Two Left Feet: Dancing in Academe to the Rhythms of Neoliberal Discourse.

Colleen Mcgloin,Jeanette Stirling

doi:10.5130/csr.v17i1.1725

Abstract

Following the recommendations by the 2008 Bradley Report into higher education, cultural competence training has attracted attention and funding in Australian universities. This paper attempts to initiate a conversation about the implications of cultural competence in its current formation as it also attends to the tensions we experience as non-Indigenous educators teaching both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. We argue that current models of cultural competence are structured by the prevailing neoliberalist discourse that continues to regulate Australian universities, through language and practice. Drawing on the metaphor of dance, we locate the ‘steps’ that find us, awkwardly at times, attempting to balance the demands of university policy with the cultural diversity and multiple subjectivities of our students. We contend that from within the current framework of cultural competence, attempts to locate an ethical practice that speaks to the increasingly culturally diverse student cohorts in our classrooms are becoming increasingly complex.

Highlights

Notions  of  culture,  cultural  diversity  and  cultural  safety  have  again  come  to  the  centre  of  higher  education  awareness  in  Australia
How do we best meet the needs of all our students while stepping through our roles to the sometimes discordant rhythms that can resonate through the hallways of Australian universities? We engage this question through discussion of one of the more recent initiatives in Australian higher education: the move to introduce Indigenous cultural competence into national curricula
Through the following discussion we examine current models of cultural competence and consider some of the conceptual and policy frameworks shaping its implementation

Summary

—INTRODUCTION

Notions  of  culture,  cultural  diversity  and  cultural  safety  have  again  come  to  the  centre  of  higher  education  awareness  in  Australia. Drawing on different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches, the pressing issue at the heart of much research into higher education policy produced over these last fifteen years is how to work with policy as it shapes our practices, and how to do so ethically, substantively and truthfully Perhaps these are old‐fashioned terms, not in the spirit of much contemporary theoretical work in circulation, and we register the on‐going philosophical challenges to them in the light of their absorption by contemporary discourses of neoliberalism. As Christine Asmar and Susan Page point  out,  while  recommending  initiatives  to  increase  Indigenous  access  to  higher  education  and  identifying  the  need  for  universities  to  develop  cultural  competence  at curricula and staffing levels, the Bradley Report is surprisingly circumspect about  how these aims are to be achieved.. We are concerned that the pressures to comply will result in a model that falls significantly short of the intended outcome

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—CONCLUSION