Wings to fly’: a case study of supporting Indigenous student success through a whole-of-university approach
Although there have been repeated calls for empirical evaluations focused on if and how the activities of Indigenous Education Units contribute to Indigenous student success at university, data demonstrating the outcomes of these activities remain scarce. As a first step in addressing this gap, a case study of the Kulbardi Aboriginal Centre is presented which […]
A Manifesto for Decolonising Design
“Getting It Right: Creating Partnerships for Change”: Developing a Framework for Integrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledges in Australian Social Work Education
This article proposes a theoretical framework for integrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges in Australian social work education as a central focus of the Getting it Right: Creating Partnerships for Change project. This article presents analysis from a literature review to suggest ways Australian schools of social work can adapt their curriculum in order […]
A review of community engagement in cancer control studies among Indigenous people of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA
This review aimed to address studies of cancer control in Indigenous populations, with a focus on: (1) the nature and extent of community engagement; and (2) the extent to which community engagement has facilitated successful outcomes. Articles addressing Indigenous cancer control using some degree of community engagement were identified by a search of the following […]
Communicating cancer and its treatment to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients with cancer: a qualitative study
Purpose To investigate the successful strategies of health workers who support and regularly communicate with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about cancer and its treatment. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to face or via telephone and audio-recorded with twenty-three health professionals (medical and radiation oncologists, oncology nurses and Aboriginal Health Workers), 5 identifying as […]
Layered spaces: a pedagogy of uncomfortable reflexivity in Indigenous education
University disciplines are grappling with how best to incorporate Indigenous content and frameworks for practice into their teaching to better prepare graduates to work with Indigenous communities. Yet the pedagogical approaches that can best engage students in Indigenous Studies as a field of critical study are still being debated. This article has two aims. The […]
Working at a cultural interface: co-creating Aboriginal health curriculum for health professions
Historical exclusion of Aboriginal people and Aboriginal epistemologies in Australian higher education, including health professions education, has produced generations of healthcare professionals who are ill-equipped and lack confidence to provide culturally safe care for Aboriginal communities. This article recounts efforts undertaken at a university in Melbourne to foreground Aboriginal ways of knowing and being through […]
Mental health and well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia during COVID-19
In May 2020, an independent working party was convened to determine the mental health and well-being needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia, in response to COVID-19. Thirty Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and allies worked together in a two-month virtual collaboration process. Here, we provide the working party’s five key […]
The legacy of racism and Indigenous Australian identity within education
It may be argued that the emerging discourses focusing on the social, emotional, educational, and economic disadvantages identified for Australia’s First Peoples (when compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts) are becoming increasingly dissociated with an understanding of the interplay between historical and current trends in racism. Additionally, and if not somewhat related to this critique, it […]
Psychology Education and Work Readiness Integration: A Call for Research in Australia
Supporting students to develop transferable skills and gain employment is a vital function of Universities in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A key area is work readiness, which has steadily grown in importance over the last 2 decades as tertiary institutions increasingly aim to produce graduates who perceive and are perceived as work […]
Cultural humility and decolonial practice: narratives of therapists’ lives
Objective: Cultural competence has been critiqued as a flawed principle, focussed on mastery of cultural knowledge rather than critical reflection on race and privilege. Cultural humility is proposed as an alternative, emphasising accountability over mastery, involving critical self-reflection of personal biases and culture. This study aims to explore the development of cultural humility in psychological […]
Facilitating Sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction in Indigenous Communities: Reviving Indigenous Worldviews, Knowledge and Practices through Two-Way Partnering
The Sendai Framework of Action 2015–2030 calls for holistic Indigenous disaster risk reduction (DRR) research. Responding to this call, we synergized a holistic philosophical framework (comprising ecological systems theory, symbolic interactionism, and intersectionality) and social constructionist grounded theory and ethnography within a critical Indigenous research paradigm as a methodology for exploring how diverse individual and […]
Synergy of systems theory and symbolic interactionism: a passageway for non-Indigenous researchers that facilitates better understanding Indigenous worldviews and knowledges
Historically, non-Indigenous researchers have contributed to colonisation by research based on Western positivistic philosophical frameworks. This approach led to disembodying knowledge from Indigenous people’s histories, worldviews, and cultural and social practices, thus perpetuating a deficit-based discourse which situates the responsibility of problems within Indigenous peoples and ignores the larger socio-economic and historical contexts in which […]
What Contributions, if Any, Can Non-Indigenous Researchers Offer Toward Decolonizing Health Research?
Four non-Indigenous academics share lessons learned through our reflective processes while working with Indigenous Australian partners on a health research project. We foregrounded reflexivity in our work to raise consciousness regarding how colonizing mindsets-that do not privilege Indigenous ways of knowing or recognize Indigenous land and sovereignty-exist within ourselves and the institutions within which we […]
Reconciling Relations: Shifting Counselling Psychology to Address Truth and Reconciliation
In 2018, the Canadian Counselling Psychology Conference (CCPC) convened a working group to address how the field of counselling psychology ought to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Attendees were asked to share their perspectives on reconciliation, current efforts toward reconciliation in counselling psychology, and recommendations for the future of counselling psychology […]
First Nations, Metis, & Inuit University Students’ Share Advice for College Entry and Retention
This article provides results from focus groups and individual interviews with current and former students concerning the use of cultural resilience in obtaining higher education degrees in response to: What advice would you give to other First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students concerning entry and retention in college? The informants provided rich and varied information […]
Neoliberal anti-racism: Responding to ‘everywhere but different’ racism
Racism cannot be treated as a spatially homogeneous phenomenon. This review reports on the merits of a localized approach to anti-racism, and delivers a frank assessment of the challenges faced when developing local responses to racism in a neoliberal era. Under neoliberalism, local actors are responsibilized, and for anti-racism this means action can potentially be […]
Contributions to urban Indigenous self-determination: The story of Neeginan and Kaupapa Māori
This paper considers two different Indigenous-led initiatives, the Neeginan initiative (Winnipeg, Canada) and the Kaupapa Māori movement (New Zealand), within the context of urban Indigenous self-determination, examining the role, or contributions of, each towards the realisation of Indigenous self-determination. Neeginan originates from, and focuses on, building a sense of community, through education programs, social assistance […]
Relationally Responsive Standpoint
This paper is a commentary responding to the problem of Indigenous post-graduate students and scholars struggling with an understanding of Indigenous Standpoint Theory and either disengaging with it or including it in shallow or tokenistic ways that fail to advance knowledge in this emergent field (Foley, 2018). A framework grounded in respectful protocol is suggested […]
Decolonising clinical psychology: National and international perspectives
Background Throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries psychology has been used as a tool of colonisation. Critical theorists argue that in order to improve the wellbeing of those most affected by inequality, psychology programs need to be decolonised. In the Australian context, research has primarily focused on what decolonised curricula might look (e.g., Dudgeon 2017; […]
Addressing inequities in Indigenous mental health and wellbeing through transformative and decolonising research and practice
Aim: This paper discusses the current mental health and social and emotional wellbeing in Indigenous Australian mental health and wellbeing, the gaps in research, the need for transformative and decolonising research and practice, and the opportunities and recommendations to address existing mental health inequities. Method: This paper reviews key mental health and social and wellbeing […]
Enhancing Social and Emotional Wellbeing of Aboriginal Boarding Students: Evaluation of a Social and Emotional Learning Pilot Program
Boarding schools can provide quality secondary education for Aboriginal students from remote Aboriginal Australian communities. However, transition into boarding school is commonly challenging for Aboriginal students as they need to negotiate unfamiliar cultural, social and learning environments whilst being separated from family and community support. Accordingly, it is critical for boarding schools to provide programs […]
Spirit-Based Research: A Tactic for Surviving Trauma in Decolonizing Research
Though there is a large number of scholars engaging in research on violence and trauma, there is a critical lack of methodological theorizing on how to do that work while prioritizing spiritual, mental, and emotional wellbeing. How do we survive research and academic work that has the potential to break us, in a system that […]
Decolonising Applied Social Psychology: Culture, Indigeneity and Coloniality
A Systematic Review: Non‐Suicidal Self‐injury in Australia and New Zealand’s Indigenous Populations
Objective. To undertake a systematic review of non‐suicidal self‐injury (NSSI) prevalence, patterns, functions, and behavioural correlates for the Indigenous populations of Australia (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders) and New Zealand (NZ; Maori). Method. We searched the following electronic databases: PubMed, MedLine, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, PsycInfo, and PsycArticles, CINAHL, and the Informit Health and […]
