Teaching for cultural diversity: A case study

The changing nature of the student body at universities demands an awareness and a commitment by lecturers to developing a repertoire of teaching strategies to cater for different learning needs. Sessions on how to meet the needs of the changing diversity in the student population are important because they provide an opportunity for lecturing staff to become aware of the issues and strategies to address them. This case study outlines an approach used at James Cook University with a class of lecturers participating in the Graduate Certificate in Education (Tertiary Teaching) since 1994. Participant response to the sessions has been both positive and negative. The particularly heightened response to the session in 1996, on which this case study focuses, reflected, in part, the political climate since the 1996 Federal election. This case study will explore the dynamics of this particular session on teaching cultural diversity and make suggestions as to how to manage difficult dialogues of this kind.

Introduction

Cultural and educational diversity are important topics at James Cook University (JCU): the JCU Strategic Plan (Goal Five) promotes "Servicing Diversity, to ensure access to educational and improved employment opportunities for all members of the community, particularly educationally disadvantaged groups." In fact, JCU has, at 4.5%, the highest percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students of any Australian University, 11.9% of post graduate students from overseas and 44% of students from rural and remote communities, a figure which is over double the national average and the seventh highest nationally. JCU also accepts 5.5% of students with top quartile state tertiary entry ranking scores (compared with 74.5% for the University of Queensland). It is therefore appropriate that lecturers at JCU are aware of the diversity that exists in their classrooms and that they learn how to facilitate learning for all their students.

Over the last three years at least one session at JCU's Graduate Certificate in Education (Tertiary Teaching), a course for JCU lecturers, has taken up this challenge of addressing diversity. The impetus for this paper came from student responses to sessions on Cultural Diversity taught since 1994 as part of the Graduate Certificate and in particular the 1996 session. In this paper I will outline the content and process of these sessions and talk about the student response. I will concentrate on the dynamics of the session and its implications for good practice.

Teaching cultural diversity

In 1996, the session on diversity was taught early in the semester in the second and third classes of the year. This was done on the suggestion of both the 1994 and the 1995 students who felt such a valuable session should be taught early in the course. The session was held within a month of the recent Federal election during which Pauline Hanson (Oxley, QLD) was disendorsed by the Liberal Party for her racist statements about Aboriginal people, Graeme Campbell (Kalgoorlie, WA) was disendorsed by the Labor Party for his anti-immigration stance, and Bob Katter (Kennedy, QLD) made statements about "slanty eyed ideologues." The furore which resulted in the media had specific effects in North Queensland and, I suspect, around Australia. In Townsville, Indigenous students reported that they agreed with ex-Senator Neville Bonner, who said he no longer felt comfortable walking the streets of Ipswich (Pauline Hanson's electorate). They now wondered what other students thought when they saw them on campus. Did they imagine they were welfare cheats just bludging on the system? Choosing to run a session on cultural diversity in this climate presented special problems which didn't surface in the previous two years but erupted into a hostility to the issues and the presenters.

In 1996, the session on cultural diversity was combined with an introduction to "The Changing Nature of the University" and was followed by a general discussion after the guests had left. The same guest lecturer as in the two previous years, an experienced lecturer from an NESB background and an expert in multicultural issues, coordinated the information session and was joined by an Aboriginal lecturer. The two presenters met the day before the scheduled session to plan their approach. They invited three students to attend the session with them on the following day. During their session the two presenters shared biographical recounts of their encounters with formal education. They carefully charted the discussion to cover issues from pedagogical practice to assessment.

The three students, a Torres Strait Islander, a Thai student and a student from Papua New Guinea, spoke of their experiences as students at JCU. In addition to emphasising routine strategies to encourage student participation, the guest presenters urged their colleagues/students to interrogate content for cultural specificity and exclusivity and to be aware that current events, ethnic and racial histories and international crises can weigh heavily on some students and can influence learning in the classroom. There was some unease from a group of students to the guests and this discomfort was openly expressed in the general discussion after the presenters had left the room.

In the discussion, the participants were asked to analyse the teaching strategies used by the guest presenters and to say what might be useful for their own teaching practice. Following this session the participants were asked to continue the dialogue on email and to write entries in their reflective journals. Two weeks later the main guest presenter returned to the group to follow up on the pedagogical implications of the session.

Student responses to diversity

Given the fact that there had been a change in the political environment with the recent election and the issues of racism that were raised during that time, and the fact that the students made reference to the changing climate because of the election, there was definitely a heightened reaction which surfaced in this session compared with other years. Some 1996 students expressed anger and annoyance that their time had been wasted by "politically correct material of dubious worth" from people who were "out of touch with mainstream Australia." Some said they had come to the Tertiary Teaching course to learn how to give better lectures, not hear this "politically correct diatribe." The interpretation of the current political climate as "now it is time to hear the voice of the majority again," served to silence the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander guests with an attempt to homogenise their issues as similar to anyone's who was shy or in some way different from the "norm." Comments such as "the visiting Aboriginal student was inarticulate" ignored the important political message that student was trying to make about the use of language to disempower students, apart from the fact that the student was Torres Strait Islander, not Aboriginal. When one NESB guest declined to make comment on his experience of racism among staff, this was interpreted by some students as confrontational and embarrassing. That lecturer later commented to me that the atmosphere in the room was one where he would rather not make comments on such delicate issues. Discussion, argument and dissension flowed from this session onto the class email chatline. There were long and robust dialogues, some of which I have edited and will share with you here.

EMAIL 1
(from a student)
I have a major concern relating to the coverage of diversity issues . . . without providing any treatment of solutions. I found it impossible to determine the aim of this session . . . I found the lack of any real content very unprofessional. . . if I had wanted a coffee room discussion I should have stayed in my own department where the chairs are more comfortable. . . .

EMAIL 2
(a reply from one of the guest presenters)
The approach I used was carefully planned and based on my professional experience about effective communication on the obviously contentious matter of diversity and teaching in the University. . . So, the first generalisation that was put to you in the session was that teachers need to be aware of their own culture specific position as speakers. . .

It is a mistake to view 'professionalism' as that which is devoid of personal experience and intimate voice. It's a lesson the political players have finally had to face in our State and nation. The best teachers/communicators have always understood this . . .

. . . My very point is that we need to expand our repertoires as teachers to be aware of all the aspects of diversity that affect participation in the learning experience. It's not an either/or matter - nor is it a relative matter. The way you respond to the needs of a shy person or an anxious women, or a disabled person, or a person of indigenous or overseas background is not the same. That is the other generalisation that came out of the session.

EMAIL THREE
(from another student)
The comments made me rethink things in tutorials. I thought that by asking my Asian and PNG students questions in a tutorial that I was putting them on the spot and perhaps they felt embarrassed because of their English skills. I found myself subconsciously stereotyping them and avoiding questioning them on difficult points which required lengthy responses. Well, I have changed my tactics. On Thursday I asked these students (two Asian and one PNG student) some of the curly questions. They answered with enthusiasm. . . The highlight of my day was at the end of the tute when the two Asian students came up to me and thanked me for letting them read. They said that it was difficult but it gave them opportunity to practice their reading skills and pronunciation. All that I am trying to say, I suppose, is that sometimes the obvious simple things we can do to involve our overseas students are forgotten. From Wednesday's session, three of my students were affected, albeit indirectly, in what I hope is a positive sense.

EMAIL FOUR
(from the other guest presenter)
. . . . I felt offended by the way the class interacted with [the Torres Strait Islander student guest]. I felt embarrassed and insulted that the crucial analysis of power he gave was discounted as the same as that suffered by a shy person. I will not be asking an Indigenous student to place themselves out on a limb in this fashion again. . . . Ultimately people survive in society because they live within reciprocal arrangements that are designed to mutually benefit each other. In that class reciprocity did not occur. The air of learning was limited. Our voices were discounted and nobody entered into a debate about what was being argued by the lecturers/invited guests or the class participants.

EMAIL FIVE
(from another student in response to the first student)
I found the session extremely useful, not only listening to the personal history of ALL the speakers, but also observing the presenter's technique and the response from the audience. From the verbal comments and the body language of certain members of the group, it was blindingly obvious that a "political undercurrent" was emerging. What I did not like, appreciate, or find useful was the way the final session, meant to be concerned with discussing diversity in relation to teaching, degenerated into an attack on the presenters. . .

EMAIL SIX
(from student No 1)
The point that I was attempting to make, obviously unsuccessfully as both you and the presenter have responded to the political aspects, rather than the educational aspects, is that the Australian population is basically conservative. With a conservative population base, reactive or radical issues tend to have a negative rather than a positive effect (take, for example, Greenpeace). . . As to your interpretation of a "political undercurrent" emerging during the session, I suspect that it was more a feeling of "why are we here".

EMAIL SEVEN
(from a student)
Pedagogics could be described as the ecology of education. The presenter used a number of strategies in her session to demonstrate pedagogic principles. Her approach was not tainted with political ideology as you implied by the juxtaposition of terms such as reactiveness/proactiveness and your Greenpeace against the world scenario. Rather, she displayed a highly professional manner, a tremendous grasp of the subject and provided the opportunity for insight into others, and our own, domain - if we were willing to make the journey that is. This is borne out by my previous comment about the reluctance to speak of one, if not more, of the guest speakers during the session, being not to do with any aspect of the presenter's style, but more the perception of "local atmospherics" in the room. That, in itself, should speak absolute volumes to you!

The session demonstrated that it is important to make explicit to teachers the specific problems of NESB students and to highlight the exclusion and lack of valuing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students' knowledge, but the discussion following the presentations highlighted the negative reaction possible among some participants who were not willing, in today's political climate, to concede special educational needs for non-mainstream students. It can be said that at one level, this negative reaction obscured and disrupted the pedagogical importance of what was being taught, but if accommodated appropriately, this negativity can be transcended. The hostile reaction to the 1996 session was, clearly in part, a response to the political environment as exemplified in one student's email which said that Australians were a basically conservative group and that Australians had sent a powerful message in their vote to change the government. The "powerful message" was not stated but implied that diversity was no longer an important issue.

Another factor in the reaction was the perceived authority and professionalism of the two women presenters. Given the range of discipline background of the group their orientation to professionalism varied greatly. The opposing of 'professionalism' with 'coffee table chat' highlights this. If professionalism is interpreted as the delivery of authoritative information then the "coffee shop chat" strategy can be viewed as unprofessional rather than as an appropriate and specific pedagogical tool. Because the 'coffee shop chat' is by nature open ended in its learning demands, the important "messages" for teaching that were extrapolated from the input by the guests and by the main presenters varied from being considered "useful" by some and "unnecessary" by others. The method used and described by one student as a "coffee shop discussion" was, in fact a strategy that involved the carefully structured movement from the local and specific to more generalisable pedagogical and political issues.

Also noteworthy is the fact that, the Aboriginal presenter in this 1996 session was generally ignored and questions to issues she raised were mainly referred to the other guest who was perceived as the main presenter. The reaction to the 1996 session was so markedly different from the 1995 and 1994 sessions that it leads one to speculate that the political climate post the federal election had given licence to a new mood. A mood that had found its expression in this particular session. So, despite that fact that JCU, like other Universities is required to introduce tertiary teachers to the imperatives of their task in the context of a growing diverse student body, the new climate requires both a particularly sensitive approach and a reinvigorated engagement with the issues.

In teaching for diversity, eliciting personal point of views about diversity and how it should be regarded, is an important ingredient, but to this must be added very clear courses of action. Such discussion sessions must be accompanied by suggested strategies in a range of pedagogical realms - from dealing with the challenge of assessment, to subject content, essay writing genres and so on. The relationship between diverse student need, teacher's orientations to that need and institutional possibilities has to be made otherwise the experience can remain essentially emotive.

Despite the dangers however, there are advantages in having difficult dialogues on controversial issues because they make a strong point for the reality of the diverse tertiary classroom of the 1990s. Having the session early in the year gives students time to revisit the issues and the students' journal entries a month later show that, for some, their initial rejection of the message to be aware of the special needs of non-English speaking background students turned to a gradual acknowledgment that there were issues which they had ignored in their own classrooms until this session. One of the most vociferous participants conceded that he had been blind to the needs of a student of Non English speaking background in his class. In fact, he said that he was jolted into recognising that this student did need special attention in order to get him to speak in class. Yet, most of the reflections in students' journals related to the needs of NESB students. A curious absence however is that none of the journals acknowledged the needs of indigenous students. It may be that none of the participants have indigenous students in their classes, although this is unlikely given that 4.5% of JCU students are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent.

Conclusion

Ways of accomplishing this include reflection and discussion on teaching with colleagues and ensuring that all students are included in talking about diversity issues. Teachers who socialise with students get to know them outside the classroom and gain better insights into their language and the cognitive strategies they use. It is in talking to students that our stereotypes and presumptions about students are challenged. While it is important to link students with appropriate services for language enhancement or cultural or social support, it should not be assumed that lecturers alone have all the responsibility for servicing difference. Finally, student satisfaction and educational progress can be directly related to issues of identity. It is important for lecturers to be aware that current events, ethnic and racial histories and international crises can weigh heavily on some students and can influence learning in the classroom. The successful teacher is one who is aware of the cultural specificity of his/her own teaching and tries to make explicit those very assumptions which, in some cases, exclude the students who come from different cultural backgrounds.

For those involved in staff development and tertiary teaching courses the messages are powerful. We are all circumscribed by the political moment in which we act. Difficult times in which "free speech" is interpreted as being able to say anything, at any time, is of itself a "politically correct act" of a conservative kind. There is possibly a mood at this moment which puts equity programs and other identified strategies for dealing with the issues in universities, at risk. The issues of access and equity for all students still need to be addressed.

References

Kalantzis, M. (1995). Cultural Diversity and Higher Education. Unpublished manuscript.

Quality Portfolio (1994). James Cook University of North Queensland. Volumes 1 & 2.

Author: Dr Sue McGinty, Deputy Director of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville, Qld 4811. Email: Sue.McGinty@jcu.edu.au Internet: http://www.jcu.edu.au/dept/Interdisciplinary/ABSTRACT Please cite as: McGinty, S. (1996). Teaching for cultural diversity: A case study. Different Approaches: Theory and Practice in Higher Education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996. Perth, Western Australia, 8-12 July. http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/mcginty.html