Teens report ethnic bias in treatment

Posted by karere under Maori News

Hundreds of teenagers, questioned in a recent survey, said they felt they had been unfairly treated by police and health professionals because of their ethnicity.

The questions, part of a nationwide survey of more than 9000 high school pupils, found that more than 400 Maori, Pacific and Asian pupils felt they had been discriminated against by the professionals, a finding which surprised lead author Sue Crengle.

Almost 900 were unsure whether they had been treated unfairly by either police or health professionals. Europeans of high school age reported very little discrimination by either profession.

Crengle, senior lecturer at the Te Kupenga Hauora Maori at the University of Auckland, said she was surprised “particularly because of the ages” of the survey respondents – 13 to 17 years old.

She said it showed that not only adults were discriminated against because of their ethnicity.

The findings were consistent with another survey taken five years earlier.

Crengle said she decided to look at high school students’ experience of ethnic discrimination and its effect on health outcomes after the New Zealand Health Survey showed the experience of adults.

The other authors in the paper, published this month, were Elizabeth Robinson, Shanthi Ameratunga, Terryann Clark and Deborah Raphael.

“There is a paucity of nationally representative prevalence studies of ethnic discrimination among adolescents,” Crengle said.

“And this shows that the experience of adults around ethnic discrimination is also amongst young people in schools.

“It is an important conversation for New Zealanders to have … and to think about how, as a society, we can make it so these experiences are not part and parcel of our everyday life.”

The results showed that pupils who experienced ethnic discrimination were less likely to report excellent, very good, or good health.

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