A Study of Attitudes to the Introduction of Ethnic Languages and Cultures in Australian Schools

Abstract

In view of the recent demands for the introduction of courses in ethnic languages and cultures into Australian schools, it is important that educational authorities should know what attitudes different groups in Australia adopt toward such innovations, as well as the grounds on which they do so. Humanistic sociology provides a specially sensitive methodological approach to investigate such questions. It has, therefore, been applied here to the analysis of submissions received by the Australian Government's Committee on the Teaching of Migrant Languages in Australian Schools. Although the majority of submissions favoured the introduction of ethnic languages and cultures into Australian schools, the reasons they gave revealed a number of different attitudes to cultural interaction. Most of the submissions stressed the benefits that Australian society as a whole would gain from ethnic education, as well as the way it could help individual ethnics. Only submissions from ethnic organizations, however, clearly recognized the importance of the maintenance of cultural heritage of ethnic groups in Australia as a prerequisite for significant two-way interaction.