Australia considers itself as a successful multiethnic society. Since the significant demographic shifts that occurred after World War II, the social cohesion that is accounted for with great pride is often linked to the policy of multiculturalism. Increasingly, politicians are describing multiculturalism as a core Australian value (Sheehan, 2005; Silkstone, 2005). In this chapter, Australian multiculturalism will be considered in relation to imperatives triggered by an increasingly globalized world (Appadurai, 1996; Castells, 1996; Robertson, 1996). Can a social policy that some have described as assimilationist in intent (Castles et al., 1988; Jakubowicz, 1981) foster global citizenship? Can a policy designed to manage intranational cultural difference dovetail successfully with transnational belongings, which are arguably the hallmark of contemporary social existence? These issues will be considered with specific reference to education, which in Australia continues to be emphasized in debates about multiculturalism. Education has been called upon to enact shifting policy emphases related to values, citizenship, and social cohesion. In the context of current debates about the so-called culture wars, the place of multiculturalism within Australian schools takes on added significance, particularly given the nation’s historic reliance on immigration for population growth.
In broad terms, the education of Australian school students is divided between government and nongovernment schools, with the latter comprising systemic Catholic schools, and what are known as independent schools. Within each of these sectors there is great variation. Within the nongovernment sector there are elite Catholic and independent schools as well as parochial Catholic schools, often underresourced. The independent sector also contains schools associated with less mainstream ethnoreligious communities. In Melbourne, for example, there are Islamic, Jewish, and Greek Orthodox schools that are full-time day schools. The nongovernment sector also includes schools associated with particular pedagogies including, for example, Steiner schools.
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Tsolidis, G. (2008). Australian Multicultural Education: Revisiting and Resuscitating. In: Wan, G. (eds) The Education of Diverse Student Populations. Explorations of Educational Purpose, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8204-7_11
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