CDIP Provocateurs 2008

CDIP Provocateurs are staff members who agree to initiate an activity / various activities within their work group that provokes discussions about cultural diversity and inclusive practice utilising the CDIP Toolkit Resources.

In 2008, nine CDIP Provocateurs were each allocated $1,000 for an activity within their work group and those were reported on in November 2008 in the presence of the DVC(A) and DVC(I).

In January 2009, the CDIP Provocateurs that had met the reporting requirements were invited to apply for a further amount (up to $8K) to facilitate another activity within their School/ Department/Area utilising / or adding to the CDIP Toolkit GIFS/TIPS or another event.  Two Phase 2 grants were allocated.  The activity is due for completion by 30 October for presentation at the Harmony Day 2010 Event to be held during the week beginning 22 March 2010.

For more information contact cdip@flinders.edu.au.

The 2008 CDIP Provocateurs initiated the following projects:

Increasing cultural mixing and awareness in extracurricular activities at Flinders housing:  Paul Tosch

The aim of this project was to establish a framework to facilitate discussions into mechanisms for increasing cultural mixing and awareness in extracurricular activities at Flinders Housing.  This aim was achieved by setting up a discussion forum in a semi-formal setting.

36 students registered for the forum and were divided into three groups of 12.  Each group was assigned a scribe to take notes and a group facilitator was used to initiate and guide discussions.  The facilitators were all given a running sheet derived from the two TIPS sheets: "Culturally Inclusive Participation in Sport" and "Culturally Inclusive Participation in Sport". These running sheets were designed to encourage discussion within the four core areas, with facilitators guiding discussions from the participants opinions and ideas.  Groups of students were given 1 hour to discuss the four core areas:

• What is being done to foster cultural inclusion at Flinders housing
• What more could be done to increase cultural inclusivity
• Cultural mixing encouraged through cultural sensitivity
• How can we increase cultural mixing without being exclusive

After the discussion groups had finished Flinders Housing hosted a weekend BBQ to thank participants.

The discussions focussed on cultural diversity at Flinders Housing with respect to these core issues.  Following on from this discussion participants looked at what is being done to foster cultural inclusion at Finders Housing.  Within this discussion participants reviewed the major barriers to fostering cultural inclusivity. Interestingly all three groups independently identified similar barriers to cultural inclusivity, such as alcohol and the tendency of different cultural groups to socialise within their specific cultural cohorts.  The groups then moved on to look at strategies to encourage cultural inclusion and diversity; again all three groups independently identified similar strategies.  Among those discussed where non-competitive sports, arts/music and food.  Finally the groups discussed some of the issues that could arise while trying to increase cultural inclusivity and diversity.

Provision of tailored cultural awareness training to frontline staff:  Melissa Suckley

The aim of this project was to foster understanding for staff, of residents' behaviours in the light of their cultural background. Of the Flinders University students currently living on campus, 50% are international students. Each of these students brings with them specific cultural values, behaviours and habits from their home country which can affect how they settle into residential student living in an Australian context. While the frontline staff at Flinders housing work diligently to assist every resident to adjust to living in University Hall and Deidre Jordan Village, there do remain barriers to cultural understanding and often times there is a mismatch between what staff expect of residents and how residents behave.

The project involved two seminars where issues of cultural awareness and use of the CDIP Toolkit, specifically the TIP "Designing culturally inclusive environments". The first seminar was run by staff from the Flinders International Student Services Unit for the Residential staff and Residential Club Committees. It covered a arrange of topics which included: culture,; perspectives; communication and home care issues. the A guest speaker was brought in to run the second seminar which was called "Courageous conversations". This included Residential staff, Residential Club Committees and Administrative staff and covered topics such as race, equity vs equality, whiteness and white privilege. Both workshops required participants to have an understanding of the CDIP toolkit and specific understanding of the "Designing Culturally Inclusive Environments", TIP.

Encouraging and further embedding culturally inclusive teaching practice at a Faculty level:  Leonie Hardcastle & Deborah Hackett

Two approaches were adopted to encourage and further embed culturally inclusive teaching practice at a Faculty level. The first was to further publicise and supplement the CDIP toolkit within Social Sciences; the second involved piloting some CDIP-related concepts, awareness and recommended practices in relation to the delivery of courses and topics. In order to further publicise the toolkit, emails were sent to staff within the Faculty; hard copies of the toolkit were distributed; web links were developed and a workshop was held at which staff discussed the on-going development of the toolkit.  In addition, notice boards were placed in common areas to further facilitate ideas and discussion. The second approach required obtaining customised reports on the demographic composition of individual classes in order to identify the richness of the cultural diversity of the students and to further inform teaching practice and content.  The pilot revealed that customisation of student system reports on the necessary variables was currently problematic: an upgraded version of the software will, however, make this more straightforward and routine reports of this kind will be further explored at a later date.

It's shocking:  Didy Button & Moira Kelton

General staff, including front office staff, laboratory staff, Flexible Education Unit staff, and other general staff in the School of Nursing and Midwifery (SON&M) were invited to attend one of three catered workshops. These were designed to raise staff awareness about the CDIP toolkit with a particular focus on GIF 4 - Understanding and Supporting People Experiencing Culture Shock and to provoke discussion about issues; generate ideas about strategies that could promote inclusive practices for all and identify possible solutions facing our student cohort, particularly around culture shock issues.

At the workshop staff were:

• Asked what culturally inclusive practice meant to them -:

University Culture (all 1st Semester students), Australian Culture for International Students (informed the group that approx 40% of our current student cohort are international - 440 of 1150 students enrolled here are currently studying on temporary residency visas)

• Invited to list the countries they knew our students were from
• Introduced to the CDIP toolkit
• Provided with a copy of GIF 4
• Provided with opportunities for discussion and ideas generation

Open to all : building a culturally inclusive online learning environment in social work:  Carol Irizarry & Lorna Hallahan

The School of Social Work ‘values cultural diversity and seeks to be culturally inclusive in all its activities'.  In addition, the School ‘is also committed to communicating the international aspects of social work theory and practice in all its teaching and research'.  Through this project, it has sought to start the process of ensuring that its teaching programs are culturally inclusive and potentially ‘open to all'.

It is intended to develop the website by utilising information from the following TIPS (‘Theory Into Practice Strategies') embedded within the Flinders Cultural Diversity and Inclusive Practice Toolkit:

• Designing Culturally Inclusive Environments
• Small Groups
• Inclusive Practices for Managing Controversial Issues
• Teaching Offshore
• Religion in the Classroom
• A first step has been to investigate additional relevant work already undertaken, and resources/guidelines already available, both here at Flinders and elsewhere. A preliminary web-search was conducted with particular reference to
• additional general guidelines (a) for ensuring cultural inclusivity in pedagogical settings and (b) in relation to the internationalisation of the curriculum
• particular guidelines arising in a social work education context (a) relating to culturally-inclusive curriculum and teaching practices in social work and (b) relating to the online/website teaching of social work. The identified resources will be utilised to further develop a fully online, culturally inclusive curriculum project.

Meeting the expectation - What expectations? - Cultural Interpreters:  Judy Myers & Song Xu

Thirty academic and general staff from: Science and Engineering, Health Sciences, the International Office, the DVC International Office, Marketing and Communications Office, student admissions, and the International Student Services Unit participated in a lunchtime seminar designed to encourage participants to consider what life is like for our international students: living in an alien country, studying degrees in a language that is not their mother tongue, in a culture that is unfamiliar and in many instances isolated from friends and family.

To provoke thought and to place the seminar topics in context we began with a brief PowerPoint presentation that highlighted the finding of the Sweeney report which identified that across Australia international students are craving immersion in Australian university life and compared to domestic students feel as though they are on the outside looking in. The presentation was followed by talks from two of our Chinese students who gave their perspectives and experiences of life in Australia and more specifically at Flinders.

Provocateurs event for FURCS:  Linda Sweet

This provocateurs event was based on establishing and raising staff awareness of the CDIP toolkit, using content of the following theory into practice Strategies (TIPS):

• Teaching and Learning - Designing culturally inclusive environments \
• Research - Social Science and Humanities
• Leadership and Administration - Guidance on naming systems
• University Community - Culturally Inclusive Social Events

These particular TIPS were chosen as they have relevance for both general and academic staff and make use of one from each of the universities core activity areas. In addition to these, questions where developed from the General Information Folios (GIFs) on the university and religions.

This provocateurs event was in the format of an interactive online ‘quiz‘ for all staff to complete. The provocateur wrote, promoted and evaluated a staff quiz around issues of cultural diversity and inclusive practice. The online survey format suited FURCS given that all FURCS sites are geographically isolated from each other. The survey once written was formatted into an online format using Survey Solutions. An all school email was sent to all staff on two occasions requesting their participation.

How to increase the quality and quantity of research grant applications from researchers from culturally diverse backgrounds:  Kristy Manuel

In order to explore the question "How to increase the quality and quantity of research grant applications from members of the Flinders University research community who are from culturally diverse backgrounds" a focus group of Flinders University staff was formed. This group explored: the problems faced by researchers, strategies that the office of research can develop and services that the Office of Research provides.  It utilised the cultural diversity and inclusive practice (CDIP) toolkit as a resource.

The main points that arose from the discussion included:

• Difficulties in accessing peer and supervisory support;
• Different approaches to the meaning of ‘language';
• Challenges in using other forms of communication - phone, email and web;
• Poor synchronisation of relevant services and assistance for researchers;
• Increased workload for people assisting researchers from culturally diverse backgrounds;
• Employment opportunities; and
• Administrative solutions.

A follow up meeting occurred a week later to further discuss the content and practical application of the CDIP toolkit. Ideas that were generated by this second session assisted in defining and clarifying some of the practical solutions proposed in the initial focus group. The attendees felt committed to improving cultural diversity awareness at Flinders and indicated that they would be willing to provide on going support and involvement in future activities.

Creating and Maintaining culturally inclusive speech pathology clinical education environments:  Chris Brebner & Stacie Attrill

An "Advanced Clinical Education Workshop" with the specific theme of "creating and maintaining culturally inclusive Speech Pathology clinical education environments" was conducted. The workshop involved 14 clinical education partners.

Advanced Clinical Education Workshops are an established concept in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology whereby University staff provide support and training for clinical educators taking our students for clinical placements in the community. For this Advanced Clinical Education Workshop, we focused solely on the theme of culturally inclusive clinical education environments. The workshop involved:

• general discussion around cultural and linguistic diversity and cultural inclusivity, and how this impacts on students' learning
• working with Speech Pathology students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds in Australian clinical education settings.

The CDIP toolkit  was utilised in a variety of ways:

• GIFs and TIPS were provided to participants to promote facilitated discussions;
• provided GIFs and TIPs as handouts for "take home" reading to allow for further reflection, in particular the issues around:

• designing culturally inclusive environments for Speech Pathology clinical education;
• facilitating peer learning and small group work with international students in clinical education settings;
• inclusive practices for managing controversial issues that may arise in clinical environments (e.g. relationships and role of Speech Pathologists with medical/teaching staff).

The workshop allowed for a great deal of reflection on current practice, and the workshop facilitated the review and evaluation of practices in order to ensure that they are supported in offering a high quality, culturally inclusive clinical education environment for our students.