Beyond Mere Presence—Making Diversity Work

Abstract

This article reports on a project that examined the academic and social experiences of international social work students by tracking and exploring the points they identified as being the most stressful over their time at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. Using group consultation and individual semi-structured feed-back sessions, several common themes emerged that students reported as creating high stress; namely language comprehension, adapting to new teaching methods, finding culturally appropriate means of seeking help, and integrating into a new social setting. Students were also able to clearly identify the time periods when they felt most stressed; these being the first semester, exam periods and field placements. This study reports upon the rich descriptions obtained from these students including what they described as helpful in a new academic environment. Many of their responses paralleled the literature in regard to finding confidence and competency in foreign academic and social settings.

‘I'd Like to Call You My Mother.’ Reflections on Supervising International PhD Students in Social Work

“…They were afraid to ask for help because they, in common with home-based students, were concerned about confidentiality in accessing support services such as student 456 V. E. Cree counselling. A more recent study by Irizarry and Marlowe (2010) asked 22 international social work students on a Masters' degree programme at Flinders University in Australia about their experiences. The students reported lack of confidence academically and socially, different teaching methods, language difficulties, social isolation and high levels of stress during their first year of study, although thankfully, things did improve over time.…”

Getting it right in the mix: Teaching social work practice skills inclusively to diverse student groups

“…Literature in Australia has attested to the challenges experienced by international students, whether they enter universities through Special Entry Access Schemes (SEAS) (for example, Hosken, 2010;Jones, 2006) or if they are full-fee paying students from countries such as Hong Kong, India, Malaysia or Thailand (Taylor, Craft, Murray & Rowley, 2000). These challenges include problems with social behaviour and conventions, language difficulties, and the pervasiveness of the belief systems of the dominant culture, which have the effect of silencing their articulation of their needs or cultural beliefs (Irizarry & Marlowe, 2010;Taylor et al, 2000). Other important issues raised in the literature include whether our role is to prepare students for social work in Australia or to prepare them to practice in their own country or culture of origin (Taylor et al, 2000).…”

“…Of particular relevance to this paper is the difficulties faced by international students in participating in experiential and small group work (Samuelowicz as cited in Irizarry & Marlowe, 2010;Taylor et al, 2000), which forms the core pedagogical tool for teaching and learning social work practice skills. This literature is in contrast to other scholarship that suggests that strategies that employ hands-on small group work are the most effective way to engage groups traditionally under-represented in higher education settings.…”

A review of research about the transition from student social worker to practitioner: Exploring diversity

“…Rates of international students travelling to Australia have ebbed and flowed in response to changes in policy over time, with record enrolment numbers being recorded by the Australian government in recent years. In response to what has been, until recently, a gradual increase in student diversity in social work programmes, the body of literature on the hosting of international social work students in Australia has accumulated slowly and sporadically over the past two decades (see Brydon, 2011; Grace et al., 2013; Harrison & Ip, 2013; Irizarry & Marlowe, 2010; Taylor, Craft, Murray, & Rowley, 2000).…”

“…According to this literature, international students reportedly encounter a range of challenges while studying in Australian social work programmes. These can include: language comprehension for academia (Grace et al., 2013; Irizarry & Marlowe, 2010) and in field education (Harrison & Ip, 2013), conforming to a new learning style (Irizarry & Marlowe, 2010), holding conflicting values with those of the social work discipline (Grace et al., 2013; Harrison & Ip, 2013) and avoiding seeking assistance to overcome these challenges (Grace et al., 2013; Irizarry & Marlowe, 2010). International social work students are oft depicted to be culturally mismatched to the western-centric norms of the learning environment.…”