1. A Personal experience in Education and school choice.

Education has always been an important part of my upbringing and cultural values. As my parents migrated from a war torn country they placed a high value on the quality of life and the opportunities that we can be given especially if we work hard through school and so education has always been emphasized and viewed as highly important throughout my life. Religion and family are the most important factors of my cultural life and so this also had an impact on the decision making process of my parents when they were choosing a school for their children including myself to attend from primary school to high school. My parents sent all seven of us to catholic schools as they believed a high emphasis on God and our religion was a vital factor in our education and our future, they also believed that it would continue our strong beliefs which we developed before school at home and continue the shared sense of identity we hold as a family and to the rest of the members of our religion.

As noted by keyway and Bullen (2001), schools compete in order to attract certain clients with similar values and ideologies that they share with the school and which they will be comforted by. Parents feel the need to choose a school that reflects the family’s home life and which their children will find comfort in the similarity between the schools practices  beliefs and curriculum to that of their own cultures. My parents were attracted to the schools in my district which offered a curriculum which matched my personal interests and talents as well as my personality, religion and ethnic background. The location of my primary school was in an area which my ethnic race predominantly reside, in the western suburbs. The image of my high school portrayed catholic values, morals and issued a compulsory catholic study from years 7-10. They were strict on uniform and the principle was a religious leader (Nun/sister). As the School was an independent private school , my parents chose to pay for their wants and needs in order to re-affirm their children’s sense of cultural pride and religious values which would shape my identity today. Before secondary school I identified as catholic and after it I still do which illustrates the impact and important role that signs and symbols play within a school community, it has the potential to help shape and construct someone’s identity. For example, if I was sent to a school that didn't have catholic studies as a compulsory subject in their curriculum then I believe I wouldn't associate myself with having a strong religious or catholic identity.  

Overall throughout my education experience, I believe that someone’s identity will be reflected through the values, ideologies and curriculum of the school, and only if someone rejects it will they develop their own creative identity instead of a shared one.

• Keyway, J & Bullen, (2001). Consuming children: Education-Entertainment-Advertising. Buckingham: Open University Press. Chapter 5: Designer Schools, packaged students. (pp. 121-150)
• Wells, A.S, Lopez, A, Scott, J & Holme, J.J, “Charter schools as postmodern Paradox”: Rethinking Social Stratification in an age of Deregulated school choice, Harvard educational review :69, 2 , ( 1999), pp.172-202.