Some Recent Australian Writing on Immigration and Assimilation

Abstract

Since the end of the Second World War Australia has experienced large-scale, sustained immigration which has significantly increased the ethnic heterogeneity of the society in which some one in four of the total population are now either post-war immigrants or their Australian-born children. Given the size and varied nature of this immigration it is scarcely surprising that it has attracted much speculation and research. Rather than attempting to cover all the material this article concen? trates on the more accessible material, particularly that published since 1970, which incorporates the results of the author's research. This selectivity is made possible by the availability of the first two in a series of bibliographies edited by Charles Price.l Apart from providing detailed coverage of post-war and selected pre-war writings on immigration, the bibliographies provide details of ongoing research and excellent intro? ductory essays. In the first bibliography Price examines the range of concepts and theories which have been developed in Australia and elsewhere to explain the nature of immigrant assimilation.2 In the second bibliography the essays include one in which Price discusses the trends in post-war immigrations,3 Burnley surveys the material relating to various aspects of the adjustment of Northern and Southern European migrants in Australia,4 while Kunz does the same for material on refugees and Eastern Europeans.5 A final essay by Burnley discusses the material relating to New Zealand immigration which is included in the second bibliography.6