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Canberra Today 19°/23° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Combating homophobia in schools

 

ACT Education Minister Andrew Barr writes:

The ACT Government is ramping up efforts to stamp out homophobia in ACT schools as a La Trobe University study confirms our schools are the most common place same-sex attracted young people suffer abuse.

The Writing Themselves In 3 (WTi3) report was compiled by La Trobe University in 2010. It’s the third national study on the sexual health and wellbeing of same-sex attracted and gender-questioning young people. In 2010, more than 3000 young Australians responded to the survey, including 80 from the ACT.

Key findings of the 2010 report include:

  • Young people continue to suffer high levels of verbal and physical homophobic abuse particularly at school.
  • In 2010, 61% of young people reported verbal abuse because of homophobia, 18% physical abuse and 26% ‘other’ forms of homophobia.
  • The most common place of abuse remained school with 80% of those who were abused naming school.
  • As many as 37% of young people described their school as homophobic or very homophobic overall.
  • For more than half of the participants, homophobic abuse impacted negatively on aspects of their schooling.
  • 40% of young people surveyed said they wanted the Sexuality Education delivered by their school to be changed so that it was more inclusive of same sex attraction and gender diversity and
  • Young same-sex attracted people who reported their school as having a supportive environment, were less likely to harm themselves or attempt suicide demonstrating the importance of putting policy into practice.

Like any form of bullying or discrimination, homophobia can have a massive and negative impact on the life of a young person. For example, the report shows there are strong links between homophobic abuse and feeling unsafe, excessive drug use, self arm and suicide attempts.

There is clear evidence in this report that schools can make a major contribution to the health and safety of students by effectively addressing homophobia.

I am determined that every ACT school will continue to make every student feel safe and valued.

That’s why I have asked the Department of Education and Training to:

  • Arrange an ACT Schools anti-homophobia conference to be conducted on 17 May to coincide with the International Day Against Homophobia. The conference will be open to students and teachers in ACT public, independent and Catholic systemic schools.
  • Develop a new training package to help ensure school counsellors and pastoral care coordinators can better work with their entire school to prevent homophobia and
  • Reform school Anti-Sexual Harassment Contact Officer training to improve our schools response to homophobia.

ACT schools already work hard to make every student feel safe and welcome students. But there’s always more to do. Discrimination of any kind is not tolerated in ACT schools and it will not be tolerated in ACT schools.

 

In 2010, 61% of young people reported verbal abuse because of homophobia, 18% physical abuse and 26% ‘other’ forms of homophobia.

· the most common place of abuse remained school with 80% of those who were abused naming school.

· as many as 37% of young people described their school as homophobic or very homophobic overall.

· For more than half of the participants, homophobic abuse impacted negatively on aspects of their schooling.

· 40% of young people surveyed said they wanted the Sexuality Education delivered by their school to be changed so that it was more inclusive of same sex attraction and gender diversity and

· young same-sex attracted people who reported their school as having a supportive environment, were less likely to harm themselves or attempt suicide demonstrating the importance of putting policy into practice

 

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4 Responses to Combating homophobia in schools

Gary says: 26 February 2011 at 6:26 am

Here we go again with the self-interest driven agenda of this minority lobby group which has infiltrated government at all levels. Firstly, let's not act as a nanny state and treat our children as idiotic robots ready to absorb whatever it is we want them to think rather than let them try to work out what is right and wrong by their life experiences and parental guidance. I am really tired of lobby groups pushing their agenda's at every opportunity they can in the education system, especially when their cohorts are in government to help them create new "programs" for schools, all using public money. For goodness sake, lets use school to academically educate our children, not to push political and sociological views upon them. Of course discrimination of any kind is not warranted but do we have to spell it out to each child and make such a special emphasis on gay rights and homophobia, amongst the many, many other groups of people who we should not discriminate against but hear very little about and let alone have special programs for. Imagine if the minister initiated a special program for each minority group.

I'm not sure where the statistics from this article came from, but they are very ambiguous and it seems they are used as justification for this new program against any other minority groups who could claim the same right for their own program. If we look at the stats another way, here is what you can read from the same article:
(a) as many as 64 per cent of young people described their school as NOT homophobic.
(b) 60 percent of young people surveyed said they did NOT want the Sexuality Education delivered by their school to change.

Also, what happened to community consultation and parental consultation by government departments, it doesn't exist. I remember when my child was at child care/pre-school and I came in one day to find the carers telling me that today they were going to introduce the 1-5 year old children to "same-sex parents" ie. "2 mummies" or "2 daddies" as part of the requirements for certification by the ACT government. I gather their funding was dependent on exposing children to these issues at a tender age, just to make sure they were well trained to consider gay partnerships as normal, validated and universally accepted by the time they reach school age.

Again, debate is non-existent on this issue in the ACT, I wasn't consulted by my MP recently, as they claim to be doing right now for advising the Prime Minister on views from their constituency on gay marriage. Where was the consultation, where was the questionnare? I'm sure it's so easy for the local minister to at least put up a voting poll on the internet and see just what ACT residents think about gay marriage. Should we allow gay couples the right to adopt children, participate in surrogacy, child care benefits, government programs etc etc, that is what the real question is, not just "gay marriage". Should a child's right to male and female parents be undermined by a gay couple's right to have children, I think the child's needs come first always.

This new program is not about anti-discrimination, if it was then students who bullied other gay students would be counseled on an individual basis just like what happens now with other forms of bullying. I don't see any special programs in school for bullying of asian children, african children, children who are tall, children who are short, children who are nerds. These are all issues that can be dealt with by normal school procedures and policies, however they don't need special Education Department programs setup for each of them. What is this new program about then? It is about indoctrinating our children with the idea that gay relationships are (1) Normal, (2) Acceptable by Society and (3) Should be considered normal and acceptable by them, regardless of the ethical and religious views of their parents. and finally (4) to push the final goal of legalised Gay Marriage and all the benefits that go along with that.

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David Braybrooke says: 22 April 2011 at 3:15 am

Gary, I think you make some great points. One problem I find with the school programs emphasizing gay rights is that they are really giving a strong focus to an issue that seems a little skewed to begin with anyway. Perhaps if people could get over the endless insistence that we are all somehow categorized according to our sexual preferences and start looking at humanity as a collective whole, we might start making headway in educating the masses about dropping their ingrained prejudices. In my opinion, if you have a healthy level of self-esteem, then any amount of bullying or aggressive behavior from others should largely be seen as a mild nuisance rather than a full scale freak-out situation. As you stated, kids are teased for a multitude of reasons and being 'gay' just seems to be the latest hot-button issue.

Reply
Samantha says: 8 March 2012 at 5:14 pm

Well said Gary, you’ve said everything that I wanted to say and more. To me these MP’s seem to have a hidden agenda for themselves and their interest groups and I’m tired of my children being taught socialist views at school, in fact any political views should be kept out of our schools. It’s no wonder Australian kids are doing so bad academically compared to Asian countries, we seem to be focused on social issues, rights and agendas rather than core education and obligations. Yes sir Mr. Government, we’ll listen to everything you tell us and obey your every word which is gospel regardless of parental views, is the feeling I’m getting from my children right now. Outcomes based education has really ruined the western educational system to the pleasure of these special interest groups. Well done minister for not educating our children.

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