Developing a sustainable “school culture” that leads the school community in the direction of common goals as stated in a school’s vision and mission statements is a central aspect of a productive school (Deal & Peterson, 2009; Owens & Valesky, 2007, Prior, 2017; Sergiovanni, 2000; 2005). Such alignment also relates specifically to the type of graduate that is formed within these cultures (Iselin, 2010). Recently, a consortium of Australian Christian school associations in partnership with Cardus, published a landmark Australian study on graduates of Australian schools (Cheng & Iselin, 2020) regarding a school’s potential impact and influence on the graduates’ pursuit for the common good of society. In a similar vein, Fyson (2019) and Brinton (2023) did a study on how Christian schools engage their students in applying Biblical teachings to their lives. Despite these key explorations, there is a paucity of wider research of the potential influence of Australian Christian school cultures on graduates’ contribution to the common good of society. This proposal aims to add to this research corpus and seeks to describe, from a graduate perspective to what extent the elements of “school culture” evident and expressed in Christian schools may have influenced graduates to contribute to the common good in contemporary Australian society.

Keywords: Christian School, school culture, common good, cultural mandate, Christian school graduates.