Student Diversity as grass roots internationalisation in social work education

1. Student Diversity as grass roots internationalisation in social work education Marty Grace Rob Townsend Doris Testa John Fox Pauline O’Maley Juanita Custance Angela Daddow School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Victoria University, Melbourne VU College, Victoria University, Melbourne

2. Victoria University Located in the Melbourne’s culturally diverse western region • High proportion of low socio economic backgrounds Social Work has a diverse student body • Many are first in family to university • 16% are international students • The inclusion of social work in the skilled migration skills list has had a significant impact on international enrolments into the course • Students struggle to attend additional support classes Diversity within diversity, global families and collectivist cultures impact on the social work curriculum , teaching and field education

3. In social work education.... In Social Work education, pressure to internationalise goes beyond professional and university imperatives. Many social work programs have very diverse student bodies, including international students, local students from diverse cultural backgrounds, students from low socio-economic backgrounds, mature age students, and students with disabilities (Killick 2006).

4. What is critical social work education? • Encompasses critical social work, critical pedagogy (Friere 1996, Giroux, 2011) and critical literacy (Lankshear & McLaren 1993). • Transformation – of individual lives and the social conditions that contribute to oppression – is central to this approach • Critical pedagogy – produces citizens who are critical, self reflective, knowledgeable and willing to make moral judgements and act in a socially responsible way’ (Giroux, 2011, pg 3) • dialogical with a focus on knowledge transformation rather than knowledge consumption; on addressing power relations and privilege. It is not unilateral but rather is always related ‘to the specificity of particular contexts, students, communities, and available resources’ (Giroux, 2011, p 4).

5. Critical literacy emphasises not only the functional reading of text, but the ability to understand how language works to reflect and reinforce existing power structures (Giroux 2011). • These approaches underpin the idea of grass roots internationalisation of the curriculum • They can be seen as alternatives to Western paradigm pedagogy that includes the ‘othering’ of non-Western students within social work programs. • there is still an ‘outward gaze’ from social work on indigenous and cross-cultural practices, locating these practices as ‘other than’ what is mainstream social work practice. (Walter, Taylor and Habibis 2011:17)  

6. effective pedagogy is connected with students’ lives, their ‘local histories and community contexts’ (Gonzales & Moll 2002) learning is a social process, sitting within larger contextual forces that impact on students’ lives and identity formations (Gonzales & Moll 2002) The dominant paradigms in learning environments often sit outside these contexts. Given that these paradigms are socially privileged, students sense that their own forms of knowledge are judged as lacking and deficient.

7. when seeking a pedagogy that enables students to value their life-based cultural traditions and conventions: a pedagogy that avoids valorising the dominant cultural codes of the university (even as it does teach these), and invalidating previous experience and histories of students. - Gonzalez and Moll, 2002 • ‘Funds of knowledge’ refers to the knowledge and skills used over generations to support family well-being, which tend to be ignored in the education of marginalised students. ......by finding points of connection between students’ everyday lives and their learning experience (Hattam et al 2007)

8. Victoria University.....internationalisation • Includes teaching methods that are diverse, inclusive and explicit and that attempt to not disadvantage any student • Includes teaching that is broadened by an internationally comparative approach • Develops and assesses intercultural communications skills and critical thinking • Embeds internationalisation in the curriculum, but varies according to discipline and AQF standards • Is achieved through collaboration with a diverse group of stakeholders in the development of a relevant range of resources • Is based on a view of culture as complex, dynamic and evolving, and avoids stereotyping, generalisation and monolithic descriptions of cultures including our own

9. VU Social Work Unit Experience...... We describe three projects undertaken by Victoria University’s Social Work Unit • CALD research • SLU and LLN project • Funds of Knowledge action research project

10. We argue • that student diversity provides opportunities for grass roots internationalisation of the curriculum, and Highlight the importance of • including the funds of knowledge that students bring to social work education; • influencing how we incorporate this knowledge in classroom practices and the attitudes we bring as educators to create the spaces for learning about social work theory and practice in a global context. We discuss • some of the outcomes, tensions and implications for social work education in diverse communities

11. Noble, C., Egan, R., Martin P. 2007 • Diversity and Achievement Project, “I just wanted to be the best I could be” , Victoria University, Melbourne Qualitative purposive sampling 16 students Stage one Stage two – small grant from AASWWE Project One: CALD Project:

12. Describe your journey to AustraliaDescribe your journey to Victoria University, Social WorkDescribe your experience of the Bachelor of Social Work

13. STAGE ONE: http://www.thestorymaker.org/teachingmen/story/view/32

14. Findings Positives.. • Many challenges cf library and Teaching and Learning.. Applicable to all students • Most very positive about anti-oppressive discourse (social justice, human rights, advocacy, CD) • Unit content connected and had internal logic • Teachers responsive to CALD student needs • Placements good learning opportunities • Subjects e.g. indigenous, CD, Research fresh and exciting and useful • Staff available and supportive • Learning from challenges with staff support • V. happy with teachers and course (make sense) • Knowledge about social systems/social awareness .. Helpful for individual problems (empowering) .. • Practice skills important/knowledge is power • Good university/ taught by experts- gives everyone a chance. Access and fair

15. Findings Challenges • Demanding course in time/work/family • Language /concepts/ polices and practices- Aust. Welfare and culture – huge gap in local cultural knowledge • Course/lecturers expectations/availability • Library resources (inadequate) • Traditional cultural practices in tension with anti-oppressive stance (e.g. feminism) • Caught between two cultures.. Need to find the bridge.. • Isolated from cultural knowledge and emotional linkages in new culture • Feeling intimidated in class by English speakers

16. Results / discussion • The results indicated that CALD students have particular difficulties that influence the success or otherwise of their field placement. Students nominated their level of English proficiency and their unfamiliarity with Australian human services organisations as influencing, positively or negatively, their field placement experience. Students also highlighted their lack of local knowledge and values and the use of unfamiliar Western paradigms as adversely affecting the application of social work skills and knowledge. Conclusions / implications • Overall data indicated that, if CALD students are to successfully complete a field education placement, the social work programs and human services organisations must address personal, cultural and political dislocation that CALD students experience while undertaking their field education placement.

17. ……words from students “ I’ve been here for quite some time, almost 5 years now so that makes it home, I guess. I’ve gotten used to the campus, classmates, friends and teachers, the lecturers are all really good. That’s something I really value because its something that I never had-especially in my home country- to find people like that- willing to teach their hearts out” "I think one thing that Vic Uni do well is about being diversity and the social work unit is accommodated when I was a student that come to the social work unit and I think the ways they handle students from diverse backgrounds - don’t feel that if something happens to them its because they are from a different culture“ New opportunity and further education. I struggle as international student. I feel discriminated against with services and resources and costs of education. Throughout my course I have found staff respectful, open, compassionate, inspiring, knowledgeable

18. "when you write an assignment – I remember the first one I wrote – because I came from the Diploma and English is my second language I remember when I got my first assignment back – I think it was [identifying name] she gave me feedback and referred me to assistance she did what she was supposed to which is feedback. Some other teachers I don’t think they ah – they grade your work but you need feedback.I went there and she gave me 60 and wrote in the feedback congratulations. And it felt like congratulations should be a HD or something. I went to see her and I was not like wanting her to give me a better grade, but I was like, you know, 60 is not good I want to know how to do better next time and how to improve, I wasn’t happy – not with the grade"

19. "Some things about the Australian legislation. I was studying the social work law I would have trouble to understand the differences between the Act, the legislation and the law. Sometimes the lecturer said you should find the weak point in the social work law. This is a very big job for me because I have absolutely no idea about the law and she asked me to find the weak –point. I was thinking oh my god what can I find."

20. For some students the metaphors used during the social work course and field education felt ‘very complex’:"You really need to live here. I don’t know what’s the emotion you should feel. People would all have the same response and I didn’t really understand. I was like, what? Why are people feeling that, why are they feeling sad about this? I can’t respond the way they expected." Some noted that their experience drew on Western paradigms exclusively:"In [home country] you are always looking at cultures. They talk about family, community together, but here they talk about the client and their problem, but there to look at the client, you have to think about the community."

21. Project Two: Student Learning Unit (SLU) and Language, Literacy and Numeracy (LLN) Projects: Social work staff at VU have sought to respond to these findings in an ongoing manner. The first response, beginning in 1990’s, involved a partnership between social work, the university’s SLU and pilot LLN Strategy The LLN Strategy has the following aims: • To build the language, literacy and numeracy capabilities that underpin students’ Victoria University course achievement and which provide a foundation for further learning and for future careers and life choices. • To build the capacity of Victoria University teachers, curricula developers and LLN support mechanisms to identify and address the LLN development needs of students . • To evaluate and document the impact of interventions, enabling sustained growth.

25. ……words from students

29. Project Three: Funds of Knowledge Project - 2013 Partnership with VU’s Curriculum and Innovation Unit • Action research that intentionally designs and implement curriculum and pedagogy to access students’ funds of knowledge • to enable to students to traverse the multi literacies required for success in academic and professional lives • Design curriculum for two units of study that access less privileged literacies and fund of knowledge • Researched an refined for implementation across semesters one and two, 2013

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32. Thankyou