ABSTRACT
In the US the Islamophobic dog whistle has been claimed to be “loud enough for the world to hear”. The Australian experience with racist-, xenophobic- and Islamophobic-based dog whistling beginning to impact school education carries many similarities with the US. In a country nervous of racism, any dog-whistle dynamic was likely to bite deeply into personal fears and anxieties. The Howard Government’s dog-whistling politics had an immediate and dramatic effect on Australian schools, especially Muslim schools. Many politicians use the dog whistle to divert attention from other government policy, or actions, as a tricky form of dead-catting. There was another classical instance of the political and journalistic dog whistle being used in diversionary politics. With relentless racist-, xenophobic- and Islamophobic political dog whistling and other media attention and alleged distortion, Muslim students in UK schools and colleges shared a similar fate as those in the US and Australia.
