While these figures often focus on interpersonal discrimination or racially motivated verbal abuse, it is also experienced through systemic/structural racism and internalised racism.

In response, a new anti-racism program, co-designed by students to address the mental and physical health impacts of racism, has been piloted in 10 Victorian high schools.

Delivered to young people by young people, ‘Bigger Than This’ is aimed at Year 9 students and has a strong creative focus that includes the use of story posters, shared language cards and a creative activity to educate and empower them to take action when they witness or experience racism.

A collaboration between Victoria University (VU), VicHealth and the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC), the pilot program’s creation was supported by VU researchers Dr Sam Keast and Professor Chris Sonn, who have also subsequently analysed its process and response in an aligned research project.

Keast, who specialises in young people and education, whiteness and critical race methodologies, says it was critical to include the input of young people in the pilot, particularly in relation to what they wanted to know and how they wanted programs such as this delivered.

“It was a really interesting process of asking a diverse range of young people from culturally diverse backgrounds, LGBTQI +, gender diverse, Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander and more, ‘what would you want to know if you were back in school and what would a program look like?’ the researcher tells EducationHQ.

“Previously, perhaps there’s been a lot of top-down kind of stuff with experts saying, ‘oh, we know what you should know’.” 

Keast says while gathering precious feedback early in the process, young people were very clear in what they wanted.

“They were very particular about using language that resonated with young people, but also that wasn’t giving them new racist language to use,” he says.

“So they were very clever about thinking, ‘what sort of examples do you want to use?’, ‘What sort of language are you going to use in the program that will ring true with kids and is being said on the playground?’

 “So I think that’s been a really important part of the process.”

The research team has recommended that the Victorian Education Department expand the program across more schools with a longer delivery time and provision made for greater support for teachers.

The program comprises a 100-minute incursion – or two periods back-to-back – involving whole year groups wherever possible, to ensure maximum inclusion.

“The facilitators were young, or youngish, people who had lived experience of the impact of racism,” Keast says.

“So some young people from the African diaspora and some young people from the Pacific community, males and females  – and they would start with some standard fun icebreaker kinds of things, which then led into a range of conversation-starting story posters, which had both real life experience from young people about stories of perhaps racist incidents or things that they’d heard and said, to also some public ones...

Included in these was a poster detailing the notorious AFL incident from 2013 involving Sydney Swans star Adam Goodes being called an ape by a young Collingwood fan.

It was really about having more nuanced conversations around such incidents, Keast shares.

“They then moved into a collective session around what is some of the shared language around racism and anti-racism, so they talked about the different types of racism  – interpersonal, systemic racism, internalised racism, microaggressions – so trying to arm the kids with a common way to talk about these things.”

The last component involved the facilitators saying, ‘OK, now over to you’, to create perhaps a poster or a role play example.

“A few of them performed a rap around the new knowledge and the language that they had developed and the ideas they were thinking about,” Keast says.

“In a relatively short or brief intervention, the stuff they came up with was very neat, very cool.”

Feedback from educators and students who’ve participated in the pilot has been hugely encouraging.

Ninety-seven per cent of students surveyed were able to describe something they had learnt from it.

Ninety-one per cent were able to describe how racism impacts mental health, and 90 per cent were able to identify an anti-racist action they could take if they heard or saw a racist incident.

Sonn and Keast have recommended that the Victorian Education Department expand the program across more schools with a longer delivery time, providing greater support for teachers, and incorporating an expert review of the program to further strengthen its impact.

For now Keast says the researchers are looking to run the program with teachers, to get their knowledge and expertise around pedagogy and delivery.

“It’s to ask ‘what do you think this is like?’, and also for teachers to then think about having conversations about race, racism, anti-racism, develop their own racial literacy around this stuff.

“… we’re now thinking there really needs to be a broader understanding of ‘how do we resource teachers and schools at all the levels to have these conversations?’”

Sonn and Keast say the responses from participants have showed they felt safe to share their perspectives regardless of where their racial literacy was.

“Schools are a powerful vehicle for change. They are where our future community leaders are. We know racism exists in a number of pockets of the school environment and without work, this only festers,” Sonn says.

“We know this program would benefit all secondary schools; students, teachers and the broader community.

“We hope we can continue with this important work of preventing, reporting and calling out racism...”

To view in-depth analysis of the Bigger Than This program, click here.