Why does Josie believe that she doesn’t fit in at school?

In the first three chapters alone, a multitude of the novel’s central themes are introduced. The first one is the theme of feeling like an outsider. Josie attends St. Martha’s, a private all-girls Catholic school for the rich and affluent. As a second generation Italian-Australian scholarship student born out of wedlock to a single mother, Josie feels disadvantaged and ostracized among her wealthy, well-bred peers. From the moment she arrived at St. Martha’s, the other girls made it clear she didn’t belong, because of her lack of wealth, her illegitimacy, and her “ethnic” background (Marchetta 14).