Measurement and Spatial Effects of the Immigrant Created Cultural Diversity in Sydney

This paper analyses the contribution to the creation of a culturally diverse Sydney landscape by ethnic communities following the arrival of over a million and half non-English speaking settlers since 1948. Through fragmented collective actions, around 450 communal places were established to satisfy collectively perceived needs: places of worship, social and sports clubs, schools, childcare and aged care. Immigrants organised to overcome problems of social deprivation and scarcity of public places. They created needed collective goods on their own, through mutuality and compensated for their own meagre material resources with engendered social capital, time and energy. The diversity and intensity of development reflects differences in the perception of the settlement needs, urgency and aims within diverse ethnic groups. Immigrants enhanced the quality of life and developed a liveable city. Collected data inform on the outcome, developed capacities, investment patterns, annual income and expenditure, usage, management and employment patterns, gender and youth participation, functions and generated activities.Settlement, Ethnic, Collective Goods, Communal Places, Spatial Clusters

One day 30 years apart in the Croatian-Australian transnational social space: 18 September 1919 and 1949

This article reviews two important events in Australian and Croatian transnational histories. The post-war deportation of Croats incarcerated during the Great War seemingly has little to do with the tour of a football club thirty years later. This article aims to establish a symbolic link between these two disparate events. The football club Hajduk arrived from Dalmatia, the same region that most of the deported citizens of vanquished Austria Hungary came from. Both events occurred in the days of the White Australia policy, which stressed the superiority of British culture and disregarded others. However, the most popular world-wide British cultural export, football, had much deeper roots in Dalmatia than in Australia. The tour occurred in 1949 amid the Cold War, ideological schism among former friends, fear of the atom bomb, and the hostile Yugoslav migrant organisation, which supported the USSR in its ideological strife with the homeland. Hajduk, which played under the name of Yugoslavia, won most of the games, gave many football lessons to Australian football enthusiasts and deflated the superiority of the Britishness and the White Australia dream. Furthermore, the club bonded strongly with its countrymen. During the tour, only one player, whose relative was deported thirty years earlier, played all the games. This article attempts to comprehend the reasons behind his endeavour to play all the games and considers the special significance of the club’s name on this occasion

One day 30 years apart in the Croatian-Australian transnational social space: 18 September 1919 and 1949

This article reviews two important events in Australian and Croatian transnational histories. The post-war deportation of Croats incarcerated during the Great War seemingly has little to do with the tour of a football club thirty years later. This article aims to establish a symbolic link between these two disparate events. The football club Hajduk arrived from Dalmatia, the same region that most of the deported citizens of vanquished Austria Hungary came from. Both events occurred in the days of the White Australia policy, which stressed the superiority of British culture and disregarded others. However, the most popular world-wide British cultural export, football, had much deeper roots in Dalmatia than in Australia. The tour occurred in 1949 amid the Cold War, ideological schism among former friends, fear of the atom bomb, and the hostile Yugoslav migrant organisation, which supported the USSR in its ideological strife with the homeland. Hajduk, which played under the name of Yugoslavia, won most of the games, gave many football lessons to Australian football enthusiasts and deflated the superiority of the Britishness and the White Australia dream. Furthermore, the club bonded strongly with its countrymen. During the tour, only one player, whose relative was deported thirty years earlier, played all the games. This article attempts to comprehend the reasons behind his endeavour to play all the games and considers the special significance of the club’s name on this occasion

The Reconfiguration of Civil Society through Ethnic Communal Development

Migrant communities participate in the reconfiguration of civil society in places of settlement. Among the consequences of the large-scale culturally diverse postwar migration was in the regeneration, broadening and diversification of Australian civil society. This contribution outlines with unique data generated from ethnic communal organisations in Sydney the process of confluence of migration and civil society out of settlement constraints. Consecutive waves of migrants experienced settlement constraints that impaired the quality of their lives in a welfare state. Migrants, mostly left to themselves, acted collectively to improve the quality of their existence, to enable co-ethnic communication, and to mediate with the rest of society. They established thousands of grassroots organisations through collective mobilization of scarce resources. Many ethnic collectives through collective action appropriated their own communal places to satisfy spiritual, educational, welfare and other secular needs alongside the other forms of institutional development. Ethnic communal places, representatives of the re-territorialized cultures, heritages and elements of civil society, signify migrant inclusion in Australian social structures, including in civil society. Through development of community capital, ethnic collectives impacted on civil society in an environment experiencing limited cross-cultural social exchange. This development is representative of the unique structure of Australian civil society

Investigating Factors Affecting the Attraction and Retention of Overseas Teachers in the United Arab Emirates

This mixed-method study investigated the attraction and retention of overseas teachers in the United Arab Emirates. The study, involving 866 participants, identifies the types of motivators that make international teacher relocation most viable along with the key obstacles to successful teacher adjustment. The study provides valuable contributions to the decision making of education administrators through identifying the attributes of teachers who are most likely to succeed in the host country

The Croatians in Sydney

Croatian settlement in Sydney has a dynamic history of arrivals, desertions, internment, collective departures, and a continuously rich social and political life although only several hundred Croatians lived in Sydney until 1949. At least 5,000 Croatians lived in Australia in 1947, mostly from the coastal region of Dalmatia, mainly from the Makarska area and the island of Korcula. They made up around 80 per cent of all migrants from what was then Yugoslavia and a majority among the approximately 425 ‘Yugoslavs’ who in lived in Sydney in that period. Many more arrived afterwards and at least 118,046 people in Australia, 33,930 in Sydney, were of Croatian ancestry in 2006.3 The experience of Croatians in Sydney is observed through two historical periods, linked by continuous market gardening in the northern suburbs of Mona Vale and Warriewood, and the western suburbs of Cabramatta and Blacktown. Inevitably, it must be understood against the background of the dramatic political and social events that Croatia and Croatians experienced over the twentieth century

Enhancing Child Care for Children with Special Needs Through Technical Assistance

Children with special needs often require additional supports in child care settings. The provision of technical assistance (TA) and consultation to child care teachers is an established method for addressing this need. This study expands on existing research by bringing the perspective of different adults (parents, technical assistance consultants, teachers, and child care center directors) together to better understand the experiences of all parties involved in TA cases for children between the ages of three and five. The concerns most frequently leading to the consultation were social-emotional-behavioral (50.5%), developmental (32.3%), medical (28.3%), and environmental risk (14%), and one quarter of parents reported that their child had more than one of these concerns. Parents’ evaluations of the outcomes of the consultation were predicted by the parent’s race, level of education, and whether they saw a behavioral concern as the initial reason for the consultation. Open-ended comments provided more insight into each group of adults’ experiences, some of which included frustration about feeling involved/included in the consultation (for parents) and parents’ not being involved in and/or engaged with the consultation (for other adults). The study’s findings emphasize the importance of all adults working as a team to ensure the best possible care for children with special needs