The need for dialogic reciprocal anti-discrimination practice and policy in faith-based schools

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates intersecting rights and ways of thinking in faith-based schools. It outlines current legislative attempts to manage anti-discrimination in Australian schools and proposes a dialogic model of reciprocal anti-discrimination for educational leaders and administrators. This paper proposes that reciprocal anti-discrimination will require rigorous clarity in organisational beliefs, values and philosophies of education. Differences of power, prejudice and assumptions are also addressed. The goal of the proposed model is to find a way forward where rights and values intersect while supporting student and staff wellbeing and preserving religious and moral conscience.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-discrimination
• human rights
• moral conscience
• freedom of religion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Geolocation

Australia

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. Religion for some is ethno-cultural, but for others is by choice.

2. Gender dysphoria is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, & American Psychiatric Association, 2013; DSM-5).