursuit

of educational or employment success, will illuminate the limitations of existing public policies

targeting young people who experience social disadvantage. By presenting a more complex

picture of the lives of young people labelled as at risk, early school leavers and disengaged I

hope to highlight the diversity of young people, thereby making difference the norm rather

than something to be investigated on the margins of youth studies.

40

Chapter 2 Schooling: resistance, withdrawal and hope

Deng (labelled 12as at risk owing to his refugee status): Some teachers treat me alright and some treat me like I am going to fail.

Joyce (labelled as an early school leaver, having left school at the end of Year 11): You’ve got to give up a lot of things, like, cause, you have to study a lot, you have to give up a lot of friend time and that.

Lu Lu (labelled as at risk): I was on Facebook to one of my old friends and she was like bagging me about dropping out of school and we had a full-‐on argument … She thinks we are dumber and that we won’t get high-‐paying work.

Latifa (labelled as disengaged): It’s like us, we’re not made for school.

These quotes from Deng, Joyce, Lu Lu and Latifa speak to the negative encounters that many of

the young people involved in this research have had at school, with teachers, with their peers,

while living with the stigma of being externally labelled at risk, disengaged or an early school

leaver by government, schools and policy writers. Also evident in the views expressed above is

the internalisation of individual responsibility, such as when Joyce speaks of having to give up

‘friend time’ and Latifa explains that ‘we’re not made for school’. In this chapter the

perspectives of young people experiencing disadvantage who are considered at risk, early

school leavers or disengaged on schooling are presented. Several of the young people in this

study are considered to be at risk because they have a history of disrupted education due to the

refugee experience or because they are struggling to stay connected to school. Others are early

school leavers, having left school before completing Year 12 (or an equivalent) and several are

disengaged as they are not studying or working. The chapter begins by revisiting the particular

12 These young research participants had been labeled by their schools and policy makers as ‘at risk’ of leaving school before completing year 12 because of particular social vulnerabilities or ‘disengaged’ having left school before completing year 12.

41

characteristics of the student population in the west and the schools in this area in order to

highlight the ongoing relationship between disadvantage and educational disadvantage. The

second section presents the views of a number of early school leavers and disengaged young

people and their own understanding of their early departure from secondary school. The third

section considers how racism and class-‐based stereotypes operate to disadvantage young

people in the classroom.

Schools and students in the west

As presented in the introduction, social geography of the west, young people in the western

suburbs are more likely to experience social inequality and this makes them particularly

vulnerable to leaving school before completing Year 12, or an equivalent. The Victorian

Government describes the student population of the western metropolitan region of

Melbourne as ‘increasingly diverse’ due to its ‘high proportion of students from non-‐English

speaking backgrounds’, which includes a large refugee population. The term ‘diversity’ also

references the fact that the west has the highest concentration of students from low

socioeconomic status backgrounds in the state (Department of Education and Early Childhood

Development, 2012: 3). The adverse effects of this are noted in a Victorian Government policy

document Western Metropolitan Melbourne: A Learning Community 2012–2014, which

identifies that while learning outcomes for students in the west improved between 2008 and

2011 these young people continue to have ‘lower’ literacy and numeracy levels than students in

other regions in Victoria. For example, by Year 9, 29 per cent of students are at or below the

national minimum standard in reading, a figure which illustrates the depth of the disparity

(Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2012: 4). Because young people

in the west attend local government schools, which are servicing the most disadvantaged

students and families, many of them remain behind their peers in advantaged areas (Teese in

Topsfield, 2012).

42

As students in the west are more than likely to come from culturally and linguistically diverse

backgrounds and are socioeconomically disadvantaged they are likely to be experiencing

compound disadvantage. This term acknowledges the multiple layers of disadvantage facing

some students. Such students often require more ‘intensive support’ in the classroom in order

to ‘reach their potential’ (Department of Education, 2011: 111). Current underfunding of

government schools results in greater vulnerability amongst some students, including those

experiencing compound disadvantage, in terms of receiving adequate support in the classroom

(Organisation for Economic Co-‐operation and Development, 2012). The federally funded Review

of Funding of Schools Report (publicly referred to as the Gonksi Report) calls for increased and

targeted funding towards schools with concentrations of students from disadvantaged

backgrounds (such as those in the west) so as to remedy the ongoing link between poor

educational outcomes and disadvantage (Department of Education, 2011: xv). Without

additional funding to support students experiencing compound disadvantage, schools

reproduce class inequalities (Gorski, 2005: 5).

In its report The State of Australia’s Young People, the federal government acknowledges that

students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are twice as likely than students

from high socioeconomic backgrounds to ‘underperform in tests of literacy and numeracy’ and

are ‘more likely to dislike school, to be truant, to be suspended or expelled, and to leave school

early’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2009: 37). Despite evidence that they face structural

disadvantage because of their class position or membership of visibly different minority groups,

young people’s performance at school continues to be framed as individualised, in accordance

with the neoliberal ideology that reframes structurally disadvantaged positions as individual

problems. When young people experiencing disadvantage are labelled as disengaged, early

school leavers or at risk, social problems or structural inequality becomes a matter for the

individual, who is then responsible for their own success and failure at school (Amatea, 2012,

Phoenix, 2003: 277).

43

The resources at the schools in the west and within their wider environment determine young

people’s material experience of socioeconomic disadvantage. The material environments of

schools in the west often testify to the funding challenges they face. Some classrooms are

stacked with plastic chairs more familiar to backyard barbecues than classrooms. Others have

small brick-‐block toilets without lights, creating a cold, dark and somewhat frightening

environment for students. Schools with these resourcing issues stand in clear contrast with

those that have well resourced programs, such as the provision of Apple laptops for classroom

use, or that deliver high-‐quality vocational education and training programs onsite with

facilities such as full-‐sized commercial kitchens. While the young people involved in this

research did not articulate concerns about the funding available to schools, it is important to

acknowledge that this creates an environment in which structural disadvantage continues

(Organisation for Economic Co-‐operation and Development, 2012, Department of Education,

2011). The sense of being disadvantaged is apparent in the narratives of the participants in this

research; it permeates almost every aspect of their encounters with teachers and fellow

students. It is evident when the participants perceive discrimination or reference marginalised

positions, as this chapter will demonstrate.

The schooling environments of the schools in this region are incredibly different. For instance,

one school I visited on a number of occasions had responded positively to the enrolment of

large numbers of students of refugee background with low literacy and numeracy levels by

devising a unique ‘bridging program’. In this program refugee students receive one-‐to-‐one

interaction with teaching staff, allowing for intensive assistance to develop individual student’s

literacy levels. The bridging program combined intensive support with practical learning

exercises such as visiting the city, thereby acknowledging that for many refugee students the

experience of sitting in a classroom for prolonged periods is an acquired skill and that

experiential learning is not only beneficial to such students but also a strong motivator to

encourage school attendance and performance. In contrast, another secondary school nearby

with a similar student body supported refugee students with the provision of English as a

44

Second Language (ESL) units. Through my role supporting early school leavers I came to

understand that this school had unofficial policies towards at risk students. The school would

either stream struggling refugee students into VCAL rather than the VCE even if this was not

what an individual student wanted, or they would enroll refugee (and other) students who

were struggling with the academic workload into prevocational programs delivered by the local

TAFE, without consultation with the student. These two policies reflected the school’s broader

focus on academic attainment measured by the high Australian Territory Admission Rank

(ATAR) scores of its VCE students.13 Thus, students of refugee background were just seen as

collateral damage. The systematic failure of schools such as this to cater to the particular needs

of refugee young people is a structural bias producing an entire cohort of early school leavers.

‘Troublemakers’

The early school leavers involved in this research identified multiple and interdependent factors

that contributed to their early departure from school. Latifa (Australian born, Aboriginal and

Tongan background), Chloe (Australian born, Aboriginal and Tongan background) and Rose

(Australian born, Tongan background) consider that the negative influence of peers, with whom

they associated on the basis of having a shared cultural background, was one reason for their

leaving school early. Another was that they found it difficult to understand and fulfill the

expectations of them at secondary school. The young women understood that both of these

factors led to a difficult relationship between themselves and the school, and their subsequent

departure (or exclusion). Latifa, Chloe and Rose reflected:

Chloe: When you go to a western suburbs school where there are a lot more Islanders yeah, well this is what happened to me. I was really good in primary school and then like, in high school, when I met other Islanders and they showed me let’s go wag and do this. It started off that we would wag fourth period then we’d go back, but then I’d just start wagging, the older kids that I was hanging out with they were just like, ‘Oh, you should come

13 Students receive an ATAR score at the end of their VCE year to be used for university applications.

45

to Create,14 it’s way better, you don’t have to wear a uniform, you can smoke, you can do this and that’. I was like, what? This is way better. Researcher: You said that it was when you met other Islanders that you wanted to wag. How come you reckon they want to wag? Latifa: Cause they are the ones who don’t like school and get in trouble. Chloe: Yeah. Researcher: How come you were hanging out with them? Latifa: Cause they are Islanders. Rose: [Simultaneously] Cause they are Islanders and you can identify with them, like kind of the same parents, and family background are the same. Researcher: So how come you reckon they leave school? Latifa: Cause some people just can’t handle it. Interviewer: Oh, but if you liked primary school? Chloe: Secondary school is different, a lot different. Rose: It’s just different. Latifa: In primary school you just play pretend games and in secondary school there is no playground just a big oval and that’s probably when people start smoking.

The young women discussed the influence of associating with other ‘Islanders’ who ‘don’t like

school’ so ‘wag’ and act as ‘troublemakers’ on their own conduct. The recognition of ethnicity

in this sense is driven by a desire to belong to a particular group (Butcher and Thomas, 2003:

33). Yet the positive experience of associating with their peers on the basis of a shared

background led these young women to associate with people they described as

‘troublemakers’. The young women linked the relationships with their peers, with whom they

associated because of a sense of sameness, to the conflict they then had with the school. By

14 Create is alternative education provider in Werribee for young people aged 14 to 19 who have exited ‘mainstream’ school. As an alternative education provider, it works to support the individual needs of its students, addressing challenging behaviours as symptoms of underlying social problems. This includes not excluding them for poor (or deliberate) lateness and attendance issues or when presenting with challenging behaviours. Young people are provided with individually tailored assistance and support in all areas of their lives including family and peer relationships, the legal system, education, assistance with Centrelink and accommodation, as well as recreation and health. The education programs consist of literacy, numeracy and selected electives drawn from two programs: the Certificate in General Education for Adults (CGEA) and VCAL. These programs are delivered in a flexible and creative manner which allows young people to successfully complete their qualification over a maximum period of 18 months.

46

naming ethnicity as a factor in determining their selection of peers and their subsequent

‘troublemaking’ behaviour, Latifa, Rose and Chloe revealed how their gender, class and ethnic

locations draw them into conflict with the school (See: Archer et al., 2003, Poynting et al.,

1991). They explained that the cultural dynamics of ‘western suburbs school(s)’ brought them

into contact with other students that were struggling with their visible difference and class

location in the schooling environment. The young women then emulated the behaviour of the

‘troublemakers’, leading to their eventual departure. Indeed, the lack of culturally specific or

appropriate supports for young people of Pacific Island background has been cited as leading to

their low educational engagement in Melbourne (See Grossman and Sharples, 2010: 124).

From the perspective of Latifa, Chloe and Rose, their desire to seek out peers with whom they

identify stemmed from a need to feel the same as other people and those sharing their

experiences. The strong urge to associate with other Islanders shows that having friends with

similar family dynamics and cultural backgrounds is an important basis for friendship in

secondary school. Whereas, the way Chloe explains it, this was less important in primary school

where she was ‘really good’. The social bonding these young women acknowledge is known to

be particularly useful for visibly different young people as they make their transition into

secondary school and adulthood (Reynolds, 2007: 385). The sense of being different from their

non-‐Islander peers is apparent when Chloe, Rose and Latifa all differentiate between ‘Islanders’

and the rest of the schooling population. In doing so, Chloe, Latifa and Rose reveal how they felt

different from non-‐Islanders at the school and the wider school community. Bourdieu’s theory

on class differences is relevant here to understanding the difficulties working-‐class young

people experience at school (as do individuals outside the dominant cultural group) as they

attempt to negotiate the implicitly middle-‐class norms and curriculum embedded within

educational institutions (See Bourdieu, 1900, Furlong, 2009, Lehmann, 2004, Mansouri and

Percival Wood, 2008). The ideas Chloe, Latifa and Rose express reveal the extent of the

disconnect between the implicitly white middle-‐class norms of the school and the values of the

young people of Islander background.

47

The narratives of these young women demonstrate that they have been drawn to other

Islanders because they shared a similar ‘habitus’ (‘same parents’ and ‘same background’) (see

Bourdieu, 1990). However, this strategy brought them into contact with students who, like

them, were also struggling to successfully negotiate the expectations imposed on them in their

local secondary school, and who ‘wag’ and dislike school. Their descriptions of forming

friendships on the basis of shared cultural background and the subsequent acting out reveal a

lack of belonging to the school community, which heavily influenced their engagement with

their education. Other studies on young visibly different Australians have shown these types of

activities to be a defensive response used in environments where individuals feel excluded,

threatened and alien (Butcher and Thomas, 2003: 37, Mansouri and Percival Wood, 2008: 21,

Poynting et al., 1991). However, in the case of Rose, Chloe and Latifa, the safety provided by

friendship networks forged around sameness also led these young women to conduct

themselves in a way that further alienated them from the school community and led to their

exclusion from a mainstream schooling environment. The perspectives of these young women

demonstrate the importance of having a sense of belonging to the school community so as to

prevent early school leaving.

The young women also identified gender as a strong force in the lives of young ‘Islanders’.

Chloe considered that among young ‘Islander’ women the decision to leave school early is often

a ‘way of rebelling’. Rose concurred, stating:

It’s a way of rebelling or that they [Islander girls] have so much responsibility at home, then they can’t just catch up with the work.

Gender is understood by these young women to mean that, as young ‘Islander’ women, they

carry considerable domestic responsibilities at home. Such duties interfere with the schooling

life of young women, who rebel against their parents’ demands of them by leaving school early.

Rose’s view above illuminates the difficulties these young women face negotiating gendered

expectations of them as young women, both within the context of their own families and in

relation to broader cultural norms about femininity within the Islander community which they

48

belong. On this point, Rose and Chloe articulate an issue that many young women face: juggling

domestic responsibilities with the behaviours required for educational success (Lehmann, 2004:

387, Tilleczek, 2008: 18). Chloe and Rose also recognise that they operate in relation to socially

constructed gender roles and responsibilities that constrain young women’s schooling

experiences. These young women are thus highly cognisant of the relationship between their

gender, ‘Islander background’ and class position, and how this influences their ability to

succeed at school.

‘It’s really hard’

The early school leavers of Anglo-‐Saxon background depicted their final years of secondary

education as stressful and overwhelming as they struggled with the workload expected of

them. Jacob (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background), who left school in the middle of

Year 12, attributed his early departure from school to his inability to stay abreast of

commitments. He reflected:

Well, Year 12 is really hard, soon as you miss one class you are just way, way behind and if you don’t catch up on that then you get way behind and it just keeps on building up and up and then you don’t want to go to school.

From Jacob’s perspective on the final year of secondary school, there is a sense that he was

barely able to stay on top of the workload and that after missing just ‘one class’ he lost the

battle. Jacob’s strategy for handling the pressure was not to attend school – a response that

further compounded his precarious situation; as his school advised him, because he was failing

he would be ‘kicked out’. Jacob’s experience is common among early school leavers, who often

struggle with the workload and after missing what they consider an insurmountable amount of

time or work, either leave or are forced out by their school (Smyth et al., 2004: 14, Tilleczek,

2008: 11).

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Jacob’s decision to leave school was not made independently. When asked why he left school,

he said:

Well, yeah, I wasn’t passing this year and so my teachers were just like, halfway through the year, ‘You are going to fail so, we’re gonna kick you out’, and my dad was like, ‘Well, if they’re gonna kick you out halfway you might as well just leave now’!

Jacob’s interaction with his father shows how the parents of early school leavers often collude

with the hard line taken by schools as they feel they lack the authority to challenge the school’s

stance. Jacob’s father’s response highlights how parental attitudes towards education (and

educational institutions), along with their involvement in their children’s education, can have a

significant impact on their child’s educational outcomes (Considine & Zappala in Mansouri and

Percival Wood, 2008). While it would be easy to blame Jacob’s father for failing to support his

son, this example illustrates how families from disadvantaged backgrounds often lack the

confidence to question the decision of the school.

Joyce (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background), who left school three-‐quarters of the way

through Year 11, described her exit as the result of the education system’s limited ability to

cater to the interests of all students. Joyce noted, ‘Yeah, and I don’t think that Year 12, that

school is meant for everyone. It also depends on the person’. In contrast to Jacob, whose

narrative contained a sense of inevitability about being ‘kicked out’, Joyce’s narrative conveys a

sense of personal choice. She spoke of her decision to leave school as consistent with her

values, which she described as placing greater importance on friendships and playing sport.

Joyce explained that her final year at school was a time when she was forced to choose

between educational success and doing things she enjoyed:

Um, I reckon you’ve got to have good focus, and good concentration, and you should have to be able to not be distracted too easily and ‘cause I noticed last year that I couldn’t do all the extracurricular activities I used to do at school, so yeah … Yeah, you’ve got to give up a lot of things, like ‘cause you have to study a lot, you have to give up a lot of friend time and that.

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Joyce’s comments reflect the findings of other research on female early school leavers that has

found that their motivation to leave school often ‘comes from a mismatch between [schooling

and] young women’s own priorities and interests’ (Wyn 2000 in Harris, 2004b: 55). In Joyce’s

case, this is between friendship, sport and academic attainment. Joyce’s story contains

evidence of an internalisation of the neoliberal rhetoric of individual responsibility as she

understands her early departure as a matter of individual choice (Archer et al., 2003: 560). The

impact of this discourse is most apparent when Joyce describes herself as lacking the qualities

required for academic success (‘good focus, and good concentration’), which has led her to

prioritise time spent with friends and on ‘extracurricular’ activities. In this instance, we can see

how Joyce has reframed her departure from school as a choice.

While Joyce resists the stigmatising label of ‘failure’ and ‘dropout’ that is attached to early

school leavers she is aware that she must operate in relation to such stereotyping in the wider

community and among her peers. This was evident when Joyce talked about spending time

with other early school leavers who understand ‘what it is like at school’ and who supported

her decision to leave rather than criticising her for it. In contrast, she described former friends

who were still at school as ‘bagging’ her out for ‘dropping out’. By associating with other early

school leavers and disengaged young people, Joyce avoids representations of early school

leavers as ‘dropouts’ who are frequently stereotyped as ‘depressed, helpless’, ‘without options’

and ‘losers’ (Smyth and Hattham, 2004: 57). Joyce’s strategy is therefore not unlike that of the

young Islander women who removed themselves from a mainstream schooling environment as

she, too, seeks out alternative realities and spaces where she is not confronted by a sense of

being different or representations of early school leavers (like herself) as failures.

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‘What can I do?’

The majority of the young people who participated in this study who were deemed at risk but

remained in school shared stories of negative experiences with teachers, principals and fellow

students. Visibly different young people typically described being forced to struggle against

racist stereotypes in the school, whereas the young Anglo-‐Saxon Australians described class-‐

based discrimination as permeating their experiences. For one group of young women

(Australian born, of Lebanese background), experiences with teachers, students and principals

occurred within a wider matrix of discrimination based on racialised stereotypes of Arabs and

Muslims as violent and criminal Others. Lu Lu very articulately described this relationship when

explaining her fellow students correlating her ‘nationality’ with criminality:

When you first start school and they ask you what nationality you are and you tell them ‘I’m Lebanese’, they are like, ‘Really? I didn’t know that you guys were nice like that’. So they directly think that we are aggressive, thieves, liars … And that we are all gang orientated … Yeah, they think that we are in gangs and say things like, ‘Don’t talk to her’, or ‘Don’t upset her, she’ll tell her brother and he’ll come and get you’.

Another young woman, Reem, also believed her fellow students of Lebanese

background were viewed as thieves and associated with the threat of violence in

the eyes of others. Such experiences led Lu Lu to describe her school peers as

‘friggin’ racist’. Lu Lu and Reem voiced their concerns about the negative

representations of Arabs and Muslims that operate within the Australian popular

discourse and how this permeates their experiences at school. The emergence of

the criminal, deviant and violent Arab and Muslim Other in the Australian media

following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, have

been well documented. Numerous studies have captured the detrimental effect of

this discourse upon people of Muslim and Arab background by linking it to rises in

discrimination, vilification as well as physical and verbal racist attacks (See HREOC,

2001, Padggett and Allen, 2003, Poynting and Ang, 2004, Poynting and Noble, 2003,

Poynting and Noble, 2004). The young women’s perspectives also confirm the

finding of another study that young Australians of Middle Eastern background are

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acutely aware of the image of them presented in the media and how ‘images of

rampant gangs, youth crime and uncontrollable masculinity dog their everyday

lives’ (Butcher, 2008: 103).

Safiya (Australian born, of Lebanese background), who attended an Islamic school outside her

local area, believed that attending a private school protected her from the racism and

discrimination her friends experienced at the local public school, saying:

That’s probably why I go to an Islamic school in Coburg ‘cause the teachers there are more like people who are paid to be nice to us. ‘Cause like, in public schools they are, they get to treat you the way they want to treat you. It’s true but. That if you’re in a private school, they can’t really be racist or treat you different.

Safiya’s narrative suggests that she and her family anticipated the existence of racism at the

local public school and that this motivated their decision to send her to a private school – an

environment where it is expected that she will be sheltered from racism, hostility and negative

stereotypes. Safiya believed that it is the financial incentive that compels teachers at the

religious school to treat students of Lebanese background appropriately; they are not

permitted to treat these students differently or express their racist views. In contrast, she

imagines teachers at public schools to be free to act on their prejudicial views. Insofar as Safiya

considers that teachers at an Islamic college have a financial incentive to treat their students

appropriately this does not convey a high level of confidence on her part that these individuals

are actually less racist. Rather, she imagines that they are merely constrained from acting on

their racist views.

Safiya and Lu Lu, as well as Rose, Chloe and Latifa, allude to the powerful relationship that

exists between young people’s sense of connection to the wider Australian community and

their specific experiences at school (Tilleczek, 2008: 14). The negative encounters of these

young women demonstrate that visibly different young people experience racism at school and

53

that they anticipate it. Such negative encounters act as barriers and adversely impact upon the

educational experiences of visibly different students, and influence their decision to leave

school.

Like their Australian-‐born peers, the newly arrived young people involved in this research also

discussed encountering stereotypes and racism at school. Deng (newly arrived refugee from

South Sudan) believed that stereotypes of South Sudanese young people had negatively

impacted his interactions with teachers, saying:

Some of the teachers treat me alright, and some treat me like I am going to fail. And sometimes, I feel that it is my nationality, that I am from Sudan that, ‘cause some other Sudanese they are dropping out of school and they drink alcohol … And then it is we Sudanese, that people think, are making the trouble. And from this, I just think to myself, What can I do? Can I just avoid it? What can I do myself?

Deng raised his concern that South Sudanese young people are typecast as dropouts, and seen

as misusing substances and ‘making the trouble’. Deng is therefore cognisant of how teachers’

preconceived and racist views of students from South Sudan are adversely impacting his

encounters in the classroom. In this case, it results in teachers lowering their expectations of

him. He detects how the behaviours of a few young people are explained by their ‘nationality’,

evident by their visible difference, rather than being contextualised in relation to other social

factors such as economic and social marginalisation. Deng’s experience typifies how visibly

different students are forced to live with ‘the burden of representing stereotyped and

stigmatised cultures while having to fight against them at the same time’ (Yon, 2000: 78).

Deng also perceives the power dynamics in the classroom whereby teaching staff explain their

own discriminatory practice such as lowered expectations by pointing to the cultural

differences between themselves and black and Asian students (Gaganakis, 2006, Mirza, 1992,

Shain, 2003). Studies on young (black) people of Caribbean background in England have

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consistently found that their educational experiences are overwhelmingly characterised by

various forms of discrimination, prejudice and racism (Archer et al., 2003, Mirza, 1992, Brah,

1996). Such research identified that the issue of lowered expectations is particularly pertinent

for ‘black’ students, who are especially susceptible to negative teacher expectations (Back,

1996: 167, Hall, 1997: 22).

Deng has also picked up on what other studies on the educational experiences of visibly

different and socioeconomically disadvantaged students have shown: that teacher expectations

are a powerful influence over the achievement of students (Mansouri and Percival Wood, 2008:

41, Amatea, 2012: 804, Shain, 2003). Deng’s concern over the detrimental impact of

stereotypes about young South Sudanese students is consistent with the experiences of the

young women of Lebanese background who similarly struggled against stereotypical images of

them as thieves, gang affiliates and liars. All of these students articulated a concern that their

membership of an ethnic group (because of their visible difference) is identified as the origin of

a young person’s troubling behaviour and is cited as the basis of their educational

underperformance or eventual disengagement, rather than being attributed to their class

position, or a lack of adequate funding to support their needs as students experiencing

compound disadvantage.

In addition to recognising how interpersonal racism operates to disadvantage him in the

classroom, Deng was able to identify in particular how structural forces produce disengagement

among young African refugees, explaining:

There is not much support the way I see it, the young Africans came, and they came after war and then when they come to Australia they are labelled according to their age, this causes them to drop out of school because they are frustrated at that, so there is no interest. It is very hard … They need to think about changing the system, because it is very hard for young people, so that it can support them.

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Thus, Deng here explains the disengagement of young African refugees not as a result of their

nationality, as did his teacher. Instead, he understands these young people’s early departure

from school and their disengagement as the result of a lack of support for these students,

combined with the refugee experience. Deng’s concerns about young people of South

Sudanese background and of a similar age ‘dropping out’ are valid, but they are not unique to

Australia. Studies on the educational experience of young refugees demonstrate that those

who arrive in the ‘host’ country during their later teen years and who integrate into high school

are at a greater risk of leaving school early (Rummens, Tilleczek, Boydell & Ferguson in Tilleczek,

2008: 85). Deng’s view aligns with my own observations, having supported numerous

disengaged young people of African background who arrived in Australia as refugees. I too

belived that schools, and schooling structures, produce disengagement due to a lack of

resources for ESL students necessary for individuals to overcome low literacy and numeracy

levels, and because of an inflexible education system that forces young people into year levels

on the basis of their age rather than their literacy and numeracy abilities.

White frustrations

Experiences of marginalisation in the classroom are not limited to visibly different young

people. The young Anglo-‐Saxon Australians involved in this research project also felt alienated

from other students and the schooling community, reporting racialised exchanges. Jacob, when

reflecting on his experiences as an Anglo-‐Saxon student in the western suburbs, said:

I was the only white dude in my class, for the last three years from Year 8, Year 9 and Year 10, I was the only white dude. That’s where my name Pom Boy came from you know.

When Jacob identifies himself as a minority in the classroom by describing himself as the ‘only

white dude’ we see how his experience of whiteness occurs via his marginalisation in a

multicultural classroom. In this instance whiteness is ‘visible’ and ‘racialised’ because it exists in

a marginalised and subordinate form (Wester, 2008: 307). His experience demonstrates that

ethnicities, including whiteness, become racialised in situations where power relations are

56

apparent (Nayak, 2003, Phoenix, 2003, Poynting et al., 1991). Nayak’s (2003) study of working-‐

class young men in England similarly found that white identities emerged when people were in

crisis. Jacob’s feeling of being marginalised by his whiteness is evident in the above quote;

indeed, in calling himself a ‘Pom’, a slang term for English people, Jacob acknowledges his own

migrant heritage and thus situating himself as a migrant. Jacob’s statement conveys the view

that all the students in his classroom, himself included, are migrants.

Joyce (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background) also saw the classroom as a contested

space where racialised stereotypes of students operated, saying:

In this art class there were these students and they were Asian and they were really good. They could draw and they always got the good grades because they were practically perfect and then they were like to the white girls, ‘Your work is not as good as mine and stuff’. It just gets to you.

In this example the stereotype of the good Asian student forces Joyce to experience her

whiteness as inferior, which she expresses by referencing her drawing skills and conduct in

relation to the ‘really good’ ‘Asian’ students. Joyce thus here detects the stereotype of the

Asian student as particularly good and studious (Harris, 2004b: 87, Archer et al., 2003: 557).

From her perspective, the representation of hard-‐working, diligent Asian students operates to

disadvantage her as a white working-‐class young woman. Joyce further illuminates this dynamic

when she explains that the ‘Asian’ students know how to get good grades and that their

‘practically perfect’ behaviour facilitates academic success, which she, in contrast, lacks.

Responding to the imposition inferiority, she accuses her ‘Asian’ peers of racialising their

interaction with her by pointing out the poor quality of ‘the white girl’s’ artwork. The

stereotype of the good Asian student, as Joyce understands it, undermines her own experience

in the classroom as she must compete against a student who offers the promise of success. The

promise of studious Asian students is something she does not hold as a working-‐class white

student.

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Joyce’s experience concurs with the finding that emerged from the literature review that at risk

students receive less time from school staff (Tilleczek, 2008: 10). Joyce is aware that as a white

Australian with a working-‐class background, living in a disadvantaged suburb, her academic

potential is predetermined by the teaching staff who expect her to leave school early and

therefore pay her little attention. In this instance, the teachers’ low expectations have operated

to ‘reinforce’ Joyce’s disadvantaged position (Furlong, 2009: 9). It is therefore conceivable that

the failure of the teacher to see her in a positive light combined with the competition with her

confident, studious ‘Asian’ peers convey the message to Joyce that she lacks academic potential

– and it is this which ‘gets to’ Joyce.

‘But then I went to school … and then it started to get better’

Gemma (newly arrived, Polish and German background) spoke positively of her experience of

schooling – a narrative that was inconsistent with those of the other participants. Gemma

described her experience of school as having enhanced her agency and sense of belonging to

the wider community. She talked about the challenges of adapting to life in Australia with little

English and her knowledge of how things work here, but identified that her feelings of

powerlessness decreased after attending school, commenting:

But then I went to school and I made friends and then it started to get better and then I felt like I could get to the city and I could show her [my grandmother] how to get to the city because I had learnt how.

Gemma thus described school as useful because the knowledge she acquired improved her

confidence. Her increased confidence had a ripple effect, extending to her grandmother, whose

day-‐to-‐day existence was also enhanced. Gemma made reference to the role that friendships

play in creating a positive experience for her at school as well as feeling that she could

negotiate and be comfortable in the spaces beyond her suburb, to travel to ‘the city’.

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Gemma’s positive experiences at school reflect an overall optimism among newly arrived young

people about the potential for transformation through education (Birman, 2009; Gifford et.al,

2009). The majority of these young people were hopeful about their new lives in Australia and

the opportunities that awaited them. This hope was most apparent in the long-‐term aspirations

of these students and their commitment to obtaining qualifications in order to improve their

employment opportunities. Deng, for instance, said:

I have been here three years, and I have just tried to commit myself to completing my degree so I haven’t tried to look so much. I just want to wait until I have finished my studies.

While the young people’s views on employment will be discussed in the next chapter, Deng’s

quote is relevant here as it demonstrates his confidence to commit to a degree and his faith

that this long-‐term commitment will deliver benefits when he chooses to enter the labour

market. Deng’s comments also highlight the connection that these newly arrived young people

draw between Australia and increased opportunities. A sentiment shared by Gemma, who

described Australia as a ‘place where I have a better life’, and by April (newly arrived refugee of

Burmese background), when she discussed educating her Australian-‐born, Anglo-‐Saxon

boyfriend about her ‘bad life’ in a refugee camp in Thailand and her (and other Burmese

refugees’) relocation to Australia to find ‘a better life’.

Conclusion

In this chapter the perspectives of young people identified as at risk, early school leavers and

disengaged from their educational experiences have been presented. Visible difference, gender

and class emerge as structural forces that shape their encounters with schools, teachers and

fellow students. The experience of living with social inequality has resulted in these young

people becoming highly attuned to power dynamics, and able to name the exclusion and

marginalisation that their schooling experiences produce. Their ability to do so is apparent in

their detection of stereotypes – whether racist or class based – which further entrench their

disadvantage in the schooling context.

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Several research participants articulated a concern that as residents of the west they lack the

capital required for educational success. Rose, Chloe and Latifa did so when describing the

challenge of adapting to expectations of them at high school. Jacob similarly highlighted this

issue when describing being overwhelmed by schoolwork in Year 12. These examples, as have

others in this chapter, alone demonstrate just how cognisant young people in the west are to

power dynamics, even if they lack sophisticated academic language to name it.

The young people in this study who had left school did so out of a desire to seek out spaces

where they are competent and viewed positively. Several found this in an alternative education

provider or another a religious school. For others they left school behind for the world of work,

where they were treated as adults. These examples have shown the different strategies used by

young people living with disadvantage – some seek short-‐term rewards, while others are

connected to long-‐term goals. Regardless of the costs such as unemployment and battling

negative stereotypes, these young people’s actions are grounded within their social position

which determines the resources available to them. Consequently, they are left with the choice

of resisting these negative representations at school or withdrawing from spaces where they

feel uncomfortable, different or inadequate.

The perspectives of the young people presented in this chapter reveal an astute ability to name

power imbalances, but also reflect internalised neoliberal ideas of individual responsibility.

While several participants pointed to systematic issues in the education system, the majority of

those who had left school before completing Year 12 explained their early departure as a

matter of individual choice. Joyce, for example, explained that school did not suit everybody;

and Chloe, Rose and Latifa all opted to attend Create, an alternative education provider. These

findings suggest that while young people understand the significant role played by structural

forces in their lives, they are rarely able to reconcile how this works with the narrative of

individual responsibility.

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By presenting the views and experiences of young people deemed to be at risk, early school

leavers and disengaged, this chapter has shown how such young people understand the school

environment and the factors that compel some individuals to leave school. In doing so, it

provides a more holistic account of the complex nature of these social issues. In the examples

presented, the relationship between visible difference, gender and class shape young people’s

experiences in educational institutions is illustrated. The perspectives of the young people

presented here demonstrate how often the intersection of these differences (re)produce social

inequality, which exists before young people enter a classroom and continue after school.

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Chapter 3 Employment: strategies for navigating unequal terrain

Khadija: It was really horrible … it made me feel like I am nothing ... And it made me really sad that they aren’t willing to give me a go ‘cause I have a lot to offer and like I need them and they need me, so why don’t they give me a go?

Jacob: [I feel] sad. You’ve got no money, you can’t do nothing, you can’t do nothing, yeah … you’ve got no money so you feel shit, so you don’t wanna do nothin’. You don’t want to go out or nothing, ‘cause you know, your mates are gonna go out ‘cause they’ve got money and they’re gonna get food, and you can’t and you’re gonna feel like shit you know.

Both Khadija and Jacob convey the powerlessness and despondency experienced by young

jobseekers. Khadija singles out the power employers hold over her future; Jacob, in contrast,

describes the material effects that have a detrimental impact on his sense of self-‐worth. In their

experiences, the reality of looking for work presents an accurately bleak and confronting

picture of youth unemployment (See also: McDowell, 2003, Nayak, 2003, Phoenix, 2003).

Khadija and Jacob convey the emotional costs of being unemployed when they describe

feelings of worthlessness, sadness and a sense of exclusion because of the reluctance of

employers to give them work.

To gain employment many young people will spend a great deal of time on activities that bring

few rewards and multiple rejections. As a youth worker, I have often observed or assisted

young people applying for work on a daily basis and over extended periods of time. Many,

having internalised the neoliberal discourse that frames their transition into the workforce as a

matter of managing ‘risks’ that make them susceptible to unemployment, felt they were to

blame for their predicament. As welfare recipients, they were also forced to participate in a

system that transfers this risk onto them, with their Centrelink payments tied to activity

agreements that require them to undertake vocational training to make them more

employable. Most of the young people I have supported initially undertook such training

enthusiastically, only to become increasingly despondent as they remained unemployed.

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Subsequently they became cynical to the idea of undertaking further education or training and

would question why they should bother at all.

This chapter explores the strategies that young people in Melbourne’s western suburbs use to

negotiate visible difference, class and gender when looking for work. It demonstrates that in

the current environment all young jobseekers are disadvantaged when looking for work. It then

considers the ways in which young people in this region experience multidimensional

disadvantage that hinders their ability to secure work. This includes their marginalised

socioeconomic position and particular understanding about masculinity and femininity as

apparent in their discussion about where ‘whites’ and visibly different people work. In doing so,

these young people convey the image of a stratified labour market where class, gender and

visible difference as structural factors continue to shape their ideas about work and where they

are able to find it (Holland et al., 2007).

Youth employment in the west: ‘I knew that this was happening to other people’

The young people who participated in this study frequently described themselves as

disadvantaged in the current labour market because of their age. This is an assessment that is

accurate given that the national youth unemployment rate is currently at 16.6 per cent, which

is three times the rate of adult unemployment, which is close to 5 per cent (Robinson et al.,

2012, Australian Council of Social Services, 2010). In contrast, present rate of unemployment

among 15–24 year olds in north-‐west Melbourne is 39 per cent, (Ewart, 2012, Australian

Council of Social Services, 2010). In Braybrook, a suburb between Footscray and Sunshine youth

unemployment is even higher, sitting at 43 per cent (Byrne, 2012). This means that young

people in Melbourne’s western suburbs are three if not four times more likely to experience

unemployment than young people in other areas of Australia.

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Young people are considered to be particularly disadvantaged as they have ‘low skills,

qualifications and/or limited work experience’, owing to their relatively limited work histories

(Mission Australia, 2010). As the introductory chapter revealed, the social and economic fabric

of the western suburbs compounds its young residents’ vulnerability to unemployment as they

are more likely to experience intergenerational unemployment and socioeconomic

disadvantage (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2012). In addition,

because young people in this area are more likely to come from families experiencing

socioeconomic disadvantage and from CALD backgrounds they are also more likely to be

experiencing multidimensional disadvantage.

Research about jobseeking success affirms the experience of these young jobseekers which

indicates that ‘job’ offers are most likely generated through friends and relatives rather than

other methods, including online applications. The limited success in finding work from formal

jobseeking activities means that young people do not consider these approaches useful, as in

Jacob’s explanation:

Um, like most of the jobs that I have come close to um like, I’ve known someone who needs someone. Like, I’ve never been offered [a job] from Centrelink, or one of those jobseeker places or from my resumé. It’s like always been from a mate or a family member who needs someone.

Jacob’s view is expressed using definitives – he claims ‘never’ to have secured work through

‘the system’, specifically naming Centrelink and those ‘jobseeker places’. Rather, he points out

that he has secured work only through his own networks. His views on Centrelink and ‘those

jobseeker places’ reveal a lack of trust and confidence in institutions and government-‐funded

agencies that is common to many disadvantaged jobseekers (Gray and Hughes, 2003). This

theme frequently emerged from the participants’ discussions about looking for work,

suggesting that as disadvantaged jobseekers they had formed the view that such institutions

are unable to help people like ‘them’.

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The concerns raised by these young jobseekers about the inability of ‘the system’ to assist

unemployed people to find work are consistent with those raised by the Youth Affairs Council

of Victoria (YACViC) in ‘Swimming Upstream’: Young People and Service Provision under Job

Services Australia. This report found that Job Services Australia (JSA) providers, which are

federally funded to work with jobseekers, are not ‘sufficiently youth-‐centred’, meaning they are

not equipped to support the particular needs of young jobseekers. YACViC is critical of the

current JSA model because it does not provide ‘intensive, integrated assistance needed to

address the barriers and needs of vulnerable young people’ and to support them to enter the

workforce (Rose et al., 2011). The report cited particular concern over the fact that half of the

time of JSA provider employees is spent on administration tasks, as the system largely operates

to administer jobseekers, checking that they are fulfilling their obligations rather than

addressing the structural barriers that disadvantage young jobseekers (Rose et al., 2011).

‘You don’t have experience, you don’t have experience, you don’t have

experience’

The majority of the young participants identified their lack of experience or work history in

Australia as the major impediment to finding work. They were aware that this was a burden

because of the current preference for ready-‐made employees with a work history. Their views

were formulated in response to the feedback they have received from employers, who

consistently cited their lack of experience as the basis for their unsuccessful applications.

Khadija said of her experience:

They just send me a lot of letters saying to me that you don’t have experience, you don’t have experience, you don’t have experience. Even one job that I applied for said, ‘No experience, we will train you’, [but] I got the reply, ‘You don’t have experience’!

Similarly, Thao an Australian-‐born woman of Vietnamese/Chinese background said, ‘Yeah. I’ve

tried looking for work but they’ve rejected me’. These young women’s concern about heir age

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is real and well founded. Research into young jobseekers has consistently found that they are

disadvantaged because they typically have less work experience and this makes them less

attractive to employers in the current climate (Australian Council of Social Services, 2010, Rose

et al., 2011). This chapter also reveals that these young people are not the right type of

jobseeker because of the intersection of their gender, class and visible difference.

Jacob (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background), an early school leaver, also cited his lack of

work experience as the reason that he could not find work. In addition, he believed that, like

many other young people, he lacked qualifications and this compounded his situation in the

current labour market:

Ah, probably, [sigh] the biggest challenge has been finding a job that you are qualified for, there are not heaps. There are a lot more jobs out there that you need experience for or qualifications for rather than ones you can jump into and they can train you up.

Jacob’s assessment of the labour market is accurate, as there has been a decline of

employment opportunities for young people since de-‐industrialisation in the post–World War II

environment (Dwyer and Wyn, 2001, Harris, 2004b).

The young people involved in this study understood that their success in the workforce is

dependent on the attainment of formal qualifications. This neoliberal ideology places

responsibility on the individual for their own learning and position in the labour market

(Phoenix, 2003). It is a sentiment that is also embedded within the Australian welfare and

educational systems whereby public policies seek to ensure young people are ready for the

labour market by spending longer periods in education and training. As shown in the literature

review in Chapter 1, governments have moved to increase minimum levels of education and

training among young people as a mechanism to address the ‘risk’ of unemployment. These

changes reflect a shift towards a post-‐industrial economy in Australia.

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Yet for the many young people I encountered in the course of my research and as a youth

worker, managing these so-‐called risks by undertaking further education and training failed to

alter their employment prospects. For example, in response to skill shortages in the transport

and logistics area, young people have been able to access free training in forklift driving and/or

a Certificate II in Transport and Logistics. Many young men have undertaken this training,

attracted to the idea of working in the remaining factories near their homes. However, most

advertised vacancies stipulated a minimum of five years experience in operating a forklift. In

addition, a driver’s license (and car) was often stipulated as a minimum requirement because of

the shiftwork hours and the lack of available public transport to these worksites.

The internalisation of the ‘individual responsibility’ rhetoric is apparent in the narratives of

Jacob and Khadija, who held firm views about what is required of them to secure work.

However, as their experiences demonstrate, it is much harder to translate this knowledge into

actual gains, as Khadija’s efforts to improve her prospects by utilising a number of strategies

demonstrate:

So I did a lot of volunteer work to show that I am serious and all that and it still didn’t get me nowhere. Then someone said to me, ‘I’d love to give you the job but, you’ve got no experience’. But then how are you supposed to get experience if no one is willing to give you a go? So, then I was so stressed out, so I did a course that cost me a lot of money, and I gave my money to this organisation and then I did the course, then I got my certificate right away and still no one would take me. It was a big disadvantage, for a lot of people, that no one will take you because of no experience, and then no one gets rich and famous or whatever you call them, unless someone else gave them some experience. Someone else must have given them a go!

In this explanation, Khadija appears to hold herself responsible for making herself employable,

explaining how she chose to undertake further training to this end. This is an example of the

‘choice biography’ phenomenon, whereby an individual’s life trajectory is understood as the

result of a series of choices rather than being informed by their structural position within the

social hierarchy (Harris, 2004b). Yet as Khadija’s experience reveals, this idea is problematic as

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her agency is constrained by wider structural forces, including employers’ current preference

for ‘ready-‐made’ employees. Khadija’s perseverance demonstrates great strength and

resilience: she does not give up her quest to secure work even in the face of multiple barriers.

Khadija’s experience also points to the failure of existing governmental policies aimed at

preventing youth unemployment by forcing individuals to adapt to the labour market by

participating in further education and training. These policies fail to address employer attitudes

towards young jobseekers and therefore do not acknowledge how age intersects with

socioeconomic disadvantage. Nor do they recognize the role that geography plays, as these

young people’s attempts to find work is influenced by a lack of employment opportunities in

the west and also the absence of infrastructure such as public transport that would allow them

to work in factories located in industrial zones. Khadija’s questioning of how young jobseekers

are expected to gain work experience is one to be considered by governments and policy

writers because, as she correctly points out, everybody requires an initial opportunity to gain

work experience to increase their prospects of employment. At present, the preference for

highly skilled and trained employees is a major barrier for young people seeking to enter the

workforce for the first time.

‘I’ve always got the job’

Joyce (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background) was positive about her prospects of finding

work, having had success in the past. Her experience stood in stark contrast to the experiences

of the other young participants. Despite being an early school leaver, Joyce was confident:

Well, so far, for every job I have applied for I’ve got an interview for I’ve always got the job ... [and] I’ve turned them down a lot of the time because I’ve either got a better job offer or maybe I don’t want to work there. So it’s pretty good.

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Yet Joyce also recognised the limits of her reach when she explained that she was able to find work

in particular industries:

Like retail jobs or food industry places because [as a] 15 to 17 [year old] you are only worth about $6 or $8 and if you are over 20, you are [worth] about $20 an hour.

Joyce identified that her age gives her a competitive edge as the low wage she is entitled to

receive makes her attractive to employers. Joyce has secured work in fast-‐food stores preparing

food and serving customers: an industry characterised by low social status, minimum wages,

and insecure, part-‐time and casual work (Harris, 2004b:31).

Nor do these service roles rupture Joyce’s ideas about traditionally gender-‐appropriate roles.

Jacob’s efforts, in contrast, as a young male who left school early, have been less fruitful

because of the ideas he holds about the suitable gendered trajectories available to young

people:

Well, it depends and that, if you’re a woman, they mostly get those front counter jobs, and that, that customer service job. So, if you are a guy and look for a customer service job, it’s not very likely it’s gonna work out of you. If you are female, you know, you are looking for an apprenticeship, I guess, but I’m not a female, but I reckon it might be harder.

Jacob’s comments also suggest that ‘low waged workers in bottom-‐end, entry level jobs’ such

as those in the service sector ‘are typically stigmatized or denigrated’ by young working-‐class

males because they are feminised and seen to hold little ‘redeeming value’ (McDowell, 2003:

172). Although in many cases Jacob maybe right, he appears to transfer his own ideas about

gender-‐appropriate roles onto employers who he explains are unlikely to hire young men to

work in a customer service role. By doing so, he identifies customer service positions as

femininised roles, a perspective that is further demonstrated when he points out that

apprenticeships are an acceptable trajectory for males but that young women would find it

‘harder’ to secure such work. Jacob’s ideas about masculinity and femininity therefore operate

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to limit his movement into the retail and hospitality industries that currently provide the bulk of

employment opportunities available to young people (McDowell, 2003: 227). His observation is

a reminder that gender, and young people’s and employers’ own understandings of masculinity

and femininity, affect their experiences in the workforce (Archer, Halsall et al. 2003: 549).

Joyce’s relative success within the service industries could be considered evidence of how

young women are currently outperforming young men. Indeed, this is a hypothesis that has

received considerable attention within the public arena and resulted in substantial debate

about how young women’s success is being achieved at the expense of young men (See for

instance: Frosh et al., 2002, Furlong, 2009, McDowell, 2003). However, Jacob’s predicament

highlights how it is working-‐class young men that are vulnerable, rather than all young men

(Nayak, 2003, McDowell, 2003, Frosh et al., 2002). The narratives of visibly different young

women will now demonstrate that whiteness is as important as gender to success and failure in

the labour market.

‘Yeah that’s why I don’t want to get a job! ... I wouldn’t want to choose’

In addition to discussing how their lack of work experience impedes their ability to find work, a

group of young women of Lebanese descent also voiced concern about the difficulty of finding

a job that ‘suited’ them. When asked by the interviewer, ‘What has been the hardest bit about

looking for a job then?’ Lu Lu (Australian born, of Lebanese background) responded, ‘Actually

finding one to suit you’. On this subject, Lu Lu refers to a number of issues: she acknowledges

the difficulty of finding a job that is sufficiently flexible to fit with her availability as a student,

that suits her personality and that she would find enjoyable.

Lu Lu’s comments also point to the additional barriers she faces trying to finding work that suits

her as a young Muslim woman. Lu Lu does not explicitly articulate the relationship between her

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visible difference, religion and gender, and her employment prospects; instead, she frames job-‐

hunting as a matter of individual choice. However, the fact that many of the young women of

Lebanese background involved in this research shared first-‐ and second-‐hand stories about

other Muslim women – friends, sisters, mothers and aunties – experiencing discrimination in

the workplace problematises the ideal of individual responsibility.

Khadija (a newly arrived refugee of Somali background) spoke explicitly of the discrimination

she encountered:

I was looking for a job, and I didn’t get one because I was wearing the jalebeea15, the full hijab, and I couldn’t get a job because of that … some of them said to me it’s about your experience. And some of them said, ‘I can’t employ you because you are wearing this. I am really sorry.’ … They have no right to say that to me.

Under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic.), Victoria’s anti-‐discrimination law, it is illegal for

employers to discriminate on the basis of ‘race’, ethnicity, religion, gender or disability. These

laws do not appear to have deterred employers who blatantly cite her Islamic attire as a reason

not to hire Khadija. Nor did Khadija utilise this law to hold employers to account. Indeed, such

discrimination appeared to occur at each stage of the job seeking process for the young Muslim

women in this research. Marhwa shared the experience of a friend who had been offered a job

at Nando’s and was then told by the manager that she had to take her hijab off if she wanted to

work there.16 None of the young women of Lebanese background talked about making a formal

complaint about such treatment, conveying a sense of powerlessness to respond to

discrimination.

Thus, discriminatory experiences that permeated the everyday lives of these young women of

Lebanese and Muslim background had a detrimental impact on their jobseeking efforts. When

15 ‘Jalebeea’ is an Islamic term denoting a particular Muslim dress that covers women from head to toe. 16 Nando’s is a Portuguese-‐style chain restaurant.

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questioned about whether they thought that young women wearing the hijab would have a

different experience in the labour market, they said:

Reem: Yeah. Safiya: Yeah that’s why I don’t want to get a job! [laughter] That’s why I don’t have a job yet ‘cause I wouldn’t want to choose. Interviewer: You’d be afraid of people making you choose? Safiya: Yeah I guess. Loubna: And it’s that feeling of rejection, that’s a big thing.

Safiya added further:

I wouldn’t get a job because, you know [because] of the hijab … it makes me not want to try. But you do see it [girls wearing the hijab] like at Borders17 or whatever which is pretty shocking.

In the above exchange, Safiya reveals that she expects that looking for work will force her to

choose between wearing the hijab and getting a job. Her comments demonstrate that the

matter of the hijab directly influences this group of young women’s desire to find work as they

expect experiences with employers to be adversely impacted by their wearing the hijab. These

young women anticipate discrimination and constrained opportunities and this generates

anxiety about rejection before they even attempt to find work.

For Safiya, it is more shocking to see a female Muslim employee at Borders wearing the hijab

than it is for her friends to experience overt discrimination in the labour market. Safiya’s and

Reem’s opinions illustrate how the fear of discrimination impacts upon the labour market

performance of visibly different jobseekers (de Vries and Wolbers, 2004: 16). Safiya comments

provide insight into the degree to which she expects the employment prospects of young

Muslim women to be curtailed, as employment at a mainstream retail store does not appear to

be available to young Muslim women. That the very existence of a Muslim retail attendant in

17 Borders was a large retail chain selling books, magazines and music. One such store operated at Highpoint Shopping Centre.

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Australia is inconsistent with Safiya’s understanding of the world offers insight into the

geographies of exclusion experienced by young veiled Muslim women.

The differential treatment of these young women, as visibly different Australian jobseekers,

also illustrates that they face an additional obstacle when trying to enter the workforce: racism

and discrimination. Research by YACViC has confirmed that young jobseekers from CALD

backgrounds experience discrimination in the labour market (Rose et al., 2011: 115). This is

consistent with other studies on the experiences of visibly different refugees in the Australian

labour market which have found that they encounter interpersonal racism and individual

prejudice (Colic-‐ Peisker and Tilbury, 2007:78).

These examples illuminate the multiple layers of disadvantage that visibly different young

people encounter when seeking work. Yet the prevailing neoliberal orthodoxy denies the role of

racism and discrimination in the labour market. This is because neoliberal interpretations of the

labour market are blind to social divisions such as gender, class and visible difference (Colic-‐

Peisker and Tilbury, 2007: 76). The experiences of Khadija, Safiya and their female friends and

family members contradict this orthodoxy by demonstrating how visible difference, gender and

class continue to hinder young people’s ability to secure employment.

‘Not unless you looked like a typical Aussie girl’

During the focus group, Chloe (of Aboriginal and Tongan descent), Rose (of Tongan descent)

and Latifa (of Aboriginal and Tongan descent), all of whom are early school leavers, spoke little

of their experiences of looking for work as they had limited personal experience to draw upon.

When they did speculate on their employment prospects they talked in generalised terms and

drew upon gendered stereotypes of Tongans and ‘Aussie’ females to explain the perceived

differences between these ‘natios’ (nationalities) and their places of employment. Cutting

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across their discussions were classed and gendered narratives that were closely tied with their

identities as Tongans and Islanders.

The young women considered their employment prospects to be curtailed by the intersection

of their ethnicity, gender and social position. Latifa, Rose and Chloe felt that they could only

expect to work in low-‐skilled roles with little social status, as evident from their discussion

about how being an Islander would preclude them from working in a fashion store:

Latifa: Yeah, if you went into KFC they would hire you, but if you went to a clothes shop they wouldn’t. You would never see an Islander girl working there. Rose: Not unless they looked like the typical Australian girl. Researcher: What do you mean by that? Rose: I mean really nice, dressed up in the latest fashion or a really good fashion sense. Not trackie pants and that.

In discussing the reality that being an Islander female would likely preclude them from securing

retail work, these young women conveyed how femininity is racialised and communicated

through physical displays such as makeup, clothing and the body. Latifa is clear that she, as a

young woman of Pacific Island heritage, would find work at a fast-‐food outlet but not in a retail

environment. Her views were supported by Rose, who explained that this is because they do

not look like a ‘typical Australian girl’ who dresses in the latest fashions. Their observations

demonstrate how non-‐Anglo-‐Saxon young women experience dominant representations of

Anglo-‐Saxon femininity as a form of exclusion (Aapola et al., 2005). These comments are also

anticipatory – they reveal how these women expect Australia’s racialised femininity to limit

their employment prospects.

Rose and Latifa have therefore perceptively detected the way that sexism and racism operate

‘concurrently’, and how this disadvantages them in the labour market (hooks, 1994: 77, hooks

in Back and Solomos, 2000: 17). They identify the link between their class position, their

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Islander identity and the relationship between these social differences and their gender. The

comments of Latifa, Chloe and Rose thus reiterate the importance of contesting the fixed social

categories in order to show how gender, visible difference and class operate as multiple and

intersecting differences (hooks, 1994: 220).

The narratives of Rose, Chloe and Latifa illustrate the intersection of their gendered, Islander

and working-‐class identities. Similarly, other research on young women experiencing

disadvantage have shown the interdependence between their ‘racial’, ethnic and working-‐class

identities. For instance, a study on young ‘black’ women in inner-‐city London found that they

were acutely aware of their ‘social locations’ precisely because they ‘lacked the privilege to be

able to ignore these interweaving inequalities’ (Archer et al., 2003). Thus, like the young ‘black’

women in Archer et al’s study, Rose, Latifa and Chloe have ‘developed an explicit working class

self-‐identification through their own racialized, classed and gendered subject positions’ (Archer

et al., 2003).

The discussion among these three women about the employment prospects and career

aspirations of young Islanders displays a strong class narrative. The jobs identified as available to

Islanders are limited to manual roles in industries which they know other Islanders work:

Latifa: Construction. Rose: Labouring, factory work. Chloe: [simultaneously] Labouring. Latifa: Then on special occasions you would start your own business in something close to labouring, like packing fruit or something like that.

All of the workplaces nominated offer manual and low-‐skilled roles. Latifa, Rose and Chloe’s

knowledge of working-‐class jobs correlates with their expectations of where they, as Islanders,

would be able to find work. Their lack of aspiration beyond seeking manual labour suggests that

their understanding of their employment prospects is grounded within their particular social,

economic, cultural and geographic location, on this basis they construct ideas about their future

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(Kane, 2006). Other studies on visibly different young women have also shown that they choose

pathways known to be accessible to people of their background (Mirza, 1992). This is further

apparent in the view shared by these three women that Pacific Islanders rarely work outside

manual labour and that breaking free from this trajectory is a ‘special’ or rare occurrence. As the

industries identified by the young women are traditionally occupied by males, this suggest their

knowledge on employment is informed by the males in their families.

‘They’re trying … to get us ready for when we get married’

Gender and class emerged as the strongest themes in the discussions with the young women of

Pacific Island and Aboriginal background. They described the ways these factors infused all

aspects of their lives, including their relationships with their parents and their parents’

aspirations for them. Their comments included the following:

Chloe: I think that they’re trying, as girls, as I see it as that they are trying to get us ready for when we get married and that. Rose: Yeah. Latifa: I’m not going to get married! Laughter from all three participants Rose: Yeah, I’m put off already. Latifa: And they want us to marry Tongans and that’s worse! Rose: Like my Dad is always saying that I really need to learn how to cook Tongan food ‘cause I won’t be making noodles for my husband. Chloe: I can’t cook, I don’t care.

The young women conversed about the domestic responsibilities associated with caring for

their spouse, siblings and parents, both now and in the future. The young women’s views about

preparing for life as a wife illustrate how many working-‐class girls are taught to look forward to

feminised careers in the home (McRobbie, 2000). They understand that their parents’

expectations of them to learn the skills of domesticity are underwritten by an assumption that

this is preparation for life as a wife and mother. The inference here is that, once these women

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are married, their primary responsibilities will be inside the family home and certain activities

outside the family, such as work, will cease.

The dominance of traditional gender roles has been noted as a particularly strong force in the

lives of working-‐class young women of migrant background who often face the additional

pressure of being required to fulfil the role of mother and wife, to complement the role of the

male who is expected to be the principal breadwinner for the family (Butcher and Thomas,

2003: 35). Yet it is evident that Latifa, Chloe and Rose are actively resisting these expectations

by small acts of defiance, including limiting their cooking skills to the preparation of two-‐minute

noodles and making fun of what life would be like were they to marry a Tongan.

The experiences of the young women of Lebanese background, and Tongan and Aboriginal

background demonstrate the importance of using gender and class analysis to contest

representations of ‘overachieving’ young women, and of young women as ‘new professionals’

(Harris, 2004b). That is, young women as performing better at school both in terms of grades

and also continuing on to further education and that they are more likely to be employed and

entering professional employment than their male peers. As the narratives of the young

women in this study reveal, representations of so-‐called overachieving girls are problematic and

inaccurate, not least because those who are less-‐privileged like Khadija, Rose and Chloe have

encountered racism and discrimination in the labour market. As young women face multiple

layers of disadvantage, their experiences of (and expectations about) work are grounded within

their class position, which intersects with their gender and visible difference – all of which

constrains the opportunities available to them. The lives of the young women represented in

this research therefore show that, while they are expected to demonstrate flexibility, exercise

choices about their future and have access to the same opportunities as their white, middle-‐

class peers, they are less able to access the same rewards that are available to these female

peers (Harris, 2004a).

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‘Especially when you are…’

Khadija (a newly arrived refugee of Somali background) felt that her experience as a young

African Australian was negatively influenced by stereotypes of Africans, explaining:

[It’s] especially [difficult] when you are African. People think that you are a lazy African and they won’t give you a job ... they think they are not smart, their countries are falling apart so what good are they to me?

Similarly, Matt (an Indian international student) believed that employers hold stereotypes of

Indian international students, including assumptions that ‘we don’t have good English’ and that

‘Indians are loose cannons’. Khadija and Matt thus identified the way that racist stereotypes

impede their ability to find work. Both considered that Africans and Indians are viewed as

inferior to other jobseekers because of stereotyping of visibly different people. They detected a

phenomenon that Ghassan Hage describes as ‘third world looking migrants’, whereby non-‐

white migrants in Australia are viewed through the colonial prism which portrays people from

colonised lands as lacking intelligence and as being less productive than the coloniser (Hage,

2000). In this regard, Matt and Khadija detected the existence of a social hierarchy that

positions some people as superior, which is a ‘central tenet’ of a ‘system of discrimination’, and

one that allows for the racialisation of non-‐whites as ‘less civilised’ and therefore less

deserving. This belief is then used to deny people access to colonial nations – for example,

through participation in the workforce (Garner, 2007: 19).

Khadija’s and Matt’s narratives also show how ‘race’ (being ‘African’ and ‘Indian’, respectively)

also becomes aligned to social status as aparent in their descriptions of how being African or

Indian is tied to a subordinate social position. It is also notable as Khadija and Matt link the

association of Africans and Indians with poverty and a lack of material and social capital

(Gaganakis, 2006, Alexander, 2000). In Khadija’s case the layers of social differences operate to

create a structurally disadvantaged position for her as a jobseeker: she lacks experience (as a

young jobseeker), wears the hijab and is African. All of these factors make her particularly

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susceptible to discrimination as she attempts to find her way into the workforce.

Joyce (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background) shared Khadija’s view that African

Australians looking for work have a markedly different experience from that of Anglo-‐Saxon

Australian jobseekers. She too believed that they encountered discrimination and racism,

commenting:

I don’t think that they get treated … given a fair enough chance. I think that they do get a chance but don’t get as much chance as Anglo-‐Saxon people get. Interviewer: So there is a difference in how people are treated? Joyce: Yeah. Interviewer: What makes you think that? Joyce: [silence] Um, well, I know a lot of people haven’t accepted the um, [quieter] black people and I don’t think that it is fair. It’s a bit racist. Interviewer: So, you think that there is a bit of racism out there? Joyce: Yeah, I don’t think that they get as good jobs as white people do.

In Joyce’s opinion African Australians (‘black people’) are treated differently and this means

that they do not receive ‘a fair enough chance’, in comparison to the opportunities available to

‘Anglo-‐Saxon people’. Joyce simultaneously acknowledges the power of employers to exclude

‘black people’ through discriminatory practices while also minimising this phenomenon by

describing their treatment as ‘a bit racist’. Her observation do, however, detect how racism is ‘a

system of advantage’ that operates on ‘an economy of socially constructed categories that are

supported and sustained through practices that favour the dominant group’ (Roberts et al.,

2008: 337). Her use of the term ‘fair’ can be seen to be grounded in the egalitarian national

narrative that everyone gets a ‘fair go’ in Australia (Russo et al., 2011: 2). However, as Joyce

identifies, this is not the case for African Australians who are yet to be accepted by the wider

community, resulting in labour market discrimination against them.

Joyce’s insight into the treatment of visibly different people captures how the opportunity to

enter the workforce is controlled by the hiring and firing practices of employers who have the

power to exclude visibly different migrants from the workforce (Colic-‐ Peisker and Tilbury,

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2007). Joyce thus identifies how the racist views of employers block visibly different Australians

from gaining access to opportunities, consequently leaving them with ‘unequal access to

cultural and social’ resources and excluding them from particular spaces (Butcher and Harris,

2010). This appeared to be something the young people in this research were aware of but did

felt powerless to act upon even when they encountered overt racism and discrimination.

‘I didn’t see anyone who wasn’t white’

The young people who participated in this study described the market as a space where

whiteness and visible difference operated, enabling and constraining their employment

prospects. This is apparent in Joyce’s view that she, as an Anglo-‐Saxon Australian, would not be

able to find work at a small business owned by ‘Asians’, and that ‘blacks’ do not have access to

the same opportunities as ‘Anglo-‐Saxon Australians’. Similarly, Chloe, Rose and Latifa

understood their employment prospects in relation to the types of workplace at which

Islanders would expect to find work.

Joyce, along with a number of other participants, described the labour market as being

influenced by visible difference. In explaining her view that as a young Anglo-‐Saxon she could

expect to experience discrimination at small businesses owned by visibly different Australians,

she provided an example related to the beverage store Bubble Cup, observing:

me and my friends were saying that this drink place, non-‐ alcoholic, in Highpoint, Bubble Cup, all the people there that have been hired there they’re all Asians … not that I’ve ever applied there … [but] I’ve had friends who applied there but [they have] never got a job.

The confidence that Joyce displayed earlier when outlining her ability to secure work in retail

and fast-‐food outlets thus appears to be underpinned by assumptions about where ‘whites’,

‘Asians’ and ‘blacks’ work. This suggests that she has developed her own system for negotiating

the labour market, by selecting workplaces where she believes she will be successful and

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directing her jobseeking efforts accordingly. Joyce shares the view that people’s backgrounds,

whether visibly different or white, influences their ability to secure work. Like Rose, Latifa and

Chloe, Joyce perceives the labour market as a stratified space.

Many of the newly arrived young people also considered their ability to find work to be

influenced by visible difference and whiteness. Gemma (of Polish and German background,

newly arrived) commented on the particular demographic of the Highpoint KFC employees:

They are all white, because my friend my friend she is from Arabia, but she is white as well, she is Arabian but white and all the others they are white. I didn’t see anyone who wasn’t white.

Gemma thus nominates whiteness as the dominant characteristic of the KFC employees. Yet the

exception to this is her Arabian friend, who she describes as different but also white like the

other employees. In doing so she illuminates the apparent lack of ethnicity held by the other

‘whites’ she references. According to Gemma, who herself is white, the workforce is a place

where visible difference and whiteness influence the opportunities available to young people, as

apparent in her reflection that:

I think that if you are white, you are most likely to get jobs in shops like Big W and Myer and these type of shops but obviously if I tried to apply to work in an Indian shop where they sell Indian things it is most unlikely that I will get a job.

Despite the possibility that Big W’s and Myer’s customer base extends beyond Anglo-‐Saxon

Australians, visibly different people are not seen as potential employees. Gemma’s view

therefore supports that of Rose, Latifa and Chloe, who were adamant that they would not

secure work in a retail outlet. Operating simultaneously in Gemma’s comment is a belief that

she would be unlikely to find work in an ‘Indian shop’ and an implicit statement that small,

ethnically owned businesses only provide employment for non-‐white jobseekers. Gemma’s

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views, like those of Joyce, present a picture of the labour market as a stratified space in which

white and visibly different Australians have different employment prospects.

The narratives of Gemma, Khadija, Latifa, Rose and Chloe about the labour market evidence

how visible difference, gender and class operate to disadvantage them in this market. These

young women consider that employers have a particular look in mind when recruiting young

workers – that is, they are looking for young white women to be the face of their stores and to

serve customers. The intersection of the young women’s visible difference and femininity

functions to prevent them from accessing entry-‐level customer service jobs that are typically

available to young people. Similarly, Jacob, as a young white male, does not fit this ideal

because of his gender.

‘We get the high-‐paid jobs’

When Joyce pointed out the existence of racism and how it operates to prevent young Africans

from finding work she also displayed knowledge of how visible difference is often used to

explain a deeper class dynamic (Gaganakis, 2006: 377). The relationship between visible

difference and class is apparent in the following exchange between Joyce and the interviewer:

Interviewer: Okay then, so you used the word Anglo-‐Saxon before, what type of jobs do you think Anglo-‐Saxons get? Joyce: We get the high-‐paid jobs like lawyers and solicitors and those types of jobs. Important stuff, the type of stuff where there is power.

Joyce is thus ‘race cognizant’ as she acknowledges the existence of the privileges of whiteness

(Frankenberg, 1993: 157). Joyce is aware of the economic benefits associated with her

whiteness when she recognizes that being white gives her access to professional roles ‘where

there is power’ and higher incomes. She is able to reflect on how racialisation leads to different

employment opportunities. Additionally, Joyce’s comment shows how whiteness as a form of

privilege is marked in the western suburbs. Young people here understand that whites have

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access to professional roles, whereas visibly different people either work in manual labour jobs

or in small, ethnically owned businesses.

‘The east side is more high class’

There are, however, limits to the white privilege available to young Anglo-‐Saxon Australians

from the west side. Jacob and Joyce’s access to positions of power and wealth is questionable

when they must compete with jobseekers from the other side of the city. When viewed in this

context, both of these young Anglo-‐Saxons discuss their experiences in relation to their inferior

class position to people from the ‘east side’, and in doing so demarcate their limited access to

these privileges. This is evident when Joyce describes herself as less confident about her

capacity to secure a professional role in the future after furthering her education. In this

imagined future she anticipates that being from the west will be an impediment to her

professional aspirations, reflecting:

Not now but I reckon when you are older it might ‘cause it’s like known as practically all the troublemakers and all the people over here, and definitely the east side is like more high class, and really expensive [schools] are like $5000 a term and if you want a job like being a lawyer they are probably going to look at that stuff, like they [east-‐siders] stayed at school, they got good grades, less people dropping out, they didn’t drop out and go to TAFE … they shouldn’t think like that, that not everyone around here is like that.

Joyce’s reference to ‘troublemakers’, whose conduct prevents them from having success at

school, and thereby constrains their access to professional employment, is an

acknowledgement that young people in the west lack the social capital possessed by people

from the east, who she describes as ‘high class’. The troublemaking behaviour Joyce refers to

involves dropping out of secondary school, and ending up enrolled in a TAFE course, which then

prepares them for working class and vocational roles. This contrasts with the ‘high-‐class’

behaviour that enables Joyce’s ‘east side’ peers to get ‘good grades’, attend expensive private

schools and take up professional roles. Joyce understands the whiteness of the east side as a

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middle class to which she does not belong, made further apparent by her reference to the

$5000 school fees, which in reality are often much higher, revealing that such wealth is

unimaginable to her.

Joyce visualises the east and west sides of Melbourne as parallel universes. The east is home to

private schools and families who can pay for this experience, where students ‘get good grades’

that lead to university and then to professional employment. In the west, however, the norm

involves young people acting out and being troublemakers, resulting in them leaving school,

moving into vocational training courses that secure them work in the factories and

manufacturing industries in the west. Thus, Joyce imagines herself to be disadvantaged before

she even attempts to enter the workforce. Her whiteness, in this instance, is hindered by her

lack of cultural capital as a resident of the west side (Kenny, 2000). Lacking the desired cultural

capital, Joyce feels she is unable to participate in the dominant white, middle-‐class culture.

Jacob (Australian of Anglo-‐Saxon descent) also linked his geographical location to an inferior

class location, which has had implications for his job seeking experiences, commenting:

Ah! Yeah, it is, ‘cause like, if someone from the west side applies for it and someone from the east side applies for it, most likely that someone from the east side is gonna get it.

Similarly, Nayak’s (2003) study of working-‐class white men and masculinity in materially

deprived regions of England found that some whites are ‘whiter’ than others and that

disadvantaged young people’s whiteness is ‘tainted’ by their marginalised socioeconomic

position. When both Joyce and Jacob identify their geographic location as a barrier they are

referring to their social class; their geographical location puts them at a disadvantage. For Jacob

and Joyce, access to the privileges associated with being an Anglo-‐Saxon is displaced by their

class location. They are self-‐reflexive about their whiteness and marginalised position because

they are aware of the stigma attached to living in a disadvantaged area. The narratives of Joyce

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and Jacob therefore complicate whiteness by describing how their access to white privilege is

blocked by their socioeconomic position (Howarth, 2002, Pugliese, 2002, Webster, 2008). They

are young Anglo-‐Saxons but as residents of the west side not the right kind of white, but from

the wrong side of the river: the working-‐class side of Melbourne.

Conclusion

The narratives presented in this chapter illustrate the ways in which visible difference, including

whiteness, acts as a social force that young people must negotiate as disadvantaged jobseekers.

These young people are not only cognisant of how stereotypes orientated by visible difference

impede their ability to find work, but they also appear to have developed their own maps to

navigate this unequal terrain. Among the young Anglo-‐Saxon Australians involved in this

research, at least one was able to identify how whiteness privileges her in the labour market.

These young people of Anglo-‐Saxon background were also aware that in some instances

whiteness operates against them or they do not have full access to the privileges it affords

because their class marks them as different.

What emerges from the all of the young people’s is evidence of de facto spatial management

practices by employers, motivated by racist stereotypes. That is, employers limit the

opportunity of visibly different young job seekers to move into more ‘mainstream’ workplaces

such as Big W and Myer. Visibly different Australians, as the young participants in this study

appear to understand it, are confined to manual labour positions and small ethnically owned

businesses. In addition, young white Australians are able to detect and name a system that

protects middle-‐class privileges from visibly different young people, and from working-‐class

young people from the west side who are not the right kind of white.

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Chapter 4 Geographies of exclusion

Working in the western suburbs of Melbourne I am regularly asked, ‘Where are you from?’ and

‘What is your natio(nality)?’ I have learnt from young people that there are ‘white boy’ and

‘African boy’ jeans, and that foods such as lasagna and pizza are ‘Aussie’. I am often told that I

‘sound like a white woman’ or that particular activities make me ‘white’. The terms ‘white’ and

‘Aussie’ are used interchangeably by young people to refer to Anglo-‐Saxon Australians, showing

that whiteness is central to young people in the western suburbs understanding of Australia’s

national identity. As a result, all visibly different people are given a ‘natio’. Whiteness is also

understood as involving more than skin colour alone. To be white or ‘Aussie’ also involves

participating in particular acts, practices and ways of being. However, this does not mean that

those with a ‘natio’ hold a singular identity; they can be Australian as well. Indeed, the

narratives of the young people in this research demonstrate a complex understanding of

identity, one that complicates singular forms of social categories.

Building upon the work presented in the preceding chapters which revealed how whiteness

shapes the educational and labour market experiences of young people, this chapter

investigates whiteness as a dominant field under which young people in the western suburbs

must operate. In the first section I draw on the work of Ghassan Hage, specifically his White

Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society (2000), to illustrate how the

external boundaries of whiteness are constructed in Australia. The second section outlines how

whiteness in the west is experienced negatively by disadvantaged young Anglo-‐Saxon

Australians, as whiteness shapes the internal boundaries of white identity. The third section

explores how young people from the west at once generate a sense of belonging to the

Australian nation, while also contradictorily revalorising multiculturalism. Many scholars of

‘race’ have shown how whiteness operates as an unmarked norm in Anglo-‐Saxon societies

(Frankenberg, 1993, Garner, 2007, Morton Lee, 2003, Pugliese, 2002). In contrast, this chapter

captures how whiteness is marked for young people in the west because they are experiencing

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multidimensional disadvantage. In other words, whiteness has class dimensions. My argument is

that young people in Melbourne’s west emerge as highly competent social actors, who not only

have the ability to name social hierarchies but also develop a range of strategies for living with

social divisions, and that geography is key to imagining their identity and place in the wider

Australian community.

‘Lara Bingle is what is Australian’

National identity is a form of ‘cultural imaginary’ influencing how bodies are experienced

(Thomas, 1998: 103). The body is central to living with the day-‐to-‐day experience of cultural

difference, as evident in the way people discuss ‘racial’, ethnic and cultural differences with

reference to their bodily experiences within particular spaces (Harris, 2009: 191, Thomas, 1998:

74). In the Australian context, the dominance of whiteness means that non-‐white, visibly

different bodies are associated with other places; they belong to nations outside Australia.

‘Aussies’ are white, and non-‐whites have another nationality. These differences are also

embodied, as a group of young women of Lebanese background from Melbourne’s inner west

explained when unpacking why Lara Bingle has ‘that Australian look’: 18

Safiya: I reckon that Lara Bingle is what is Australian. She looks like, she has that Australian look. Fatma: Yeah. Lu Lu: Yeah. Safiya: She’s got that happy attitude, she’s on a beach in a bikini and she says ‘bloody’. (All girls laugh) Interviewer: What do you guys think about that? Do you think that a typical Aussie girl looks like Lara Bingle? Nesrin: Yeah, sort of, like what she said but are a bit fatter. Interviewer: So that is what, kind of blonde, blue-‐eyed, bikini? Nesrin: White. Safiya: Yeah, white. Interviewer: Is there anyone else there who you think looks like an Australian?

18 Bingle was the face of Australia's 2006 international tourism campaign. In it she adorned a bikini, strolled down a white sandy beach and cheekily enquired of the audience 'where the bloody hell are you'.

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Lou Lou: No, not really. Marhwa: Nah.

These were the responses of this group of young women during a focus group when shown

various images of prominent Australians.19 Bingle was face of Australia’s 2006 international

tourism campaign, in which she appeared on a white sandy beach in a bikini. This campaign

sparked controversy as Bingle cheekily asked the audience ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ The

young women’s response to Bingle’s image demonstrate how having a particular skin and eye

colour (and shape), as well as hair colour and texture, and bodily size continues to be

associated with particular spaces, in this case, the beach. The young women draw attention to

whiteness as a significant marker of Australianness and they read their bodies and their

appearance, as others have argued, ‘within the dominant frame of whiteness’ (Butcher, 2008:

377).

In this exchange these young women also discussed how whiteness involves more than having

white skin. Whiteness, like other ethnicities, is a performance ‘conveyed through repetition,

stylized gestures’ and particular activities (Nayak, 2003: 173). With precision, the women

dissected how Australia’s particular blend of whiteness is enacted through the cultural

performance typified by Bingle’s activities. She embodies a certain style of femininity (wearing a

bikini) within a particular geographic space (the beach). It is the combination of these factors –

the bikini, strolling languidly on a white, sandy beach and her skin colour – that elevates Bingle

to the position of embodying white femininity. These young women are articulating Hage’s

(2000: 53) concept of ‘practical nationality’, which he suggests is:

[T]he sum of accumulated nationality, sanctified and valued social and physical cultural styles and dispositions (national culture) adopted by individuals and groups, as well as valued characteristics (national types and national character) within a national field: looks, accent, demeanour, taste, nationally valued social and cultural preferences and behaviour, etc.

19 See Appendix i for a copy of these images.

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Practical nationality is cultural capital that is accrued and converted into national belonging.

Having a particular look, dress and accent, and engaging in particular activities amount to being

recognised as a legitimate member of the nation (Hage, 2000: 53). The concept of cultural

capital as it relates to practical nationality is applied within this chapter to consider how

whiteness extends beyond skin colour and the influence of this upon young people’s

experiences of the (re)production and negotiation of social differences.

The young people who self-‐identified as white Australians in this study were also able to

identify whiteness as a form of cultural capital. Joyce (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon

background) explicitly referenced skin and hair colour with a particular physique, saying:

Well, for me, a typical Australian is supposed to look like, someone with blonde hair, with a tan, tall and sort of and with an athletic built body.

Joyce associates the same set of physical attributes with membership of the Australian nation

as did the young women of Lebanese background – namely, skin and hair colour. Her

experience, however, reveals just how exclusive the category of whiteness is, when she

explained that her own particular physical appearance meant that she was frequently

positioned outside this field. She said:

I’m 100 per cent Australian but everyone always thinks that I am Maltese or Dutch or Italian Interviewer: Really? What do you think that is about? Joyce: Um, I think it is ‘cause of my hair and my skin colour and I don’t think that I look Australian. Interviewer: So, then do people ask you questions? And if so, what do they say? Joyce: They ask what nationality I am, and I’m like, ‘I’m Australian’, and they’re like, ‘You don’t look it, you look Maltese or something’.

Joyce confidently asserts that she is ‘100 per cent Australian’ despite the fact that other people

continually locate her outside this category on the basis of her ‘hair and skin colour’. Such

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questions about her ‘nationality’ demonstrate the internal hierarchy of whiteness insofar as

being white with brown hair and eye colour makes her less white than the blue-‐eyed blonde in

the Australian context. While Joyce is confident enough to rebuff other people’s inferences, her

experience illustrates how some people are made to feel ‘more or less national than others’ on

the basis of their physical appearance (Hage, 2000: 52).

Whiteness paradoxically can be both a negative and a positive term used by young people. For

example, when Khadija (newly arrived as a refugee of Somali background) says of Bingle, ‘Ah, I

know her, that’s Lara Bingle. Wow … yeah, we love Lara’, she communicates how Bingle’s

whiteness is a positive asset. This contrasts with Latifa’s (Australian born, of Tongan and

Aboriginal background) description when making specific reference to Bingle’s whiteness: ‘Hey,

there is that white girl from that ad, oops…’. In this instance, whiteness carries a negative

connotation because after naming Bingle’s whiteness she then attempts to create some

distance from this act by saying ‘oops’. Here, Latifa appears uncomfortable in naming whiteness

and her retreat from ‘white’ illustrates how the term can also carry negative connotations when

it is used to distinguish between different groups.

These examples confirm that whiteness is visible for young people in Melbourne’s multicultural

western suburbs. All of the young people represented here hold a clear appreciation of what

constitutes whiteness, including Joyce, the young Anglo-‐Saxon woman, who is also aware of the

parameters of whiteness because of her difference from its dominant Australian form. As other

scholars of ‘race’ have noted, marginalised and oppressed people have a more intimate

understanding of the privileges that whiteness affords, having experienced exclusion from it

(Nayak, 2003: 172, hooks, 1984, Howarth, 2002). Similarly, when young people name whiteness

they remove it from its privileged place as normal, transparent and invisible, and this can be

understood as a response to managing positions of subordination and confronting domination

(Butcher and Harris, 2010: 451, Frankenberg, 1993: 6, Nayak, 2003: 173, Harris, 2009: 196).

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White multiculturalism in the west

When the research participants nominate Bingle as having ‘that Australian look’ they expose

the persistent link between whiteness and Australia’s national identity. These young people

recognise that whiteness remains at the ‘core’ of Australian nationality and that other social

differences such as ‘race’ and ethnicity are produced in relation to this. This is apparent in their

repeated references to different nationalities including ‘Tongans’, ‘Lebanese’, ‘Sudanese’, and

‘Somalis’, and ‘racial groups’ such as ‘Islanders’, ‘Africans’ and ‘Asians’ which pepper the

discussions presented in the two preceding chapters. The use of these terms to demarcate

social differences demonstrates that white multiculturalism produces the migrant/ethnic and

Aboriginal Other (Hage, 2000: 17). White multiculturalism, as the system of organising the

ethnic and Aboriginal Other into different national groups, which are then managed by the

white national will, has clearly influenced young people’s understandings of visible difference

and whiteness (See Hage, 2000).

When young people utilise nationality to name social differences they show how Australia’s

reliance on white multiculturalism to manage ‘differences’ not only produces a ‘white

Australian national identity’ but also racialises groups of non-‐whites (Russo et al., 2011: 2). The

categorisation of all non-‐whites as belonging to different nations/nationalities illustrates that

young people’s experiences of negotiating social differences occur in relation to wider social

forces, notably the dominant discourse on multiculturalism which classifies Australians as white

and all others as belonging to different ethnic groups.

Of course, young people do not passively accept these dominant discourses; rather, they

reference nationality in order to counter racialised categories. The young people in this

research reiterated the importance of interrogating homogenous racial groups by ‘breaking

down’ these groups into specific nationalities. As Chloe (Australian born, of Tongan and

Aboriginal descent) explained when asked about visible difference, ‘Well, I don’t see people like

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that. I don’t see she’s white, she’s black, I see nationality first’. In other words, Chloe does not

readily accept polarised categories of Australians as white and ‘black(s)’ as belonging to another

race, but instead uses nationality to contest racialised categories. Similarly, Deng (a newly

arrived refugee of South Sudanese background) explained, ‘We all have our nationality, like

Khadija is from Somalia, and me, I’m from Sudan’. In this way Deng reminds the interviewer of

the importance of interrogating ‘African’ as a fixed ‘racial’ category. Both of these young people

complicate ‘racial’ categories as homogenised groups. In doing so, they demonstrate the

cultural literacy required to negotiate social differences.

The young people in this study also distinguished Aboriginal people from whites and those with

a ‘nationality’. The status of Aboriginals as Australian was unquestionable, and while their

cultural and socioeconomic capital differed from that of whites, their position in the national

imaginary was no less secure. This is evident in Jacob’s (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon

background) comment when he pointed to images of Aboriginal children as he discussed who

looks Australian:

Jacob: Them, they’re Abo, yeah. Interviewer: So, you would call them Abo rather than Australian? You would give them a different name? Jacob: Oh, well, if you are specifying them from Aussies, white Aussies, then you call them Aboriginals.

Similarly, Chloe (Australian born, of Tongan and Aboriginal background) argued:

So like, when I look at an Aboriginal I know they are Australian, in my mind, I don’t think to say that they are Australian because they already are, I think that. Do you know what I mean?

Jacob and Chloe confirm that Aboriginality, like whiteness, is a form of ‘national capital’ that

secures their belonging to the nation (Hage, 2000: 57, Peisker and Tilbury, 2008: 50). However,

like those who are deemed to have a nationality, whiteness is the dominant field against which

Aboriginality is defined. This is evident in both Chloe’s and Jacob’s comments, which each show

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that whiteness remains at the centre of their understanding of Australia’s nationality, as it is the

pivotal reference point from which Aboriginals are separated and distinguished.

The secure position of Aboriginals as belonging in Australia despite their visible difference was

noticeable in a heated exchange between Chloe (Australian born, of Tongan and Aboriginal

background) and an older, ‘white’ neighbour which was retold in an interview:

He said, ‘We welcomed you to this country’. And I’m like, ‘You didn’t welcome me into shit, dickhead; I’m half Aboriginal’. He’s then like, ‘Oh’, and, the way he was, [it] was full on … I was like, ‘What right do they have to say that?’ When I’m looking at him … whose muscles I could pop with a pin … just ‘cause he is a white guy.

In this story the ‘white’ neighbour assumes his right to be in Australia and that his place in the

nation is natural and unquestionable. Engaging in what can be termed a ‘white national fantasy’,

this man asserts his right by assuming a privileged relationship with the nation (Hage, 2000: 32).

His whiteness gives him confidence about his claim over Australian territory. By saying to Chloe,

‘We welcomed you to this country’ he exposes his assumed position as a ‘spatial manager’ with

the authority to manage the ethnic Other (Hage, 2000: 47). This assumption is based on his

membership of the white cultural majority, which gives him permission to remind Chloe that her

right to be in Australia is dependent on his acceptance of her as an ‘Islander’. However, Chloe

interrupts the white nation fantasy, ‘popping’ his claim by switching identities: her Aboriginality

is used as a ‘pin’ to deflate his superiority over her visible difference. Chloe emerges as the

victor because of her finely tuned ability to detect power imbalances and to destabilise her

neighbour’s authority by referencing her Aboriginality.

In this example, Chloe thus uses her difference in a ‘strategic’ and ‘tactical’ way (Harris, 2009:

200). The interaction between Chloe and her neighbour captures how racism and conflict are a

part of the everyday, mundane negotiations of living with visible difference. This conflict also

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confirms the finding of other studies of visibly different young people that they use racialised

categories to decentre whiteness (Harris, 2009: 201). Through everyday encounters such as the

one detailed above, young people like Chloe are involved in negotiating difference and in doing

so challenge our ‘monocultural notions of national identity’ (Butcher and Thomas, 2003: 199).

Embodied difference, practical nationality

As mentioned above, the young people who participated in this study frequently asserted that

whiteness is more than just skin colour. They understood that particular practices are ‘raced’

and classed and that visible difference is spatialised. This is apparent in their references to

whiteness via particular activities, styles of clothing and the occupation of particular spaces.

The young people involved in this project understood that it is possible to accumulate cultural

capital by way of physical appearance, particular social attributes and participation in certain

activities, which all then translate into practical nationality (Hage, 2000: 20). Practical

nationality then confers membership in the Australian nation (Hage, 2000: 53). The relationship

between such practices and attributes and Australian nationality is evident in the young

participants’ discussions of the beach and the activities undertaken there.

These young people from the west considered clothing to convey practical nationality, which

facilitated national belonging. Khadija (a newly arrived refugee of Somali background), for

instance, explained that she can identify Australians by ‘the clothes that they wear’. Achol

associates white Australianness with ‘short shorts and miniskirts and … singlets’. The

relationship between clothing and cultural capital is also apparent in the sense of discomfort

young women of Lebanese background experience because of non-‐Muslim people’s responses

to the hijab. As Mariam (Australian born, of Lebanese background) joked, ‘In winter it’s okay

‘cause you are all rugged up and so is everyone else [laughing]’; thus, clothing marks who has

and who does not have cultural capital. Mariam highlighted how particular seasons such as

summer make them stand out as Lebanese Muslim Australian women because of their modest

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clothing, yet how in winter they do not appear different from their non-‐Muslim peers, thereby

acknowledging their sensitivity to the different seasons because of their attire.

Clothing was also used to distinguish between other visibly different groups. As Achol (a newly

arrived South Sudanese refugee) explained:

Well sometimes, you can tell by the way that they dress … When African ladies or girls wear traditional dress you can tell where they come from Sudan ... And like because she [Khadija] is wearing that scarf and the long skirt you can tell that she is Somali or something.

Clothing is therefore an ‘embodied way’ of marking social categories for young people of

migrant background (Valentine and Sporton, 2009: 744). This is apparent in a discussion with

Chloe and Rose about their experiences of dressing ‘Aussie’ and the responses of other

‘Islanders’ to their ‘transgression’ of fixed social categories when they wears a different style of

clothing than is expected:

Chloe: Yeah, I hang around Aussies mainly and stuff, like, our dress sense is a lot different. When I go out with my friends I can wear a dress with stockings and stuff. But like, if I went to an Islander club people just look at us like, what are they wearing? Rose: Yeah. Chloe: Yeah, we would be accepted as normal, but if we were at an Islander club, they would be like, ‘Woah, put some pants on’.

In this exchange, ‘normal’ in the first instance refers to the clothing style of ‘Aussies’, including

wearing ‘a dress with stockings and stuff’. Yet, as Chloe explained, if she were to wear this style

of clothing to an ‘Islander club’ (as opposed to an ‘Aussie’ one) she would be accountable to a

different set of standards about what constitutes appropriate dress for a young woman of

Tongan background. Chloe and Rose thus demonstrate their ability to ‘code switch’ – they know

how to dress both ‘Aussie’ and ‘Islander’. By wearing particular types of clothing in different

settings, Chloe and Rose explore alternative femininities and in doing so they challenge and

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rework the meanings attached to dress. Additionally, this conversation showcases their cultural

literacy and their ability to belong to multiple social groups because they understand that

within different spatial contexts, their particular style of dress communicates who belongs, and

who is out of place (Valentine and Sporton, 2009: 747).

For young women who are visibly different from white Australians, such as Khadija, Achol,

Chloe and Latifa, clothing is a powerful signifier; it conveys membership of the dominant white

group, or it positions them outside it. Clothing communicates not only their gender, but also

their class location, sexuality and membership of different religious, ethnic and cultural groups.

Subtly embedded in these young women’s discussions about clothing are ideas about the

construction of their gendered, classed and ethnic identities, and instances of some young

people having the confidence to contest these boundaries.

Social geographies: spaces of exclusion

The beach is a site where visible differences grounded in white nationalism are (re)produced.

The young participants’ awareness of the beach as a culturally significant site was most obvious

when the group of young women of Lebanese background nominated the beach as a space

where they felt most uncomfortable and where their sense of being different from other young

people was most acute. For example, when asked to explain what it was about the beach that

made them feel uncomfortable they said:

Jamilla: ‘Cause we rock up in shorts and t-‐shirts at the beach … the Muslim girls sit in a different spot, and they sit over there on the rocky area.

Loubna: I think we tend to attract a bit of unwanted attention when we go … with long pants on and long jumper go in the water, amongst those in there in their bikinis. Nesrin: The worst place is at the beach. When you rock up in like t-‐shirts and everybody else is in bikinis.

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Dress is therefore seen as a cultural signifier that communicates what categories people belong

to and in which spaces they belong. The young Muslim women’s clothing communicates that

they are outsiders. The intersection of their gender, ethnicity and religious beliefs, particularly

at the beach, means that their embodied, gendered identities are excluded from white

nationalism. Their narratives illustrate the social geography of ‘race’, as Jamilla, Loubna and

Nesrin’s sense of being different is experienced through their (clothed) bodies within a

particular space (the beach) (Frankenberg, 1993: 43). In contrast to their bikini-‐wearing peers

they refer to, they wear t-‐shirts, long pants and long-‐sleeved tops. What is worn at the beach

carries greater significance because wearing a bikini is a form of cultural capital. The beach is

the ‘worst place’ because the shadow of Bingle as the quintessential white female looms over

this group of young women’s experience of their own bodies most overtly in this space. Here,

whiteness is the norm and their observance of Islamic modesty is the signifier of difference.

The beach is strongly associated with white ‘Aussieness’ and the activities undertaken in this

space, such as surfing, swimming and lying about in a bikini, generate cultural capital in

Australia. This was evident in the discussion presented in the preceding section in which young

women of Lebanese background nominated Lara Bingle as having the ‘Australian look’. It was

also clear in Jacob’s (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background) narrative, when he spoke of

the association between the beach, and beach activities, and ‘Aussies’. When he was asked to

discuss who he thought looked Australian he pointed towards the image of a lifeguard and said,

‘Oh, yeah, and [it’s] ‘cause they are on the beach’. The relationship between the beach and

practical nationality is further apparent in Jacob’s claim that ‘Aussie’ males look like a ‘surfie’ –

a sentiment shared by the young women of Lebanese background who also described

Australian males as ‘surfers’, suggesting that white Australian masculinity is associated with a

particular activity (surfing) within a particular space (the beach).

Despite the discomfort these young women report they continue to go to the beach and

participate in acts associated with the culturally dominant group. In doing so, they display their

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confidence in playing with the ‘boundaries’ of Australian whiteness while simultaneously

maintaining adherence to their religious values as young Muslim women (Butcher and Thomas,

2001: 43 & 45). These young women are thereby generating a counterculture that expresses

their membership in the Australian community. The experiences of this group of young women

show how young women of Muslim and Lebanese background negotiate social differences and

in doing so are forging new Australian identities.

The beach as a site where differences are regulated was most evident in the Cronulla Riots that

occurred in Sydney in 2005 (Harris, 2009, Mansouri and Percival Wood, 2008, Noble and

Poynting, 2010, Khamis, 2012). Other studies have shown the beach to be a site where cultural

differences are regulated and the hostile reception of Muslim and Arab Australians is indicative

of the widespread exclusion of Muslim and Arab Australians from public spaces in Australia. The

violence of the Cronulla Riots was ‘symbolic of a much larger struggle over white hegemony and

national belonging’. The riots were an attempt by sections of the white Australian community

to spatially regulate Australia’s national belonging (Noble and Poynting, 2009, Harris and Wyn,

2009: 200). Riots can be seen as an extreme form of this ‘regulation’, while at the other end of

this spectrum are the day-‐to-‐day subtle acts of incivility, hostility and racism that the young

women of Lebanese background revealed they encounter with teachers, fellow students and

strangers at the supermarket and on the street. These acts, big and small, communicate the

message that Lebanese and Muslim Australians are not recognised as Australian – that they do

not belong here, not on the beach or not in the wider community.

Internal boundaries: ‘bums’ and ‘bogans’

The young Anglo-‐Saxon Australians I interviewed also felt that the dominant whiteness

paradigm excluded them from the Australian nation. Their narratives reveal the class

dimensions of whiteness. They confirm what other scholars have identified: that whiteness is

classed and people are more or less white according to their economic and cultural capital

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(Bettie, 2003, Garner, 2007, Hage, 2000: 50, Kenny, 2000: 7). This was evident when Jacob

(Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background) pointed out how the white surfer stereotype

excluded him, saying ‘[It] depends on where you grew up. If you grew up round a beach you are

going to look like a surfie’. The beach is a site that reminds Jacob that his identity is far removed

from whiteness because of his geographic location in the economically depressed western

suburbs of Melbourne. The class dimensions are clear from his observations that the Aussie

surfer type is not available to him because:

If you grew up around Sunshine you are going to look like a bogan, ‘cause most of ‘em, round here, are like Aussie bums round there … well, most people, the older Aussies, that hang around here are bums and that.

In this quote, Jacob makes explicit the internal boundaries of whiteness. He is excluded from

the white Australian surfer archetype because of his class position, which is referenced via his

geographic location. The suburb of Sunshine, he explains, is full of ‘Aussie bums’ and ‘bogans’.

These are terms in young people’s lexicon that refer to white people whose socioeconomic

disadvantage positions them socially and culturally outside white, middle-‐class Australia. Thus,

whiteness as understood by Jacob has a social hierarchy that exists not only to demarcate white

from black or ethnic Other. Rather, whiteness is sustained through the inclusion and exclusion

of whites on the basis of the possession or lack of cultural and economic capital.

Geography was a recurring theme in Jacob’s accounts of what (re)produces and maintains

whiteness. This was clear when he explained:

It depends where they’re at, what area they are in, what area they grow up in ‘cause it affects how they become. Like the Aussies on the east side, they’re all rich and that, but you come down here, there’s not much Aussies but the ones that are mostly bums.

Jacob’s experience of being white demonstrates that whiteness is ‘subtly textured by class,

locality, gender and generation’ (McDowell, 2003: 4, Nayak, 2003: 140). His comment above

illustrates how geography impacts class and ‘racial’ identities. Jacob’s reference to both class

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and geography shows how his white identity is ‘geographically bound’ and ‘materially situated’

(Butcher, 2008: 373, Nayak, 2003: 452). He detects that as a disengage young male who has left

school early he has less cultural (class) capital and practical nationality than ‘Aussies on the east

side’. As he explains, there is an internal hierarchy of whiteness and as a resident of Sunshine

his position on this ladder is much lower than that which he imagines his affluent counterparts

on the ‘east side’.

The role of white multiculturalism in producing difference through reference to nationality is

apparent when Jacob reflects on his minority status as a young white male in the west. He said:

It’s better if you are another nation, you know … ‘Cause when I grew up I hung around with all Africans and New Zealanders, every other nation except white people. So, like, you always get picked on, you know.

Jacob thus identifies his position as vulnerable, which results in him being ‘picked on’ by his

peers. His story demonstrates the limits of white privilege in the economically depressed

western suburbs. In this instance, the language of multiculturalism is utilised by Jacob to

describe his social and material marginalisation from white, middle-‐class Australians. Jacob’s

identification as white is made more noticeable by his experience of being a minority among

‘Africans’ and ‘New Zealanders’. Here, ‘New Zealanders’ is also a non-‐white category, referring

to Tongans, Samoans and Maoris who have migrated rather than white New Zealanders

(pakehas). His experience of being white can be read as defensive response to his perceived

minority status. Jacob’s protective posturing was apparent in the preceding chapters when he

articulated his white identity as marginalised in the multicultural classroom, describing himself

as ‘the only white dude in my class, for the last three years’. It was also evident when he talked

about being disadvantaged when competing against people from the ‘east side’ for

employment. While for Jacob white multiculturalism determines how he describes visibly

different young people, it does not provide him with relief in the form of privileged whiteness

because of his economic situation in the multicultural western suburbs where he is a minority.

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Multicultural belongings

Like other research on young Australians, this study found that the majority of interviewees

view multiculturalism positively (See: Butcher and Harris, 2010, Butcher and Thomas, 2003,

Harris and Wyn, 2009, Collins et al., 2011). The young people in this study also held expansive

and playful ideas about Australia’s national identity (Wyn and Harris, 2004: 196 -‐ 197). For

instance, while the terms ‘black’, ‘African’ and ‘Asian’ are categories that operate in relation to

whiteness, belonging to one of these groups did not exclude young people from feeling

‘Australian’. These young people confidently hold multiple identities, as apparent in Rose’s and

Latifa’s responses to my question, ‘So if someone says “Aussie” what do you think they mean?

Or who are they talking about?’ The two young women of Tongan and Tongan and Aboriginal

background, respectively, responded:

Rose: Well it depends, if you said it to us? Latifa: Someone born in Australia. Rose: We’d probably automatically think, um, white person. That is ‘cause if you are asking us, we would think Aussie, or Tongan, we’d want to break it down to the most specific.

Rose (Australian born, of Tongan background) clarified further by stating:

Yeah so it’s about, like if you were asking an Islander they would break it down, almost ‘cause, you can kind of get the picture. If you say, ‘Aussie’, ok, we’re all Aussie here, so, if you break it down, you can go ok, she is Islander sort of thing.

As Harris’s study on other young Australians have shown, young people assert an equal right to

claim national belonging despite acknowledging the dominance of whiteness (Harris, 2009:

198). Evidence of this is in Rose’s explanation that the automatic response to such a question is

that Australians are ‘white’, but she knows that the issue is more complicated than this – that

Australia is supposed to be multicultural. Because of her Tongan background Rose interrogates

the term ‘Aussie’ as she believes that everyone in Australia is Australian, but that many hold

multiple identities. In this instance, the young women draw upon hybrid identities to access

citizenship.

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Similarly, Latifa considers herself to be Australian because she was ‘born here’ and this fact

supersedes her Tongan heritage. For both Rose and Latifa, having a different ‘nationality’ does

not preclude their membership of the wider Australian nation. Rather, Rose and Latifa

understand that their identification with particular groups, including being ‘Australian’ or

‘Islander’, is contextual and relational as the audience plays a role in determining which identity

is presented. Their conduct highlights the complex negotiations in which visibly different young

people must engage. Young people draw upon a repertoire of identities, choosing to either

highlight or play down the different dimensions of these identities in response to the situation

or space within which they find themselves.

The previous section illustrated how in one sense white multiculturalism makes visible

difference a ‘negative form of symbolic capital within the field of whiteness’ because it marks

people out as having a ‘natio’ (Noble and Poynting, 2010: 497). However, in another sense, the

young participants in this research utilised multiculturalism to express a sense of belonging to

the Australian nation. In this regard, Khadija declared that:

In Australia, yeah, like, years ago, it just used to be Aboriginals and then came white people and now it’s for everyone, people like me.

Khadija interprets her arrival to Australia as part of broader and ongoing waves of migration. In

doing so, she reveals that she understands her position as a young African in relation to both

‘Aboriginals’ and ‘white people’. Her narrative is consistent with her exposure to the dominant

discourses on Australian multiculturalism that explain the displacement of Aboriginals as the

traditional inhabitants following colonisation, the White Australia Policy and the shift towards

multiculturalism. It is part of the latest evolution of Australia’s national identity that Khadija

places her arrival. She therefore utilises multiculturalism positively; it legitimates her arrival and

life in Australia.

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Latifa (Australian born, of Tongan and Aboriginal background) also drew upon multiculturalism

when explaining that all people in Australia, regardless of their background, are Australian,

saying:

‘Cause you are all in Australia, so you are Australian … yeah, cause you are born in Australia you are Australian.

The comments of Khadija, Latifa and Rose demonstrate that they feel comfortable about their

membership of the Australian nation because of its multicultural nature, illustrating how young

Australians are able to reimagine Australia’s nationality.

Conclusion

The narratives of the young people presented in this chapter and the earlier chapters on school

and the labour market have shown that whiteness is a powerful field that influences the

meaning assigned to social difference. Whiteness was named by all of the participants as

determining the social groups to which people belong, although the meaning they attached to

whiteness and their ability to access the privileges it brings were varied. Young people mark

whiteness as an oppositional tool used to draw distinctions between Australians based on the

degree to which they hold practical nationality. This capital, as we have seen, is conferred by

particular performances associated with the dominant social group – the case in point being

Lara Bingle in her red bikini and her male surfing counterpart. Whiteness therefore not only

provides a hierarchy that determines the extent of one’s belonging, but also generates a map,

creating spaces where whites and non-‐whites feel more and less comfortable.

The young people’s narratives also point to an ‘intricate patterning of gender, class, sexuality

and ethnicity’ that ‘variegates’ racialised social categories (Nayak, 2003: 167). That is, class,

gender and visible differences and the meaning given to these continue to be affected by local

and global processes (Back, 1996: 7, McDowell, 2003: 17). Therefore, while young people have

the capacity to negotiate externally available categories, the meaning assigned to these

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categories continues to be constituted through social relationships characterised by power and

inequality. This chapter has also revealed that young people utilise a number of strategies to

negotiate visible difference. These strategies include the use of ‘natio(nality)’ to refer to ‘racial’,

ethnic and cultural difference in the west – an area characterised by cultural and linguistic

diversity. Young people use these terms to distinguish between groups, demonstrating that

differences are relational.

Young people in the west emerge from this thesis as experts in reading the body and clothing,

and in detecting spaces where visible and class differences matter. They understand the codes

of Australian culture and use these to navigate cultural difference (Butcher, 2008: 385, Butcher

and Harris, 2010: 451). In their daily interactions, their difference is drawn upon as a ‘resource’,

used strategically and tactically in particular contexts (Harris, 2009: 193). Young people also

speak out against white privilege, as the one resource they have to be able to contest its

omnipresence. This chapter has shown that the young residents of Melbourne’s west are social

actors who have developed a range of strategies to live with cultural diversity and operate in a

materially deprived environment.

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Conclusion and discussion

Within this thesis visible difference, gender and class, as structural forces shaping the

perspectives of young people from Melbourne’s ‘west side’, have been explored. Through the

analysis of experiences of individuals externally labelled as ‘at risk’, ‘disengaged’ and ‘early

school leavers’ young people emerge as highly conscious of the power dynamics that influence

their lives. Chapter 2, Schooling: resistance, withdrawal and hope and Chapter 3, Employment:

strategies for navigating unequal terrain demonstrate the social agency of young people by

presenting the creative ways in which they draw upon the resources available to them to resist,

operate within and negotiate the intersection of social divisions that (re)produce their

disadvantage. In Chapter 4, Geographies of exclusion, the cultural competency of young people

is illustrated by examining their ability to name the dominance of whiteness and the internal

and external social hierarchies that it produces. The young people involved in this study did not

passively accept the dominance of whiteness or the racist and classist discourse that has

marginalised them. Instead, they spoke out against it and challenged it, arguing that their

identities and the social categories which are imposed upon them are nuanced and complex

because visible difference, gender and class are given particular meanings within the west.

In this conclusion the strategies utilised by young people in the west are contextualised in

relation to the broader social conditions. To do this, this chapter considers geography as a force

that shapes the perspectives and experiences of the young people represented in this thesis.

Following this, the matter of how all young Australians are currently faring in relation to

education and training is considered. The purpose of this analysis is to highlight the challenges

that all young Australians currently face and to contextualise the trajectories of several of the

young participants. Both the statistics and the individual journeys presented here reveal an

intricate interweaving of gender, class and visible difference that continues to shape the lived

experiences of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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Geography emerged as a significant influence on the experiences of the young people involved

in this thesis: young people identified as ‘westies’ and being from the ‘west side’. They did so

using everyday expressions and when they spoke of social inequality particular to the west.

Anglo-‐Saxon intergenerational disadvantage is a challenge particular to this region of

Melbourne which they referenced with the terms ‘bum’ and ‘bogan’. This was evident in their

discussion of the dynamics particular to school, such as noting ‘when you go to a western

suburbs school’ (Chloe, Australian born, of Aboriginal and Tongan background) and pointing to

the lack of ‘really expensive schools’ that facilitate ‘good grades’ and movement into the white-‐

collar professions (Joyce, Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background). Similarly, this was clear

when young people of the ‘west side’ positioned themselves in relation to their peers on the

‘east side’, who they perceived as ‘more high class’ and better equipped to succeed at school.

In contrast, the research participants frequently described themselves as ‘troublemakers’ (both

Chloe and Joyce), whose conduct leads to ‘dropping out’ of school and to TAFE where

vocational training will prepare them for working-‐class jobs, rather than attending a university

which is seen to lead to careers such as the law and positions were there ‘is power’ (Joyce) –

pathways these young people imagine are only open to their so-‐called high-‐class peers. These

young people clearly see the class divisions in our society and what future awaits them. They

understand that as residents of the west – the decaying industrial suburbs of Melbourne,

stigmatised because of their working-‐class history – they are more likely to experience social

inequality because of the layers of social, material and cultural difference that (re)produce

multidimensional disadvantage.

Geography also shapes these young people’s understanding of what constitutes visible

difference, including that whiteness is visible in the western suburbs. Visible difference and

whiteness looms large over all social exchanges and interactions, determining who is higher on

the social hierarchy at any given moment. In ‘making whiteness visible’, these young people

unhinged it ‘from its location as transparent, dominant and ordinary’ (Nayak, 2003: 173). All of

the young people involved in this research who are visibly different from Anglo-‐Saxons either

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implicitly or explicitly spoke of the ways in which their bodies and mode of dress mark them as

belonging to another ‘natio(nality)’. The young people of Anglo-‐Saxon background also named

whiteness, and displayed an awareness of its influence of its internal parameters. As they

understood it, whiteness has class dimensions that left them, as residents of the west,

excluded. As working-‐class ‘westies’, they too are visibly different.

The young residents of the west did not passively accept the dominance of whiteness. Many

spoke out against it. Others challenged it by embracing multiculturalism (such as Khadija, a

newly arrived refugee of Somali background). They also contested the dichotomisation of

‘white’ and ‘black’ by pointing to the complexities of these social categories. For instance, Chloe

(Australian born, of Aboriginal and Tongan background) said, ‘Well, I don’t see people like that,

I don’t see she’s white, she’s black, I see nationality first’. Deng (a newly arrived refugee from

South Sudan) also contested racial categories by referencing nationality, saying, ‘We all have

our nationality, like Khadija is from Somalia, and me, I’m from Sudan’. Rose (Australian born, of

Tongan background) explained that ‘If you say “Aussie”, ok, we’re all Aussie here, so, if you

break it down’. Thus, we can see that while whiteness remains central to organising different

social categories, young people continually contest and interrogate the fixed social categories

of ‘Islander’, ‘African’ and ‘Aussie’.

Young people in 2012

At present, Australia is experiencing a period of unprecedented economic prosperity and

wealth generation, but not everybody is enjoying the benefits that this brings (See: Australian

Council of Social Services, 2010, Borlagdan, 2012, Mission Australia, 2010, Robinson et al.,

2012). It is common to see headlines such as the following: ‘Quarter of Young People not

Working or Studying’ (Hall, 2012). Studies consistently confirm that the situation of young

Australians in particular has not improved. The Brotherhood of St Laurence Social Exclusion

Monitor, which is based on factors such as low income, unemployment and poor English, found

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that 22 per cent of young Australians aged between 15 and 24 are experiencing social exclusion

(Borlagdan, 2012: 1). Youth unemployment, another marker of social exclusion, is currently

16.6 per cent – a rate that is three times that of the adult unemployment rate (Robinson et al.,

2012: 3).

All young people are vulnerable in the current climate because of the preference for skilled and

highly educated employees (Australian Council of Social Services, 2010, Mc Leod and Allard,

2007: 144, Mission Australia, 2010). And young people in the west are even more vulnerable.

Youth unemployment in the north-‐west reaches 56.7 per cent in some pockets (Hill, 2012), a

statistic revealing the greater disadvantage among young people in the west. Young people in

the west are even more vulnerable as they are more likely to be experiencing accumulated

layers of disadvantage because of their class position, visible difference, low education levels

and residency in a socioeconomically depressed area where there are fewer jobs available.

The link between low education levels and unemployment, and thus social disadvantage, is

apparent when considering the education levels of welfare recipients. Of all people who receive

Youth Allowance and Newstart (Centrelink payments), only 35.4 per cent have completed Year

10 and only 10.6 per cent have a bachelor degree or higher (Cox, 2012). Such statistics illustrate

that too many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are not enjoying the benefits of

the current economic boom. They also indicate that greater effort is required from government

and industry in ‘response to [the] deeper challenges’ that young welfare recipients face

(Robinson et al., 2012: 3).

Young people constitute a particularly economically vulnerable cohort, because of their

financial dependence on either adults or the state if their parents (if they are present in their

child’s life) are unable to support them. A recent report by the Australian Council of Social

Services (2012) found that 37 per cent of Newstart/Youth Allowance recipients are living below

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the poverty line (Australian Council of Social Services, 2012). This fact is not surprising as

Newstart, the allowance that the majority of young people receive, has not risen in relative

terms since 1994, unlike other welfare payments such as the disability and aged pensions

(Australian Council of Social Services, 2012). Young people without dependents who live on

Newstart Allowance receive a payment of $244.85 per week which equals $12,766 annually – a

figure that is equivalent to 40 per cent of the minimum wage. In comparison, an aged pensioner

receives $377.75 per week and a person on the disability pension receives $378.00 per week.

Government welfare payments are therefore creating unnecessary poverty for many young

Australians (Cox, 2012). Yet within the public arena, the discourse surrounding the need to raise

Newstart Allowance is presented as a ‘disincentive’ to people finding work. Such an idea is

premised on the notion that people willingly choose to live in poverty. It also assumes that

people are equal within the labour market and that gender, class and visible difference do not

play a role in shaping opportunities to succeed. This narrative places responsibility on the

individual rather than acknowledging the salience of structural factors that produce

unemployment, such as the preference for skilled employees that leaves young people

susceptible to poverty.

Just as the western suburbs have changed over time, so have the lives of the young people

involved in this research. Since their involvement in the qualitative research activities, these

young people have developed different aspirations and their views about themselves and the

world have changed. Many are engaged in new activities: some are working, others continue to

study, at least one has become a parent and another has assumed the role of carer for her

brother’s child. Several participants embody the statistics on youth unemployment and under-‐

employment. Others testify to the truth of the ‘education equals jobs’ mantra that dominates

public policy on young Australians. In the following section, the experiences of several

participants are used to animate more general statistics on young Australians’ educational and

labour market performance.

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Education: gender and class inequalities

In general terms school retention rates in Australia (that is, a young person completing Year 12

or equivalent) have reached a record high. And more young Australians, in particular young

women, attend university than ever before (Robinson et al., 2012: 3). However, when we

interrogate these gains a different picture emerges, one where socioeconomic background

continues to determine educational outcomes and educational attainment determines

employment destinations (Jones, 2009: 119). For example, 10 per cent of young Australians

(aged 15–24) are not undertaking education, training or employment. Of this figure, 13.8 per

cent are from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds; and the majority have low

educational levels –with almost one third having left school at Year 9 and only 6.5 per cent

having completed Year 12 (Robinson et al., 2012: 16). A contradictory picture also emerges for

young women, who are more likely to enter university, but are also more likely to experience

unemployment if they leave school before completing Year 12 (Robinson et al., 2012). Indeed,

young women who leave school early remain among the most economically disadvantaged

people in our community (McLeod and Allard, 2007: 2).

The statistics on ‘disengaged’ young people – those outside education, training and

employment – confirm the ongoing link between disadvantage and educational performance.

They demonstrate the need for a greater allocation of resources directed towards increasing

the minimum levels of schooling to assist young people to move beyond their disadvantaged

position (Robinson et al., 2012). To achieve this, our understanding must expand to

acknowledge the complexity and multidimensionality of social inequality. This will involve

recognising that educational disadvantage goes beyond socioeconomics to encompass factors

such as the educational levels of young people’s parents, whether their parents are from a non-‐

English speaking background and their employment history (Robinson et al., 2011: 14 -‐ 15).

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The release of the Gonski Report signals a positive shift by the federal government as it calls for

the implementation of policies to increase educational attainment for all young people. In

particular, the Gonski Report identified the need for targeted funding to better equip schools

that have large populations of young people from non-‐English speaking and low socioeconomic

backgrounds. As shown in the introductory chapter, the student body in the west is

characterised by these same two factors: economic disadvantage and cultural and linguistic

diversity (See: Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2012). The Gonski

Report has stimulated much-‐needed public discussion on how to address educational

disadvantage and the need for systematic reform of existing education funding models so as to

address the persistent relationship between social, economic and cultural inequality and

educational disadvantage. Time will tell, however, whether the current government is

committed to decreasing social disadvantage by implementing the recommendations of the

Gonski Report.

In Chapter 2, visible difference, racism and racist stereotypes emerged as strong factors

influencing young people’s experiences at school. Chloe (Australian born, of Tongan and

Aboriginal background), Latifa (Australian born, of Tongan and Aboriginal background) and Rose

(Australian born, of Tongan background) all removed themselves from a mainstream school to

enroll at Create, an alternative education provider. While these particular young women did

not explicitly name their negative encounters at school as a result of racism, they did subtly

reference their sense of difference when describing their need to associate with ‘other

Islanders’ with whom they identify. The experience of these young women illustrates how

young people’s sense of being different is amplified in the schooling environment. By enrolling

at Create the young women’s actions should not be seen as evidence of an ‘anti-‐school’ stance.

Rather, these young women merely sought out an environment where they could feel a sense

of belonging to the schooling community and could participate because they understood what

was expected of them. Thus, in this instance, the strategy of withdrawing from mainstream

schooling was not entirely counterproductive to their futures as it was merely a detour.

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The action of Chloe, Rose and Latifa, first their ‘wagging’ and later their exit from their local

high school, are forms of self-‐exclusion (Allard in Mc Leod and Allard, 2007: 145). The narratives

of these young women illustrate how a lack of engagement at school, negative views about

school and negative experiences with teachers are all precursors to disengagement from

education for early school leavers (Robinson et al., 2012: 17). Furthermore, the experiences of

the young women of Tongan and Tongan–Aboriginal background of subtle and overt racism at

school are valid. A report by the Foundation for Young Australians found that 70.1 per cent of

participants experienced racism and identified schools as a major setting where these

experiences occurred. The report identified young women of migrant background in particular

as the most vulnerable to racism (Mansouri et al., 2009: 3).

Similarly, the narratives of the young women of Lebanese background also highlight how

gender and visible difference intersects and reveal the accumulated layers of disadvantage in

the schooling environment. The group of young women of Lebanese background explicitly

named the racism and discrimination they encountered with their peers and teachers. Safiya

(Australian born, of Lebanese background) was fortunate enough to have parents who could

afford to send her to an Islamic school where she was sheltered from the racism and

discrimination she anticipated at her local public school. The option of attending a private

school was not available to her peers. The experience of racism had left Lu Lu (Australian born,

of Lebanese background), who was identified as ‘at risk’ at the time of the focus group, angry,

evident in her description of her fellow students at the public school as ‘friggin racist’.

Lu Lu did end up becoming an early school leaver at the end of Year 10. Her decision to leave

was a combination of choice and being pushed out after her local public school gave her an

ultimatum about improving her difficult and confronting behaviour in the classroom and her

poor attendance. Lu Lu had rebelled against the racist stereotypes, speaking out against unfair

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treatment, and in doing so had been labelled a ‘troublemaker’. She thus actively defied

gendered stereotypes of the passive Muslim female, but her quarrelsome and defiant actions

meant that she was not viewed as suitably studious. The school she attended sought to exclude

her by requesting that she sign a behavioural and attendance contract in order to re-‐enrol in

Year 11, but, again out of resistance, she refused. Lu Lu’s parents, concerned about her

behaviour, sent her to spend time with relatives back in Lebanon. Upon her return, Lu Lu

worked casually in her parents’ store, continuing to describe herself as a ‘bum who stuffs things

up’. Her actions are defensive; she has chosen to limit her social exchanges with people of a

similar background to avoid the negative stereotyping of Lebanese Australians and Muslim

women. Lu Lu spent the majority of her time in Newport where she did not attract attention as

a veiled young woman.

The experiences of Chloe, Rose, Latifa, Lu Lu and Safiya all suggest that their needs were not

supported in the mainstream schooling system (te Riele in Mc Leod and Allard, 2007: 121). All

of these young women experienced multidimensional disadvantage: they are from low

socioeconomic families, are of non-‐English speaking background and two had Aboriginal

heritage. Therefore, their decision to leave school was not so much a choice as an attempt to

‘escape from an unpleasant and unproductive setting’ (Allard in Mc Leod and Allard, 2007: 155).

These young women exercised what power they had available to them: to withdraw from

spaces where they are different, and seen as ‘troublemakers’, ‘thieves’, ‘liars’ or ‘thugs’.

Moreover, none of the young women fully ‘disengaged’; rather, they redirected their energies

towards building lives for themselves where they did not encounter damaging images or

representations of themselves. Such activities include participating in cultural performances at

community gatherings, becoming carers, raising other people’s children and working in family-‐

owned businesses.

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Structural forces in the labour market

The current preference for skilled employees in the Australian labour market makes it a difficult

time for a young person looking for their first job or entry-‐level positions. Young people with

low educational levels are particularly vulnerable, as are those with no or limited work

experience (Australian Council of Social Services, 2010, Rose et al., 2011, VECCI and

Brotherhood of St Laurence, 2009). The demand for employees with high levels of educational

attainment reflects a shift towards a knowledge economy (Allard Mc Leod and Allard, 2007:

144). In response to this changing climate, the government has enacted policies to increase

minimum educational levels, as outlined in Chapter 1. Current policies that focus on increasing

the educational levels of young people place responsibility on young people, when the problem

is not grounded in ‘individual deficiencies’ but ‘labour market characteristics’ (Furlong and

Cartmel, 2004: 123). The emphasis on equipping individuals to respond to the labour market

absolves the state and the ‘market’ (that is, private enterprise) of social responsibility.

Individuals thus carry ‘the risk’ and the cost of becoming ‘job ready’.

Research confirms that all young Australians have fewer opportunities for full-‐time

employment, with rates decreasing among this cohort by 22 per cent since the mid-‐1980s

(Robinson et al., 2011: 2). In addition, early school leavers, those who leave school before

completing Year 12, struggle to find employment and their opportunities to do so are often

within industries characterised by a casualised workforce (Walsh, 2012). Furthermore, the

chance of securing an apprenticeship, a form of employment that has traditionally provided

pathways for early school leavers (those with low educational levels), decreased by 8.1 per cent

between 2011 and 2012 (Robinson et al., 2012: 7).

The decline in traditional pathways into work for young people from low socioeconomic

backgrounds and with low educational levels via entry-‐level positions such as apprenticeships

which act as ‘stepping-‐stones’ jobs suggests that the opportunities for social mobility are also

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declining (Jones, 2009: 119). The decline in these pathways makes education even more crucial

to gaining employment within a highly skilled labour market such as Australia’s. With few

apprenticeships available, such opportunities are increasingly competitive among young

people. Jacob was aware of this issue when he complained about the lack of jobs that ‘train you

up’. I, too, observed how much harder it has become for disadvantaged young men (few young

women seek an apprenticeship in the trades) to secure apprenticeships. Employers are

increasingly seeking young people not only with Year 12 but also with a probationary license

and car. The current preference of employers makes it very difficult for young people

experiencing multidimensional disadvantage to compete with their peers who have completed

Year 12 and have the financial resources and family support to secure a driver’s license and a

car.

Statistics on labour market performance confirm that gender remains a powerful structural

force in the lives of young men and young women, influencing their movement into the

workforce. While young women from disadvantaged backgrounds are, for instance, more likely

to continue to further education, in contrast young men are more likely to move from school

into full-‐time employment or to remain unemployed (Robinson et al., 2012: 9). But this does

not mean that young women are ‘outperforming’ their male peers by finding work because

they are more likely to hold part-‐time or casual positions (Robinson et al., 2012: 8). Such

statistics demonstrate that the gains young women are making at school and in the labour

market continue to be ‘uneven’ and ‘class differentiated’ (Mc Leod and Allard, 2007: 1).

The gendered trajectory of young people’s lives is clearly evident when considering the

contrasting experiences of Joyce (Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background) and Jacob

(Australian born, of Anglo-‐Saxon background) as they entered the world of work. Joyce found

employment because of her willingness to work in the fast-‐food industry which is dominated by

feminised customer service roles that hold little social status. Jacob excluded himself from this

type of work, citing as reasons his own lack of interest and the reluctance of employers to hire

115

young men. He observed, ‘If you are a guy and look for a customer service job, it’s not very

likely it’s gonna work out of you’. Instead, Jacob opted to remain unemployed until something

more suitably ‘masculine’ came along. Jacob’s strategy thus shelters him from the ‘sense of

inferiority and low self-‐esteem’ felt by many people at the bottom of the ‘occupational

structure’ (Jones, 2009: 91).

With his father, also a despondent jobseeker, Jacob went on to establish a cleaning business.

Self-‐employment provided an insecure and irregular income but greater financial security than

welfare payments and better prospects than the unforgiving labour market. Jacob did not mind

the hard physical labour, early starts or sporadic hours so long as he had the financial resources

to participate in the wider community. Jacob and his girlfriend Zoe, like many young people I

have met relocated to the outer suburbs. In Melton, Jacob felt there were more ‘white people’

like him. But this move was a difficult experience for his self-‐described ‘half-‐caste’ girlfriend Zoe

(Australian born, Nigerian and Anglo-‐Saxon heritage), who struggled with feeling like she was

the only ‘African’ in the area and spoke out against the overt racism she encountered. Zoe

worked in a fast-‐food restaurant though held aspirations to resume her studies to become a

childcare worker or community worker, but was not sure how she would pay her rent and bills

were she to return to living off Youth Allowance payments. Both are now caught in a cycle of

having insecure jobs with little pay and low social status.

As a female early school leaver, Joyce’s performance in the labour market typifies the

challenges many young women in her situation face. Despite the initial confidence that she

displayed in my interview with her in 2009, when she spoke of returning to study and becoming

a professional, since then she has languished in the fast-‐food industry. After a number of years

she left the workforce to become a ‘full-‐time mummy’, having her first child at 19 and her

second at 21. Joyce’s transition from employee to mother is exemplary of how working-‐class

young women look for alternative sites of competence outside the workforce (Thomas in Allard

and McLeod, 2007: 50). Motherhood, in this case, was a more attractive alternative than the

116

prospect of long-‐term employment at Red Rooster, KFC or McDonald’s, which offer low-‐paid,

insecure roles.

Since becoming a mother Joyce has largely detached herself from the wider community,

including the youth and maternal health services available to young parents. She is

disadvantaged along a number of lines: her age, early school leaver status and as a single

parent on welfare benefits living in a disadvantaged area. Joyce’s existence remains precarious

on a number of levels, having struggled to find private rental accommodation despite repeated

attempts over a long period. Initially she had to live with her parents (who are separated but

live together), her siblings, and her first child. They all lived in a dilapidated and overcrowded

house described by some of the other young people in this research as a ‘squat’. Recently,

Joyce secured a private rental property that she shares with another single (widowed) young

mum. Both of these young women have continued to struggle with substance misuse since

becoming parents – using marijuana daily – making them both susceptible to intervention by

state authorities such as Child Protection within the Department of Human Services.

Many young women like Safiya, Lu Lu and Marhwa (all Australian born, of Lebanese

background) struggle to find employment outside part-‐time and casual work. Similarly, Chloe

(Australian born, of Tongan and Aboriginal background) worked at a bank for a while, having

secured a traineeship for young Aboriginal Australians. However, she struggled with the

demands of a full-‐time job and once the traineeship ended rejoined the pool of unemployed

young people. To fill her time, Chloe took it upon herself to play a large role supporting both of

her two young brothers who were in and out of youth justice centres and then prisons, as they

became increasingly entrenched within the adult criminal justice system. After the older of the

two brothers became a father, Chloe came to play a significant role assisting him in raising his

child. Like Joyce, Chloe’s ‘withdrawal’ from the workforce can be explained as due to ‘family

reasons’ – the main reason cited by young Australian women who leave the world of education

and work behind them (Robinson et al., 2012).

117

It appears, however, that Chloe’s and Joyce’s adoption of the traditionally feminine role of

mother and carer meant that they fared better than Latifa and Chloe’s brothers, whose social

problems came to be criminalised and led them into periods of incarceration. The

criminalisation of visibly different young men’s behaviour was something I observed at length in

the west. For instance, of the 50 young people who I ‘case managed’, nine went on to become

heavily embedded in the juvenile justice system before ‘graduating’ into the adult corrections

and prison system. Young Indigenous Australians, and young people with involvement with the

Department of Human Services, specifically those who have been in state care and those from

low socioeconomic backgrounds, continue to be overrepresented in the juvenile justice system

(Ericson and Vinson, 2010: 4).

In addition, statistics recently released by Victoria Police suggest that young men of Somali and

Sudanese background are overrepresented in the justice system due to higher rates of

offending (Oakes, 2012). However, a Jesuit Social Services report has revealed that young South

Sudanese people are six times more likely to be charged for an offence than other Australians

(Jesuit Social Services, 2012). The experiences of Chloe and Latifa’s brothers illustrate how the

behaviours of some young people are being criminalised and how the masculinity of visibly

different young men continues to be presented as a threat to wider Australian society, which

further disadvantages them.

In contrast to the experiences of Joyce and the other young women who had left school early,

Khadija (a newly arrived refugee of Somali background) and April (a newly arrived refugee of

Burmese background) exemplify the success that can come to young women who continue

their education. While their journey into professional roles took longer than that usual for their

Australian-‐born peers, they arrived at their nominated destinations after some creative

planning. Khadija, who displayed incredible tenaciousness, persisting with her jobseeking

efforts in the face of overt racism and discrimination, became a nurse. She achieved this by first

completing a Certificate III in Aged Care with ESL, acquiring practical skills through the work

118

experience component of the course. She then used this as a vocational pathway to gain

entrance to VU where she studied nursing, enrolling in a bridging course that assisted her to

initially do Divisional 2, then later, Divisional 1 Nursing. Khadija took advantage of the programs

at VU that support the specific needs of people from non-‐English speaking backgrounds by

combining ESL with vocational training. She utilised an alternative pathway into university

where she completed a nursing degree, a method that allowed her to gain work experience,

thus building her practical skills while furthering her education. All of these factors assisted her

to secure ongoing work at a major hospital in the city.

While Khadija was deemed to be ‘at risk’ given that she had arrived in Australia as a refugee

with limited English skills, she was able to utilise the support of her family, both financially to

pay for a course and emotionally as they assisted her to develop and reach her long-‐term goals.

Her parents, who were part of the Somali middle-‐class before arriving in Australia, acted as

positive role models. With their support, Khadija was able to suspend a need for immediate

financial rewards that ‘any job’ would bring in order to continue her education. Khadija’s

commitment to her education and the anticipated benefits that it would bring was possible

because her family had the financial resources and skills that allowed her to invest in an

imagined future – something that Joyce and Jacob appeared to miss out on.

April’s experience provides another example of how some young women are performing well in

the current environment, having completed a Certificate III in ESL at VU before moving on to

study Community Development at the diploma level. The ESL course enabled April to develop

her English skills to a level proficient to secure work as a translator at Centrelink, supporting the

newly emerging Karin and Chin (Burmese) communities settling in the western suburbs. Both

April’s and Khadija’s strategies thus involved embarking on a long-‐term plan, setting career

goals where they were able to draw upon their ‘difference’ as a form of social capital, and

selling their additional language skills and cultural competencies as young women of Karin and

119

Somali background to open up job opportunities within the nursing and community

development sectors.

The journeys of Khadija and April strongly evidence the importance of ‘alternative’ pathways

for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. These young women show what can be

achieved when courses are available to develop the literacy and numeracy skills of individuals,

and the benefits of tailoring ESL courses to vocational training. Such pathways are under threat

with the TAFE cuts being implemented by the current Liberal State government. In the west, VU

is indicating that it can no longer commit to running a number of youth programs, including

VCAL, and the Certificate I, II and III ESL courses that have assisted students like Khadija and

April to develop the foundational English skills needed to continue their education

(Cunningham, 2012).

The intersection of gender and visible difference appeared to have negatively impacted on the

life trajectory of Matt, an international student from India who had successfully completed his

studies in community services by the time this research concluded. Having paid upfront fees

totaling nearly $25,000 by the conclusion of his course, as an international student he secured a

skilled migration (regional visa subclass 487) to remain in Australia. Visa subclass 487 is for

skilled migrants; it provides international students with the opportunity to apply for permanent

residency by living in regional parts of Australia to address skill shortages in these areas.

Despite his qualifications and experience in the sector, having volunteered throughout his

study, Matt was unable to find work that enabled him to use these skills. Initially he relocated

to different regional towns looking for work, but he soon lowered his aspirations and accepted

a night fill position in a supermarket. Matt was jaded by his experiences and overtly attributed

his lack of success to inter-‐personal and structural racism. The obstacles preventing Matt from

gaining meaningful employment in his chosen field illustrate how the mantra that qualifications

equal jobs does not translate for all young people, as racism and sexism constrain visibly

different people’s movements into the labour market.

120

The stories of these particular individuals are a timely reminder about need for the state and

federal government to improve public policy on disadvantaged young Australians. Their

experiences illustrate the limited capacity of policies including The Compact with Young

Australian’s to assist young people overcome social inequality. Similarly, the successes of

several young women made available by the TAFE system demonstrate how TAFE cuts will

eradicate opportunities for young people to overcome disadvantage and call in to question the

logic of the current liberal government in Victoria.

The future

The young people in this research animate the ‘subtle interplay of individual agency,

circumstance and social structure’ in their lives (Nayak, 2003: 177). Some of these young people

have been able to negotiate visible difference, gender and class to successfully access the

wider, mainstream Anglo-‐Saxon community, if only through the spaces made available to them

by ‘white multiculturalism’ (Hage, 2000). We have also seen that young people retreat to

spaces where they are recognised as competent and where their sense of being different is not

magnified. Such a retreat is most apparent in the activities of the young women of Lebanese

and Muslim background as they left school early or attended an Islamic college, though it is not

such a retreat compared to others. Yet the withdrawal of these young women is not

straightforward, as they would attend the beach and swim fully clothed, stretching the

parameters of what can be defined as ‘Aussie’ activities. The other young women who became

‘disengaged’ in response to a sense of difference at school found other spaces in which to

participate. But again, this was not a full withdrawal; rather, they sought out other spaces

where they felt good about themselves, including an alternative school. In contrast, the newly

arrived young people had an optimism that their Australian-‐born peers seemed to lack, perhaps

because they were yet to be burdened with the awareness of the power of structural forces to

anchor them in particular ways.

121

Throughout this thesis young people of the western suburbs have reveal themselves to be

particularly shrewd at identifying, naming and describing the power structures in their lives.

Their ability to do so is most evident in their naming of ‘whiteness’. Young people of all

backgrounds understand that whiteness is more than skin colour and that it involves

participating in particular activities, speaking in a particular way and occupying particular

spaces – all of which amounts to a performance that translates into being recognised as

Australian. Both the visibly different and the Anglo-‐Saxon Australians involved in this research

expose whiteness as being marked in the multicultural western suburbs, a matter that is closely

related to young westies’ inability to access the privileges available to their white peers in the

‘east side’. For these young western suburbs Anglo-‐Saxons, their class position operates to

signify Otherness insofar as they are positioned as inferior to their high-‐achieving, high-‐class

east-‐side peers. Young people thus understand that whiteness is classed, and that as residents

of the west they lack the social, economic and cultural capital that the Lara Bingles and their

male surfing counterparts have.

All of the young people involved in this study, like many I encountered as a youth worker, had

potential and all had some positive attribute to offer the wider community. These individuals

are smart, funny, creative and hold great potential. Their failure to achieve success at school or

to enter the workforce was not due to a lack of intelligence, academic potential or a desire for

these things. However, many were born into disadvantage, or their parents had fled war or

they and their families had experienced a series of incidents outside their control, leaving them

in precarious situations. All taught me a great deal about the skills to live with social difference

and social inequality – skills that not only deserve to be acknowledged but which are invaluable

in our world today.

122

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Appendix

Images utilized in the focus groups and individual interviews.

'West side' stories: visible difference, class and young people

Documents

Transcript of 'West side' stories: visible difference, class and young people