Parental Attitudes to Cultural and Linguistic Pluralism in Australia: A Humanistic Sociological Approach

Over the last thirty years a major shift has occurred in the ethnic composition of Australian society. Although the initial policy of Anglo-assimilation has been officially rejected, there have been relatively few changes in school curricula to reflect the cultural complexion of the population. The failure of the assimilationist approach has led many individuals to re-examine their attitudes to cultural diversity. In this paper the extent of this change in value orientation towards cultural and linguistic pluralism is considered from a humanistic sociological perspective. Empirical data are drawn from an extensive survey of parents of all year 10 students in all Catholic secondary schools in South Australia. It was found that while there was very considerable support for cultural pluralism and language maintenance, there remains a significant minority, especially among British- and Irish-Australians, who opposed the continued presence in Australia of any ethnic languages and cultures. The presence of a multi-ethnic population in Australia introduces the possi