Kevin Dunn
White Australian, first generation English
Kevin Dunn is the Pro Vice-Chancellor Research at Western Sydney University. He is a leading researcher in the geographies of racism, immigration and settlement, Islam in Australia, local government and multiculturalism, and racism and anti-racism. He has championed local anti-racism, bystander activism and online action, as a means to address racism in direct, relevant and more contemporary ways. Kevin’s research has highlighted the culturally and spatially uneven distribution of citizenship in Australia. As a leader on the Challenging Racism Project, Dunn has developed and led Australian Research Council funded projects that have generated comprehensive databases on racism and anti-racism, and operationalised novel concepts, such as Anglo privilege, belief in ‘race’, and bystander responses.
Antiracism interventions in Australian schools
Racism and racial bullying remain prevalent in Australian schools. The Speak Out Against Racism (SOAR) Project, conducted in government schools in NSW and Victoria in 2019, found that one-third of students experienced racial discrimination by their peers (31%) and within society (27%), and just over one in ten students (12%) reported racial incidents involving their teachers. At the same time, there is a growing recognition of the importance of building awareness of systemic racism and privilege to build support for anti-racism more broadly.
Bystander antiracism programs, especially during the formative years of young people, play a critical role in educating them to become engaged citizens who deeply value diversity, equity and inclusion in society. The AntiRacism in Action (ARiA) program, which we developed in collaboration with the NSW Department of Education, is specifically for students in Year 5 and 6 in NSW schools. The program included a co-designed curriculum with bystander antiracism activities, training videos and professional development training for teachers.
The Department’s evaluation of the program showed that teachers reported increased confidence in teaching about racism and anti-racism after the training and using the curriculum resources. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that there is limited research on the impacts of anti-racism training interventions, and even less on what effect they may have on addressing structural racism. To enhance this program, we are co-designing a curriculum centred around structural anti-racism interventions and will conduct an evaluation of its long-term impact.
