My experience with Multiculturalism 

Schools in Western Sydney have a high proportion of students from foreign language backgrounds. Such environments are considered to be micropublic, a space where engagement and negotiation across cultures are unavoidable, as individuals from diverse cultures find themselves having to share a common social space (Ho, 2011). I personally went to a partially selective public school, which had a very multicultural environment, thus I was considered to be in a micropublic space. Having a diverse environment enabled me to have friendships with others of different cultural backgrounds. Australia, being a multicultural environment, will require its citizens to be able to interact with others of different cultural backgrounds.

An example of a school that is a micropublic is Bankstown Public School. 99.1% of students at this school have a language background other than English, the highest in the state. Bankstown Public School Principal Greg Mason comments, “(schools) a place of great opportunity. It’s fantastic what these kids achieve, and always against a backdrop of tolerance and a very global feeling”. With the world being so global, it is imperative that its citizens are able to interact with a wide variety of people from diverse cultural backgrounds. There are “new demands” (Ho, 2011), one being “the need to nurture an appreciation of and respect for social, cultural and religious diversity and sense of global citizenship”. My peers and I, being exposed to different cultural groups, appreciated and embraced the variety of cultures we had within our group. Many people believe that a multicultural school is better learning environment, with Stephan Kerkyashrian, chairman of the Community Relations Commission and formerly a long serving member of the NSW Board of Studies stating, “With that multiplicity of culture and languages, the students find their learning environment is broadened, their horizons are widened, they can be exposed to so much more stimulation,”. Though there are many advantages of students being in culturally diverse schools, there is a growing demand in the private sector, “many elite schools have long waiting lists with some parents enrolling their children at birth (Ho, 2011). I have personally engaged students from private schools during my high school career and also at university. Whilst most of them display respect for me and everyone with different cultural groups than their own, I have found that a small population of these students have a different attitude to everyone else around them. I have seen an incredible level of arrogance being displayed by some who believe that they are superior to other because they went to a private school. These students exemplify those who are not meeting the “new demands” of appreciating others from different social, cultural and religious backgrounds.

On the other hand, some Experts are arguing that schools with large multicultural populations will not fare so well academically. Dr Bob Birrell, population expert at Monash University states, “The problem is they have many students who may need extra assistance, which diverts resources, and that will have an overall impact on the performance of the school,”. This would be a significant factor that influences the decision that parents make when choosing which school to send their child to. According to the My Schools Website, public schools have the highest percentage of students from languages backgrounds other than English, with independent schools having the lowest percentage and catholic schools falling in between. According to PISA 2009, students from independent schools outperform their counterparts from public schools significantly in all academic areas. Parents continue to value academics above all else, viewing pirvate schools as "more discipline, values based and better resourced (Ho, 2011). Even for me, my parents, who were migrants from china and thus exposed to the East Asian Schooling System, focused strongly on academics and prioritised that above all else.

Though public schools are known from its great cultural diversity, will it be a factor that parents take into account when deciding which school to send their child to? Will parents value micropublics and embrace the notion of globalisation for their children? I feel that most parents only want to reap the academic benefits for their children. I believe that it is important to have children engage prolifically in terms of social, cultural and religious diversity to develop a sense of global citizenship. With my experiences at a multicultural school, I felt that I was able to develop a sense of respect for all those around me despite the difference in socially, culturally and religiously.

References

May 15, 2011, 1600 students, 69 languages, one school, Sydney Morning Herald, retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/1600-students-69-languages-one-school-20110514-1enb1.html

Ho, C. (2011). Respecting the presence of others: School micropublics and everyday multiculturalism. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 32(6), 603-619.