Moved from UK to Brisbane - business advisory field.Why do locals 1st ask school attended.Are they parochial?

Question

Moved from UK to Brisbane - business advisory field.Why do locals 1st ask school attended.Are they parochial?

Answer 1

Well it IS one way of roughly placing a person. They are probably wondering about your accent but don't want to guess where you come from in case they are wrong. It is a common first-meeting question among young people.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, many of us have been infected by a politically correct 'don't ask anything that can be taken the wrong way' mindset. Asking what school you attended gives an enormous amount of information about a person - none of which can be gleaned by any more direct means without the possibitity of offending. So, no, they're not being parochial, they're simply trying to place where you fit in to their scheme of things.

When you're looking for a job, there are many weird regulations in Australia regarding discrimination on the most specious of of grounds. Employers need to be very careful about exactly what questions they ask in case they are accused of discriminating against someone on the basis of nationality, race, marital status, age etc etc etc ad infinitum. Asking what school you attended is completely harmless in itself, but it tells them what country you come from and what type of education you received. The next question by a prospective employer is probably what years you attended - that gives a good idea of your age without actually asking for it. They would much rather ask straightforward questions, but our stupid laws prevent this, hence the roundabout way of finding out the information they feel they need to know.