Immigrant-background Australians' recollections of justice, injustice and agency in stories about starting school

Abstract

This article investigates the recollections of justice, injustice and agency in the autobiographical narratives of a group of Australian immigrants who shared their experiences of starting school. The data consists of 24 autobiographical narrative interviews with participants who started school either overseas and then in Australia, or in Australia, between 1955 and 1991. By the time of starting school, they not only lived in different microsystems - home and school - but also oscillated between two macrosystems: the cultural heritage of the family and the mainstream culture of Australia. The results indicate that, for this group of people, starting school represented a significant encounter between these macrosystems. Experiences of justice, injustice and agency during the early school career had potential to shape identity construction and have a lasting impact on the life course. The stories told during the interviews were about past experience, but also about what that experience meant in the present life of the narrator. They gave voice to the experiences of the participants as children and space to the adults to make sense of their childhood experiences.