White Australia Policy: Racism And Diversity In Schools

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Schools are a reflection of the society that feeds into them. The attitudes of students to race and diversity are a direct result of the attitudes those students bring with them from home and other social environments such as sporting clubs. Even those students who may come from homes where diversity is (if not celebrated) then at least tolerated, find themselves adopting the attitudes of the particular groups of individuals they socialise with at school.

Australia has spent 200 years building its identity as a “white” nation, and no factor has influenced this more than 73 years of government sponsored racism in the form of the “White Australia” policy. The Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 was designed to restrict certain immigrants from