Snub for schools with Asian students
Polls reveal race vital when picking a school
Newly released research suggests that white Australian students are snubbing public schools attended by Asians, a move one of the authors believes is motivated by a fear that they will be beaten academically.
Two surveys by the New South Wales Secondary Principals Council and an academic from the University of Western Sydney suggested some Anglo-European parents did not want their children studying alongside Asian, Muslim and indigenous Aboriginal classmates, and were sending them to private schools.
The survey of 163 principals revealed that the percentage of Anglo-European students in public schools had dropped by more than a third in two remote areas with high indigenous populations.
And head-teachers in New England - in the north of New South Wales - reported that 56 per cent of Anglo-European children who left went to a nearby Catholic or non-government school.
Drawing comparisons with 1960s America when black children were bussed into white areas in a bid to end racial segregation, the paper told how the NSW government subsidises services that take children across the border into predominantly white schools in Queensland and Victoria.
Both studies were conducted in early 2006, just weeks after race riots erupted in the southern Sydney beach suburb of Cronulla.
Carol Reid, associate head of the University of Western Sydney's school of education who conducted one of the studies, believes the 'white flight' from institutions with rising Asian enrolment numbers is not about race per se, but a concern that the children will be 'out-competed' by academic high achievers from immigrant families.
'Research from the US and Canada says that in the face of considerable change, middle class parents will become mobile to retain class status,' she said.
Anecdotal evidence quoted in the Australian media yesterday suggested white students were shunning what were seen as Asian schools on Sydney's well-heeled North Shore.
But Jim McAlpine, president of the New South Wales Secondary Principals Council, dismissed the claims parents were pulling their children out because of Asian students.
'You have to sit an entrance test to get into those schools and I would bet my bottom dollar that no parents of children who gained admission would withdraw them because Asian students went there,' he said.
'They would be so proud to have got into such a prestigious school in the first place.'
The council report suggested that Asian students themselves might be put off by the presence of other races.
One principal said Asian students had been scared off by a growing number of Lebanese enrolments.
Dr Reid surveyed 350 students aged 14 to 17 in an area that is home to the majority of the city's Muslims.
'Having been involved in education for 30 years, I've never seen this polarisation around not only class, but also ethnicity and race,' she said.
More than 70,000 Hong Kong Chinese people live in Australia, and the number of mainland Chinese immigrants has almost doubled in the past decade to more than 200,000.
Large ethnic Chinese communities now dominate suburbs like Eastwood on Sydney's North Shore.
They live in an area where public schoolteachers reported that the percentage of Anglo-European students had dropped by 42 per cent.
While educational experts agree segregation has become an issue, they point out the easing of restrictions preventing children attending schools in other areas has widened parental choice and federal government subsidies to private schools - making their fees more affordable - have also played a key role.
