About the Project

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members are well aware of the pervasive impacts of racism on the lives of young people. As a project team, we continue to experience racism both directly and via witnessing its harmful impacts on our nieces, nephews, sons, daughters and the young people with whom we work.

This research is funded by an Australia Research Council Discovery Indigenous Grant #IN210100051.

Project Aims

1.To determine the types, frequency, and contexts of daily racism, including covert, subtle racism (i.e., microaggressions) experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth, and quantify their relation to daily well-being and mental health outcomes.

2.To identify levels and predictors of perpetration and mitigation of subtle racism by non-Indigenous Australians who work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth in community settings.

3.To adopt an international model of microaggressions to an Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth context.

To achieve these aims, the RAAYS project is divided into two studies: the Aboriginal Adolescents' Experiences of Racism Study (AAERS) and the Adult Understandings of covert racism and allyship when working with Aboriginal youth study.

Aboriginal Adolescents' Experiences of Racism Study (AAERS)

Yarning-style focus groups with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents

Phase

one

Talking with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents (12-17 years) living in Perth WA about their experiences of daily racism, its impacts and how they respond.

Also talking with young people about their ideas for using Daily Diary methods to measure racism and its impacts in the future

Daily Diary Study

Phase two

Co-designed with adolescents, a new survey and way of measuring racism and its impacts with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents.

Our position is that those who are responsible for perpetuating racism against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adolescents (i.e., non-Indigenous peoples) play a vital role in identifying, intervening and 'calling out' racism. As such, this project seeks also seeks to discover how non-Indigenous adults can act to intervene in, and ameliorate, both every-day and structural racism.

Adults who work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people

Focus Groups with non-Indigenious Adults

Phase

one

Talking with non-Indigenous adults across Australia who work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people about their perceptions of racism and how they can act to prevent and interrupt the impacts of daily racism.

Allyship Survey

Phase two

Based on the information we collect from the non-Indigenous adults' focus groups, we will develop and launch an online allyship survey. The survey will assess psychological and contextual predictors of allyship behaviour.