Bigger Than This (anti-racism in schools pilot)
We know that racism harms people. When it’s experienced by children or young people, it can negatively impact on physical and mental health outcomes as well as ongoing development right throughout life.
The Bigger Than This was a 2022-2024 pilot project trying to change that – by reducing race-based discrimination in schools and helping improve the health and wellbeing of all racially diverse young people.
What's was the project?
In collaboration with VicHealth, the Department of Education and Victoria University, we delivered the Bigger Than This pilot education program in Victorian secondary schools, a program co-designed with young people to build understanding of the harmful impacts of racism on young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
The program was part of VicHealth’s Future Healthy initiative, which aims to support social cohesion and mental health.
Selection of pilot schools
Following an expression of interest, demand to be part of the pilot was strong among primary and secondary schools.
10 secondary schools were selected on the basis of geographic spread of metro Melbourne and regional schools, school size, and ethnic and cultural diversity.
Who were the audience?
Bigger Than This developed an innovative model drawing on the lived experience of young people from multicultural and multifaith backgrounds who played a central role in designing the program and facilitating the school incursion program.
The pilot incursion program was run with year 9 students in 10 schools across – 2 sessions of up to 25 students in each school.
What did the program cover
Students engaged in discussions about racial literacy and responding to racism through prompt cards, posters and stories of people from a range of cultural backgrounds.
As part of the program, students were invited to apply their learning through a creative response which saw students present songs, role plays, posters and murals.
Evaluation of the program
Victoria University conducted an independent evaluation of the pilot program. The evaluation found:
Through developing racial literacy BTT (Bigger Than This) ignites the opportunity to have dialogues about racism via the accessibility of creative approaches. Importantly these dialogues are facilitated by young people with living-experience of racism and offer students the opportunity to collaborate and share ideas with non-judgemental experts.
Through a series of fun, creative and thought provoking activities students are simultaneously exposed to a range of anti-racist language and concepts whilst also being able to connect with examples from other young people who developed and designed BTT.
The pilot has successfully demonstrated the value and impact of a brief, facilitated school incursion around racism and anti-racism actions. It has also highlighted several possibilities for the future development and sustainability of the program.
The full evaluation report can be found here: BTT evaluation report
Contact us
For more information about the Bigger Than This pilot, please contact us on education@veohrc.vic.gov.au