Abstract
Gentrification is transforming the class and ethnic profile of urban communities across the world, and changing how people deal with social and cultural difference. This paper looks at some of the social consequences of gentrification in Sydney, Australia, focusing on local schools. It argues that in this urban Australian context, the influx of middle-class Anglo-Australians into traditionally working-class, migrant-dominated areas is significantly changing how people relate to each other within local schools, often fragmenting and dividing school communities. These shifts are intensified by the public policy of school choice, which has enabled some parents to bypass their local school for a more ‘desirable’ one. This paper presents a close local study of two schools within one gentrifying Sydney suburb, examining how the schools have become more polarised. In particular, we examine how this demographic polarisation has given rise to two distinct modes of ‘doing diversity’, namely, ‘everyday’ and ‘cosmo-multiculturalisms’. While the former is about daily, normalised encounters across difference, the latter is a form of multiculturalism based on strategic and learned ‘appreciation’ and consumption of difference, characteristic of gentrified communities.
Notes
[1] These two schools are the only public primary schools in this part of the suburb. There are also two Catholic primary schools within the immediate area (within about one kilometre) and two other public primary schools in another part of the suburb (about two kilometres away).
[2] In both catchment areas, approximately 40 per cent of residents earn less than AU$800 per week, while just over 20 per cent in each area earn between AU$800 and AU$2000, and 5 per cent earn more than AU$2000 (ABS Citation2011 Census).
[3] All respondent names are pseudonyms, and some personal details have been altered slightly in order to preserve the anonymity of respondents and schools.