Dr Prasanna Srinivasan from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education will be presenting a free public lecture titled " I am White, So I am Australian. Pookey is Black Not Australian": The Power of 'Whiteness' in the Early Childhood Classroom.

Many researchers in Australia have identified and acknowledged educators' discourses that indirectly and unconsciously allow racism to circulate in educational institutions. In this lecture that reports on a part of her doctoral thesis, Dr Srinivasan shares how young children's narratives categorise and attribute the characteristics of 'Australian/not Australian' to particular children and adults based on skin colour.

Dr Srinivasan is a Research Fellow in the Equity and Childhood Program, Youth Research Centre at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She has also worked in the early childhood field for over 12 years in varied early childhood settings in Melbourne.

Dr Srinivasan's doctoral research inquires how cultures are enacted in early childhood settings. Using participatory action research methodology, she highlights the challenges faced in current Australian multicultural society through the voices of children, families, staff and self. In particular, she outlines some of the key assumptions of leaders who lead early childhood settings that hinder the equitable enactment of cultures in those settings.

Dr Srinivasan will be presenting a Faculty lecture titled Strange Bedfellows: Nationalism and Multiculturalism in the Early Childhood Classroom earlier the same day.

This is a FREE public lecture, hosted by the Educational Research Institute Newcastle (ERIN) and CIEGUN (Comparative and International Education Group University of Newcastle).

WHEN: 6.30pm Tuesday, 30 July

WHERE: The University Gallery (See campus map for directions)
                University of Newcastle
                Callaghan Campus

RSVP:29 July to Linda Hutchinson Linda.Hutchinson@newcastle.edu.au