The Evolution of Social Closure in School Education in New South Wales, Australia

This paper provides a case study of the evolution of social closure as experienced within the teaching profession in public school education in New South Wales, Australia. It charts the changing development of social closure mechanisms, from state-sanctioned, formalized, collectivist mechanisms, to organization-based formal and informal mechanisms derived from individualist criteria. Drawing on an empirical research project that examined the individual experiences of social closure amongst a group of school teachers, this paper finds that there is potential for both collective and individual resistance, or the development of ‘usurpationary’ strategies, at both the formal and the informal level. Detailed study of changing social closure strategies, and the strategies employed to resist social closure, can provide a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of how discrimination continues to operate in workplaces despite the existence of anti-discrimination and equal opportunity legislation in Australia.