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It is widely acknowledged that teachers need to interrogate and transform how Eurocentrism underpins educational practice. This paper argues that teachers can actively engage with decolonial frameworks and concepts to productively expose how Eurocentric categories of thought shape teaching practice and curriculum. We describe how six teachers "walked with" the decolonial concept of the pluriverse (a sense of multiple coexisting differences) during collaborative reflections about our diversity teaching of culturally safe healthcare. Our research processes drew on the principles of collaborative, reflective practice. We co-participated in conversations, which aimed to collectively explore how the pluriverse concept intersected with our teaching and undertook qualitative coanalysis of themes emerging across these dialogues. The paper outlines how employing the pluriverse concept as a companion to our reflective process enabled us to ask critical questions about Eurocentrism in our teaching practice and content. Our questioning, in turn, generated principles for embedding the pluriverse in the curriculum, pedagogical approaches, and teacher dispositions. The paper discusses what enables and hinders the pluriverse being embedded in curriculum materials and classroom activities and the limitations of our activities in relation to the broader project of decolonising pedagogy.

Within Australia, Whiteness is embedded within social work, requiring us to turn the lens in on ourselves as a profession. This article presents research data exploring how Whiteness is enacted within the practices of White Australian social workers who work with refugee arrived communities. Eight social workers with experience working with people of refugee background participated in this multimethod qualitative study. Data was analysed using a critical approach to narrative analysis. Participants told narratives of how their Whiteness was enacted through their powerful positions within relationships with clients. The reported experiences of social workers in this project also relate to the pressures, desires and often failures to be professional, as it is defined within White Western social work. The findings suggest that to disrupt Whiteness, we need to challenge the need for professionalism when working with people of refugee background. It is argued that this could be achieved through a focus on relationality, dialogue and two-way care.

Learning to thrive in the context of refugee resettlement can be a difficult task to consider and sustain when so much focus is given to promoting survival, recovery from trauma and self-sufficiency. It is argued that this resettlement paradigm is rooted in notions of refugee passivity, primarily motivated by a minimalistic approach to social assimilation. We argue this resettlement paradigm suffocates thriving by imposing the government’s aim of achieving independence instead of privileging the newly arrived person, their lived experiences, dreams and aspirations. This article shares how an ethic of thriving in resettlement, with its focus on relationality, could transform the way we think about ‘integration’ and what ‘successful resettlement’ means within the Australian context. To anchor what the ethic of thriving offers the resettlement sector we share lessons learned from applying a thriving paradigm to YoungMILE—a mentorship project dedicated to launching young refugee arrived leaders in the community. This unique programme embraced relational, experimental and exploratory approaches characterised by flexibility, mutual learning, curiosity, listening to bigger goals and acknowledging the skill sets of people’s past experiences. Importantly, the project also prioritised connecting people of refugee background and the host community to promote meaningful integration.