Looking for Alibrandi

Melina Marchetta’s ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ brings up many issues including the differences between State and Independent education. In the novel she draws big distinctions between the two different types of education including class, moral values and ethics, education standards and the type of people who go there.

The particular school Josie goes to is an expensive Catholic private school. Already we can see the main thing that differentiates between a State school and an Independent one, is the fees. In the book, Josie’s attends a high fee-paying school, which limits the type of people who attend. Only those who can afford can attend. Josie a scholarship student sees everyone at the school as either rich people with rich parents and rich grandparents or the rich Europeans.

From this excerpt we can see Josie felt very out of place. Melina Marchetta represents the Private schools as places where only the higher society classes can attend. The State schools are open to anyo...