Aboriginality, Racialised Places, and the Education Market in Inner Sydney

Population growth in the inner city has been strong in recent years. Some claim that this means there will be an increased future demand for school places. . . . The evidence does not, however, support this. This is because the character of the growth in the inner city population is such that it produces a comparatively low proportion of school age children. (New South Wales Department of Education and Training 2001b: 6)

In 2001 the New South Wales Department of Education and Training (DET) released a policy document, Building the Future: An Education Plan for Inner Sydney (Draft Proposal) (DET 2001a) which proposed restructuring inner city public schooling, in the form of closures and amalgamations of more than fi fteen primary and secondary schools across inner Sydney. The policy process included the initial draft plan, a ten-week consultation period from March to May 2001, and the subsequent release of Building the Future: Consultation Report (DET 2001b). Rationales for structural change included market-based issues such as declining student numbers, curriculum narrowing, and increased demand for academically selective secondary school places. A discourse of recursive market decline was posited, in which ‘families see the falling numbers at some local schools and choose to send children elsewhere for a sense of confi dence and stability’ (DET 2001a: 4). Additionally, the Building the Future proposal recognised ‘the importance of locality-the social geography of schooling’ (Blackmore 2002: 38), with the DET arguing, for instance, that families are ‘moving from inner city to outer suburban areas for affordable housing’ (DET 2001a: 4). This is a particular view of the city that precludes some families. Not all families, such as those in social housing, are capable of making decisions to move residences, even if another area is deemed more affordable.1 That aside, the Building the Future policy documents presented a model for the ‘revitalisation’ of inner city schooling that was inexorably connected to the changing inner city.