The banality of exclusion in Australian universities

ABSTRACT

The systematic exclusion of asylum seekers from Australian higher education reveals much about present day Australia. This essay begins with a brief context and outline of the international refugee crisis and Australia’s reaction. Next, consideration is given to how this nation has identified itself historically and how it has behaved in recent times towards refugees. Australia’s values are then discussed in relation to those of Canada, a similar country in many ways. With this context established, this article then turns to examine the specific issue of access to higher education for young people seeking asylum. Implications of this exclusion and what it means for national identity is discussed. Arendt’s theory of bureaucratic indifference is employed to interpret and understand Australia’s behaviour. The main contribution of this article is the connections made between asylum seekers, educational exclusion, higher education, national identity and Arendt’s theory, that may have application in other contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Exclusion
• asylum seeker
• higher education
• national identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Associate Professor Julie White works as Principal Research Fellow at The Victoria Institute inquiring into inclusive education. She currently leads a large study examining how education works for young people in youth justice systems. She also leads a study examining how The Arts can support young people from refugee backgrounds to combat Islamophobia and racism. She has undertaken several investigations about the education of young people who live with chronic health conditions and has written more than 50 scholarly publications about educational inclusion, research methodology and the modernised university.

Notes

1 An asylum seeker is ‘an individual who has sought international protection and whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined’ (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR 2009).

2 Catch-22 is the title of a classic American novel (Heller 1961) and has become a reference to absurdly paradoxical situations arising from contradictory bureaucratic rules.