The Shifting Sands of Centre and Periphery: Education and Anglican schools in New South Wales

Abstract

This article explores historical and current connections and dissonances between centre and periphery in the particular context of Anglican schools in New South Wales, Australia, and their contested relationship with Britain. There is increasing recognition of Australia as a multi-faith society linked to the growth of multiculturalism. In attempting to embrace this new multicultural and multi-faith reality Australian faith-based schools experience significant tensions with their historical traditions within a colonial, settler society. This dialectic is seen in the challenge to delineate a faith-based understanding of the transforming nature of their education and the transformed nature of the society they seek to serve, engaging in the critical self-consciousness and authentic praxis that are the hallmarks of conscientisation. The authors consider the public documentation of four Anglican schools as cases, and argue that there are no clear statements that locate the schools as proudly Australian, pursuing Australian values as they seek to transform Australian society, in the spirit of Freire's prophetic church. The authors ask whether (1) the solid foundations for Anglican schools are to be found in the liberal traditions of the North and (2) whether there are new expressions of faith and educational philosophy appropriate to post-colonialist Australia which can form the basis of an authentic and transformative praxis.