Quick hit: the best interests of the child

Two articles in The Guardian today which bear some thinking about.

1. A study has been conducted which seems to suggest that if a child is abused, that child will do better in the long term if sie is removed from hir family and not returned.

That may well be what the study found. And the result certainly has the force of logic behind it: if a child is abused in a particular environment, the child will be better off not being in that environment.

However,

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How immoral to acknowledge to kids that yes, sex happens

This post is inspired to some extent by Wildly Parenthetical’s post on sex ed – although I’ve thought for a very long time that sex ed should be a normal part of education generally (from a young age). I don’t know the best way to integrate it (but then, I’m not a teacher). However, I do know that knee-jerk reactions are not the best way to deal with anything much.

This post is essentially my reaction to the knee-jerk reactions displayed in this article here. The gist of which is: the federal government is talking about a national sex ed curriculum for primary and high school.

And the gist of my reaction is: *headdesk* after *headdesk* after *headdesk*.

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Music company funded Roxanne Shante’s PhD

ETA: Or maybe not!
Via

—————–

This post really warmed my heart.

Roxanne Shante – a teen rapper in the 1980s – had a contract with Warner Music. It included a clause that the company would pay for Shante’s education for the rest of her life.

She made them pay up. Including for her PhD.

That’s pretty fucking awesome.

h/t PostBourgie (the same link as above); see also the cross-post of the PostBourgie post at Bitch Ph.D. and the NY Daily article they both link to.

cross-posted<

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Muslim school in Camden rejected by the Court

The Land and Environment Court has dismissed the appeal by the Quranic Society against a decision by Camden Municipal Council not to allow a Muslim school in the area.

I haven’t read the decision yet – if I get the chance to do so next week, I may post about it – but the ABC article linked above gives the court’s reason for dismissing the appeal as being that the school “was not suitable for the rural nature of the land.”

I’ve written about this school before, and again, I’m skeptical about the Court’s reasoning – but I’ll wait until I get the chance to read the judgment before I say too much about that.

What I want to draw attention to, though, is comments like this (from the ABC article):

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Discrimination in the provision of education

You’ll probably see some of the themes of my posts during this week, Reconciliation Week, being revisited in my posts for NAIDOC Week in a month or so. That’s because, as I mentioned in my previous post, Reconciliation Week sort of snuck up on me, and that means I don’t have a great deal of time to research these posts as much as I might like. Instead, they basically consist of thoughts which have been bouncing around in my head a bit.

One of these relates to the privilege of education. I’ve touched on this idea a bit before, but I think it’s important enough to come back to (again and again and again, if necessary).

Perhaps it’s the bias of my upbringing, but I think education is important. I think access to education is important.

In Australia, we discriminate tremendously against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with respect to education and access to education.

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How our system protects rights – an example

I was cheered to see the report of the decision of a judge of the Land and Environment Court, upholding the decision of a commissioner of that court, granting approval to an Islamic school in Bankstown.

I don’t particularly agree with the idea of religious schools at all, but the real issue here is the discrimination that’s taking place – which relates to ideas of equality rather than freedom of religion, as far as I’m concerned.

Of particular note is this (taken from the SMH article linked above):

The judgement [of the commissioner] also referred to “the elephant in the courtroom” or “whether the council would have raised quite as many contentions as it did if the application had been for an Anglican school”.

Hear, hear!

One of the arguments in the appeal from the commissioner to the judge was whether the commissioner had taken into account “whether the development was compatible with the character of the area.”

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Calling all academic mothers!

Are you, or have you ever been, a mother academic?

There’s a call for papers out for a collection of both narratives & articles about academic motherhood. (That takes you to a pdf, so if you don’t like those, try the general page here – the “Being a Mother Academic” link takes you to the same pdf link as above).

They are calling for both theory AND the “lived experience” – my reading of that is that papers can be either/or (that is, it seems to me that you are welcome to write a narrative piece about your experience, even if it’s not your theoretical area and you don’t want to include the theory).

They are also calling for people from across a range of disciplines.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they got so much Antipodean material that they decided they needed to put a separate Antipodean collection together?

[Link found at Feminist Law Professors]

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I always thought Hillsong were scary

Now I know they are.

The program, called Shine, was created by the Hillsong Church. It is being run in at least 20 NSW public schools, numerous small community organisations and within the juvenile justice system.

Hillsong describes Shine as a “practical, life-equipping, values-based course” and its website is awash with glowing testimonials from young women whose lives have been improved by learning about “being a good friend” and “learning about myself”.

…

“Through skin care, natural make-up, hair care, nail care girls discover their value and created uniqueness,” the material says.

Ugh.

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