Comfort with discomfort: Exploring Wadjella educators' engagement with Indigenous students

Comfort with discomfort: Exploring Wadjella educators' engagement with Indigenous students

Jonathan Bullen, Lynne Roberts, Cheryl Davis, Braden Hill, Tamara Lipscombe & Djandunmarra Cox

Curtin University and Edith Cowan University

Despite growing numbers of Indigenous students enrolling in tertiary study, retention figures continue to differ significantly between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, highlighting the need to develop effective retention strategies. While the inclusion of curricula designed to develop and facilitate cultural competence and safety continues, equivalent growth in the development of “Wadjella” (non-Indigenous) academics’ capability to effectively deliver this curriculum has not occurred. This study explored educator and student perspectives at two Australian universities, providing critical insight into educator engagement and its impact upon Indigenous student retention.

BACKGROUND

Indigenous people are underrepresented in Australian higher education. Around 3.3 per cent of Australia’s population is Indigenous, yet only 1.3 per cent of higher education students were Indigenous in 2018. Indigenous student completion rates (~47%) were also substantially lower than those of non-Indigenous or “Wadjella” students (~74%). National imperatives to close this gap have led to a broad range of interventions within higher education. However, there has been a noted discomfort among Wadjella educators in both teaching Indigenous content and Indigenous students. This study examined this educator discomfort, moving towards a deeper exploration of the experiential, psychological, and contextual factors associated with Wadjella educators’ engagement with Indigenous students in both Indigenous-focused and "mainstream" learning environments.

OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

The study focused on Wadjella educators’ engagement and interaction with Indigenous students in both specifically Indigenous-focused learning environments and mainstream learning environments, with the aim of understanding the experiential, psychological, and contextual factors related to this engagement. The research was conducted at Curtin University and Edith Cowan University in Western Australia.

The objective of this research was to provide evidence on seven central questions:

1. How does Indigenous and Wadjella educators’ engagement with Indigenous students vary across Indigenous focused and mainstream learning environments?

2. How do Wadjella educators conceptualise their engagement with Indigenous students?

3. What are the concerns and considerations held by Wadjella educators about their engagement with Indigenous students?

4. What are the barriers that Wadjella educators perceive in teaching and interacting with Indigenous students?

5. How do Indigenous students perceive their interactions with Wadjella educators?

6. How do institutional factors, such as a Reconciliation Action Plan, and other formalised policy initiatives, influence the ways Wadjella educators engage with Indigenous students?

7. How could higher education institutions better support Wadjella educators’ capacity to engage with Indigenous students?

The research was carried across three phases:

Phase 1: Preparation, including ethics clearance; a literature review and environmental scan, and an audit of courses taken by Indigenous students.

Phase 2: Interviews with Wadjella and Indigenous academics (nine interviews) and Indigenous students (20 interviews) across faculties and Indigenous centres.

Phase 3: Data analysis and development of recommendations for skills development among academic staff.

KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Key findings

The student context: Indigenous students’ contextualising and foregrounding of their lived experiences as Indigenous Australians played a significant role in how they saw, and positioned, themselves as students. While Indigenous and Wadjella academics with significant lived experience embraced this perspective, Wadjella academics in mainstream contexts, or with limited life or teaching experience with Indigenous people, were more inclined to prefer to treat all students the same.

Uncertainty: Wadjella academics in mainstream areas were hesitant to engage with the complexity of experiences in diverse contexts, with uncertainty around "doing the wrong thing", rather than engaging and learning from "mistakes".

Identity and Identification: For Indigenous students, acceptance and value for their identity and cultures is important in general, but also specific to the learning context. Academic responses to this issue reflected the above two themes, with educators with more experience in the Indigenous context more ready to adapt materials and teaching approaches to accommodate students.

Relationships: Indigenous and Wadjella educators teaching in Indigenous contexts placed importance on the student– teacher relationship as both significant in its own right, and as providing a conduit to teaching/learning. In this way, relationships presented as part of a way of knowing and doing, and as a fundamental teaching pedagogy, generally not observed in the mainstream teaching environments.

Lived experience: Exposure and immersion in Indigenous culture played an important role in shaping attitudes and approaches of Indigenous academic staff and Wadjella academic staff with lived experiences of Indigenous culture.

Summary of recommendations

Universities need to work to:

• Support Indigenous cultural awareness among Wadjella academic staff to ensure an in-depth understanding of the Indigenous student context; a focus on educator engagement, teacher–student relationships, and support for Indigenous students; a growth mindset among educators and tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; and engagement with the philosophies of equity, particularly in the Australian Indigenous education context.

• Facilitate meaningful opportunities for staff and Indigenous communities to interact more generally.

• Undertake more research into key issues in Indigenous student engagement, including educator uncertainty and mindset in the Indigenous context; the influence of lived experience and cultural immersion on the quality of learner-centred relationships; and the development of metrics on educator capacity to engage effectively with Indigenous students.

• Ensure the student voice is imperative in all further research in this area.

Dr Bep Uink

Research Fellow, Kulbardi Aboriginal Centre Murdoch University

Dr Bep Uink

In this report, the authors identify the discomfort and barriers Wadjella academics face when teaching Indigenous university students. The authors pair these findings with a comparative analysis of the experiences of Indigenous academics and students taught by Wadjella academics. This comparison provides unique insight into the points of divergence in Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics’ approaches to teaching; both Indigenous academics and students are open to making mistakes within student–teacher relationships, where there is reluctance from Wadjella academics toward this mode of learning with a pressure to "do it right".

This research is contextualised within an increasing push for Indigenous content in university curricula, with a concern being that Wadjella academics may be underprepared to teach such content. Likewise, the authors point to the emerging enrolment–completion gap in higher education, where Indigenous student enrolments greatly outweigh completions. A key recommendation is that institutions develop ways to support Wadjella academics to develop understanding of the Indigenous student context as well as the philosophies which underlie equity initiatives.

A key finding is the ways in which a strong, supportive and authentic student–teacher relationship can support Indigenous higher education retention: as a conduit for making curriculum accessible, a mechanism for making staff approachable, and a facilitator of holistic student support. Wadjella academics should be supported to develop these pedagogical relationships.

The report fills an evidence gap around Indigenous student retention by broadening inquiry to non-Indigenous academics. Findings and recommendations are timely given the sector's broader commitment toward a whole-of university approach to support Indigenous student success.

ACCESS THE FINAL REPORT ONLINE

https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/publications/wadjella-educators-engagementindigenous-students/