A reflection of your own experiences of culture and identity in relation to education
As a Bosnian student in high school I only knew two girls who shared the same culture as me and so my dealings with everyone else provided me with insight into the identity of Australians around me. Through my interactions with students and teachers in a multicultural environment, I came to understand how influential culture was for the identity of an individual. This was evident through "identity markers" as described by Wadham, Pudsy & Boyd (2007) where it was apparent certain students conformed to certain trends to solidify their position within some type of 'social obligation'. These trends would often come and go and I referred to them as phases.
In addition, I noticed throughout high school that students would hang out with the same friend’s day in and day out. This was never my situation because I seemed to associate with pretty much everyone. It seemed weird that I something in common with someone in nearly every social group. Looking back it may have been because I used to hustle and sell anything I could get my hands on and through this means I made connections with everyone at some point. Although I had made strong relationships with only a few select people; best friends who I still remain in contact with till this day. I found that because I never had a permanent ‘group’, I was never forced to subscribe and conform to the values of a particular social circle. I spent a lot of time with the trouble makers but I was no hooligan. I studied with my Asian mates in chemistry class but I wasn't an ‘import’. I played lots of computer games but I wasn't a nerd, the same way I was highly active but wasn't a jock.
My identity never seemed to conform to any rigid system of
social dynamics like the students around me, but still I felt a sense of
belonging and acceptance. It may have been because people always thought I was
funny which was universally enjoyed by teacher and student alike. I believe
that one of the reasons that I was so widely accepted was the way I spoke and acted.
Coming from a private Muslim school I was taught, from a young age, the
importance of modesty, patience and compassion. I was never the most pious Muslim
but my culture prompted me to be courteous and kind to anyone and everyone. I
also often felt quite different to most of my friends because of my strong work
ethic. Many of my close friends thought they were too cool school but I would
always retort by saying “the eyes are useless when the mind is blind” to which they would laugh for some reason..
To conclude, the reason for my acceptance wasn't because of
my unique culture or my identity. It was because of my ‘tasteful nonconformity’
to the mainstream and my choice of virtues. From my experience of high school I have come to understand that people respect those with compassion and enthusiasm regardless of social factors.
Hi Morry, I enjoyed reading your post. It really reflects a great deal of reflexivity in the way that you examined the dynamics of your interactions with your peers. While the use of “identity markers” by Wadham, Pudsy & Boyd (2007: 13) seemed to be used in the sense of visual or physical traits that set certain groups apart from others, I thought that you did well to expand on it to refer even to conformity to trends and behaviour.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could have talked more about the way in which particular physical traits or patterns of behaviour acted as “identity markers” which differentiated the different groups of people among your peers. The problem of these “identity markers” is that they are essentialising and tend to place people in fixed and stereotypical categories which are far from accurate representations of the complexity in their social contexts.
P.S. I think that you may have also bought a little into this categorising, when you talked about “trouble makers” as “hooligans”, Asian mates as “imports”, gamers as “nerds”, and the “highly active” as “jocks”. OR I am wrong, and it may be that you are making a point that these categories are in fact problematic, with yourself as an example – someone who was a part of all these groups, yet did not fit nicely into the restrictive and stereotypical categories that their “identity markers” may have represented. ;)