Prepared by: Kais Al‐Momani Nour Dados Marion Maddox Amanda Wise C
EFFECTIVE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES
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EFFECTIVE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIESSome of our interviewees noted that the use of new technologies needs to be well thought out. Simply putting things online does not always produce a positive response, argued Jamila Hussain: I think if you’re going to run online courses or something like that, people have got to be able to see some sort of benefit to them for doing it. An interviewee working with a Victorian multicultural services provider, who has organised initiatives for young people, emphasised the need to think about how new media forums could be used effectively: You need to engage more with younger people. So you need to find out exactly what is it exactly that they want ... A lot of online forums have been set up [by state and federal government bodies]. There’s the National Strategy for Australian Youth that is being developed at the moment. And they’ve set up an online forum, trying to engage young people. [But] it’s obviously not reaching a lot of people, and there’s not many hits on the website. I think there’s a few hundred. I don’t know how you could engage with young people ... I initially thought, maybe, you know, you use channels like YouTube and ... Facebook. But ... you always have to provide an incentive ... to get them more engaged. Such incentives could include a completion certificate or form of recognition that could become part of a young person’s curriculum vitae. But the most important factor, this participant emphasised, was that: This should start by actually really being interested in what they have to say ... by showing ... that what they contribute is ... taken seriously, and is valued ... Unfortunately, many of them are very cynical about… politics in general. They feel that they really can’t make a difference. So you need to empower them—make them feel that they can make a difference. And that’s only going to happen if there’s a message that is constantly reinforced at home, in the media, at school: that their contribution is going to be valued, and they’re encouraged ... That’s the only way they’re going to get engaged. Despite the range and scope of views expressed by interview participants, common themes were raised repeatedly. Inclusion, education and funding were strongly emphasised. Below we consider the range and variety of programs encouraging political participation revealed by our audit, noting patterns as well as strengths and weaknesses in the Australian context. AUDIT OF INITIATIVESOur audit of Australian initiatives revealed many types of programs that encourage participation, including many that focus specifically on members of the Muslim communities. We found over forty Australian programs that fostered active community participation, provided information on the political system, or developed and encouraged strong leadership. More than half of the programs listed in the audit were specifically aimed at members of the Muslim communities. Twenty‐three of the total number of Australian programs were funded under the National Action Plan. Of those which were not, several originated around the same period as the peak of the National Action Plan’s funding. While many of the programs were very successful, a common response from members of the Muslim communities was that Muslim‐specific activities unfairly represented them as having ‘problems’ which programs needed to ‘fix’. New South Wales and Victoria were significantly better represented in initiatives directed towards Muslims, presumably partly because the Muslim community is concentrated in these two states. Almost half the programs surveyed were specifically aimed at young people. More programs catered exclusively for women than for men. More than half the total were leadership programs. Australia had more leadership programs than the UK, for example, and many Australian programs’ success measured up well when compared with international best practice. Craig Dent, co‐ordinator of the Federation of Muslim Students and Youth’s ‘Believe Achieve & Inspire’ leadership program, told us that Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected into US Congress, had strongly commended the program and regretted that the US had no equivalent. A number of the Australian leadership programs specifically targeted Muslim women or were women‐only programs. These included the Self‐esteem, Identity, Leadership and Community for Women workshops, run by the Islamic Women’s Welfare Council of Victoria, and the Muslim Women’s Leadership Program, organised by Brimbank City Council. Others, like the Australian Muslims Education and Mentoring Project, run by Al‐Amanah College in Liverpool (NSW), were aimed at school age children. The most successful leadership programs, and those that generated the greatest media interest, were generally those aimed at a broader age group of Muslim youth (roughly, below 30 years of age). Of particular note are the La Trobe Leadership program organised in conjunction with the Islamic Council of Victoria (2007‐2010), the Australian Multicultural Foundation’s ‘Leadership Australia – A New Generation’ (2008‐2009) and the Federation of Australian Muslim Students and Youth’s ‘Believe, Achieve & Inspire’ (2009‐2010), run in conjunction with Victoria University. In addition to these larger programs, organisations like Sydney’s Affinity Intercultural Foundation have run their own ‘Personal Leadership’ program for a number of years and Youth Fusion (a division of the Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations) organised the ‘Youth Leadership and Mentoring Program’. With the exception of school based political education however, community type political participation workshops and information sessions were less developed on a broader national level in Australia compared to some UK models. Nasiha Active Citizenship program in the UK, for example, an intensive module‐based program that looks at political participation from an Islamic perspective and is offered in school and mosques in the UK has no Australian equivalent. One interviewee suggested that perhaps the Australian government would not be willing to fund an Islamically based political education program. However, this has been done successfully in the UK through Nasiha, with support from both sides of politics. On a community level, Australia has numerous examples of small political education and political information programs, some funded by local councils, some by local community organisations and others by the Australian Electoral Commission. For example, the Muslim Women’s National Network ran ‘Learn to Lobby Your Local Polly’ workshops prior to the 2004 election. The workshop, which included a PowerPoint presentation on effective political participation, was later found useful not only within the Muslim community context, but also within the wider community. The Australian Arabic Community Welfare Centre ran a weekly open ‘Discussion Group for Senior Citizens’ from Arabic speaking backgrounds to encourage open debate and provide general information. Auburn Council Chambers, in conjunction with Auburn Diversity Services, ran information sessions on the Australian political system, featuring presentations by local councillors as well as information on the political system. The Australian Electoral Commission offers information sessions for culturally and linguistically diverse communities in electorates where the number of informal votes is higher than the national average. The sessions feature bilingual educators who engage community leaders as well as the culturally and linguistically diverse community. Information is provided through shopping centres, culturally and linguistically diverse news media and at community engagement workshops. A striking feature of our interviews was the dismay which many Muslim activists and community workers expressed about the ignorance of the political system and political illiteracy that they had encountered—not only within their own communities, but in the general population. In this context, we consider programs which are aimed at the general population. In 1998, the Australian federal government launched the Civics and Citizenship Education Program. The program, built around the Discovering Democracy curriculum units, runs from middle primary to middle secondary, and explores the themes ‘Who Rules?’, ‘Law and Rights’, ‘The Australian Nation’ and ‘Citizens and Public Life’. Curriculum materials were developed between 1998 and 2001, and from 2001 until 2004 the program’s priority was on teacher training. At the time of writing, curriculum materials are available on the program’s website (http://www1.curriculum.edu.au/ddunits/units/units.htm ). Class activities cover political history and political change. Examples and class activities reflect the period of the program’s conception: for example, the Middle Secondary unit ‘Getting Things Done’, which examines interest groups, Parliament, the role of the High Court and disputes between states and the Commonwealth, is built around class activities relating to the 1982 Franklin Dam dispute, which even the parents of many of today’s teenagers struggle to remember. The program’s most recent evaluation, in 2003, found that the material was seldom taught comprehensively, but was rather used by teachers as a resource to ‘dip into’ from time to time. The evaluation found a substantial gap between ‘best practice’ and ‘average practice’ and predicted that, without continued funding and development, it would continue to make at best a marginal contribution to Australians’ political literacy (Erebus 2003: xx‐xxv). Students who embarked on the program in middle primary in 1998 and participated in all six years, would have reached voting age in time for the 2007 federal election. Unfortunately, lack of longitudinal data makes it impossible to tell what effects the program may have had on their political engagement. Some elements from the civics program have been incorporated into the national Values Education curriculum. A continuing feature of the civics and citizenship program is the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate, which subsidises schools travelling more than 150 kilometres to Canberra, to enable students to participate in education programs at Parliament House, Old Parliament House, the Electoral Education Centre and the Australian War Memorial. The rebate assists students from Year 4 to Year 12. Noting the importance which many of our interviewees attributed to their visits to Parliament under the various Muslim leadership programs, we strongly endorse the continuation of this program. Civics and citizenship achievement is assessed under the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs’ National Assessment Program. The report on Year 6 and Year 10 achievement in 2007 was released in 2009. It found little change from the previous assessment report, in 2004, with fewer students than hoped performing at the expected proficiency standards. The report concluded that: Students need to be taught explicit civic knowledge about how democracy works, and be provided with opportunities to take part in discussions and to become actively involved in decision making at school. Students so taught are more likely to be the ‘active and informed citizens’ sought by the National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty‐first Century; equipped to act as engaged and effective citizens. (2009:109) We also note a number of programs designed to educate the wider community about Islam, the Islamic community and the role of women in Islam. Examples included ‘My Dress, My Image, My Choice’, a touring fashion show organised in conjunction with the Islamic Council of Victoria to educate non‐Muslim women about Muslim women, and Did You Know?, a book project organised by the Muslim Women’s National Network of Australia to teach the general population about Islam and to correct misconceptions. While these programs were not aimed at generating greater political participation amongst Muslims, they are relevant here because of their contribution to addressing misunderstandings between Muslims and non‐Muslims, which, in turn, facilitates the environment of trust and confidence that is an important factor in enabling Muslims to take an active role in the Australian community. Directory: sites -> default -> files -> documents -> 01 2014 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> The south australian government gazette documents -> All public acts appearing in this gazette are to be considered official, and obeyed as such documents -> Union interparlementaire inter-parliamentary union 01 2014 -> Voices Shaping the 01 2014 -> Muslim Voices – Hopes and aspirations of Muslim Australians Centre for Muslim Minorities & Islam Policy Studies 01 2014 -> Editors: Kerry Download 16.24 Mb. 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