Prejudice In Australian Society Essay

Australia’s greatest aspects are its embracement of cultural diversity and the embracement of customs and cultural differences. But are we really an accepting country?

“Implicit attitude is defined as unacknowledged attitudes external to a person’s awareness which nonetheless have measurable effects on people’s response times to stimulations” (Grinnell, 2009). This is a topic of importance on reading within the field of social psychology.

Reports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2003a, 2003b, as cited in Ashman & Elkins, 2009, p. 7) show 25% of the Australian population is currently made up of migrants from around 200 countries. This fact demonstrates Australia, on the whole, has a tolerant and inclusive society. A society can be identified as a collection of people who live together in a relatively ordered community (Ashman & Elkins, 2009, p. 7). It could be said, Australia has one of the most inclusive societies on the planet; however, this was not always the case.

We all know Australia is an amazing place where approximately everyone is laid back ( to some degree , it has a worthy parliamentary system as you do not need royal blood to be a leader, and you get paid considerably more compared to other countries. Although this continent is unfortunately not perfect as, in Australia there are two main types of racism. Aboriginal racism and multicultural racism. Racism is a terrible force as it has destroyed lives with verbal and physical abuse because they are of a different race. So we must change our ways. Examples of the soul crushing creature known formally as Racism are shown in the story "Tri" by Francs Echin and "Fifties Australia" by Phillip Knightley.

In this modern world, prejudice is still a universal problem we still have yet to overcome. Although it is true that our society is much less prejudiced than it was 40-50 years ago, we are still struggling to create racial harmony in a world that is so diverse in terms of racial group, sexual orientations, ethnicity, nationality, religions, and so on. I think the core of prejudice comes from stereotyping, which is the generalization of motives, characteristics, or behavior to an entire group of people. In the world where media propaganda is ubiquitous, often times most stereotypes are not formed on valid experiences, instead they are based on images publicized by the mass media, or even created within our heads after seeing and hearing examples from many different sources, like movies, or even hearsay. Stereotyping is more powerful than we think, because it allows those false pictures to control our thinking that leads us to assign uniform characteristics to any person in a group, without consideration of the actual difference between members of that particular group.

The main social issue of the book was discrimination in Australian communities. The book was dealt with this issues refer to her multicultural relationship and friendship with the different ethnical and religious groups. Her strong decision and acceptance of Islam were significantly contributed to deal with this issue. It was interesting to report that two heterogeneous group of friends from the minority and majority groups. As for example, one of the Japanese Australian friend was Eileen at her preparatory school, McCleans. Another school friend was Simone who was actually a white Australian. Both Simone and Eileen were really good friends of Amal. They were quite more helpful in school and outside of school with a strong bonding. Leila

Throughout this course we have learned about many things, one in particular would be Racism. We have learned about many different types of racism along with examples of racism. Before I go into specific examples of racism that I have learn about in this class, I will first define and explain the differences between racism, prejudice or also known as bias, discrimination, race, and racist so there 's a clear understanding of why I picked the specific examples. The definition of racism that we learned in class would be an “Institutionalized system with disproportionate unjust outcomes for a particular race”. Prejudice or also known as bias was defined as “A negative feeling, opinion, or attitude toward a certain category or people” this would be an feeling with no action acted upon, where discrimination is defined as “Action or inaction toward a category of people” which would be acting on the negative feelings or opinions of a certain group. The definition for race is a “Social construct, but a lived reality” while a racist is “Discrimination based on the category of race”. (Disadvantage privilege notes, 2016)

In contemporary Australian society, blatant racial prejudice has become socially undesirable (Dunn, Forrest, Burnley, & McDonald, 2004). This does not mean that those beliefs and attitudes have become extinct, but instead, it has changed into a new form of racial prejudice that is inherent and subtle (Willard, Isaac, & Carney, 2015) and leads to a differentiation between groups, that manifests unconsciously as cultural intolerance (Brewer & Kramer, 1985; Chaxel, 2015; Dunn et al., 2004; Hewstone & Greenland, 2000; Hewstone, Rubin, & Willis, 2002; Willard et al., 2015). The contributing factors to these manifestations come from the intergroup relationship themes of identity, stereotyping and ethnocentrism.

People may not be totally aware of their level of discomfort which is also known as implicit attitudes. Accoding to Dovidio, Kawakami, and Gaertner (2002), implicit attitudes are assessments that are involuntarily activated by the sheer presence of the attitude object and usually functions without full awareness of a person. Similarly, implicit attitudes may commonly be difficult to observe and usually may not consist of words. Implicit attitudes affect responses that are arduous to notice or control and are nonverbal (Dovidio, Kawakami, & Gaertner, 2002). Implicitly executed behaviors might be done instantly and

Australia is a settler nation which is now made up of many ethnic groups who share similar cultural traditions, common language, shared history and a shared identity (ABS, 2016). These groups contribute to what is referred to multiculturalism. Australia has a higher proportion of people born overseas than the US, Canada and the UK, with 49% of Australia’s population (or a parent) being born overseas (Census of Population and Housing, 2016). Compared to other Western nations, Australia has one of the most diverse immigration populations (Collins, 2013, p. 145). The meaning of multiculturalism in Australia has changed significantly over time. Today, Australia is a culturally and ethnically diverse country and therefore is a multicultural society. In terms of public policy, multiculturalism can be defined as policies and practices implemented by the Australian government that aim to manage cultural diversity to benefit the whole of society (Department of Social Services, 2014). Although Australia is a multicultural society, there are criticisms of public policy surrounding multiculturalism.

An attitude are the long lasting beliefs, feelings, and behavioral responses towards social objects such as other people or issues (Attitudes and Behavior, n.d.). Attitudes can either be positive or negative.

Closing the gap refers to a formal commitment by the Australian government to address Indigenous disadvantage. In comparison to Non-Indigenous Australians; Indigenous Australians face significant differences like poorer health, lower levels of education and employment. The goal of this paper is to describe and explain the psychological impact of prejudice and discrimination towards Indigenous Australians, to describe and explain the role of self-fulfilling prophecy in the perpetuation of negative and/or discriminatory attitudes towards Indigenous Australians and to examine why discrimination occurs using Social Identity Theory.

“Attitudes are positive or negative evaluations, feeling, and tendencies that individuals harbor toward objects or concepts” (Wild). As the book mentions, attitudes are similar to values, these are formed according to a culture background and varies from country to country.

Prejudice is the negative attitude based on false generalizations about members of different racial and ethnic groups. From prejudice, discrimination is born. We all are guilty of discriminating other people, but one can only speculate the factors that bring about this hatred towards one another. Although a single cause cannot account for the presence of racism, factors such as socialization, self-justification, and competition are a few human attributes that lead to acts of racial discrimination.

Based on how attitudes are formed, the association between attitude and behavior might differ (Baron et al, 2008: 161). Attitudes formed based on direct personal experience tend to be stronger than indirect experiences (Baron et al, 2008: 161). The concept of personal experience can illustrate how Mr. Ejaz’s personal