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Australian universities have received an increasing number of students from refugee backgrounds (SfRBs) over the last few decades.However, programs adapted for the successful transition of this cohort remain relatively scarce. Therefore, there is a critical need for programs and strategies supporting SfRBs meaningful participation and success in their studies. This empirical paper reports on a project conducted at UniSA College. The research explores cultural and learning experiences of SfRBs in a university pathway program. This paper utilises data from a student survey, focus group, and interviews conducted with Peer Support Officers to explore students' aspirations, challenges they face and recommendations for the university and the enabling pathway program.The findings highlight that despite aspiring to obtain university qualifications, SfRBs encounter serious barriers including challenges associated with English language proficiency, as well as with navigating university and academic culture, managing family and work commitments whilst facing social exclusion and racism. For successful engagement of SfRBs education institutions need an all-encompassing approach consisting of culturally responsive efforts and peer-led support systems for students Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This study draws on Carol Bacchi’s What’s the problem represented to be? (WPR) framework, to deconstruct policy discourses of women’s alcohol consumption. It examines Australian policies such as in the National Alcohol Strategy (2019–2028) and Australian Guidelines to Reduce Health Risks from Drinking Alcohol (NHMRC, 2009, 2020). It found that policy discourses particularly focus on the effects of women’s alcohol consumption as ‘harms’ to unborn children, by emphasising women’s assumed reproductive roles, such in pregnancy and when breastfeeding. Social policy tends to reproduce medicalising and normative gendered discourses about women’s alcohol consumption, with disempowering effects on women. This discourse analysis of drug and alcohol policies can contribute to broadening how social workers understand policy representations and the effects of policy discourses on women. The disciplinary power of the medicalisation and acceptable/unacceptable categorisation of women’s alcohol consumption means that women can internalise shame and stigma, which is often an obstacle for women attempting to seek assistance. More research is needed about how social workers can co-design policies and research projects with women of diverse sexualities and cultural backgrounds who have been subjugated by these policy discourses. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Introduction Enabling education programs, otherwise known as Foundation Studies or Preparatory programs, provide pathways for students typically under-represented in higher education. Students in Enabling programs often face distinct challenges in their induction to academic culture which can implicate them in cases of misconduct. This case study addresses a gap in the enabling literature reporting on how a culture of academic integrity can be developed for students and staff in these programs through an educative approach. Case description This paper outlines how an educative approach to academic integrity is implemented within the Enabling programs of two Australian universities. Discussion and reflection This case study reflects upon an approach which makes specific reference to the key elements of ‘support’, ‘approach’ and ‘responsibility’ as highlighted in Bretag and Mahmud’s seminal paper. The paper reports a reduction in misconduct cases at the two institutions suggesting a positive correlation between the interventions and students’ understanding of ethical academic practice. This study reflects upon practitioner experiences with academic integrity investigations to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach. Conclusions The authors show that it is possible to ensure academic integrity practices and values are upheld within a supportive learning environment appropriate to a students’ level of study.

This paper reports on an action research project investigating how enabling education has the potential to empower women who have recently been homeless. The authors, both enabling practitioners and sociologists, taught a seven week intensive global sociology course to 12women who were engaged with a women’s homeless shelter, four of whom were interviewed about their course experience. The conceptual tools we utilised to analyse the responses given by the women about their experiences are Ira Shor’s (1992) critical teaching framework, feminist pedagogies and specific elements of feminist poststructuralist theory, in discourse theory and subjectivity. The discussion details the application of pedagogical approaches that emphasise agency of the students. The study shows that providing opportunities for vulnerable and marginalised students to apply a ‘sociological imagination’ (Mills, 1959) to the study of global society can have a ‘liberating’ effect (Shor, 1992). Focusing on implementing feminist pedagogies offers female students an inclusive space to explore questions of power, identity and difference that transcends borders. Significantly, applying a critical pedagogical (Shor, 1992)approach contributed to students choosing to engage in further higher education and shift their perception of their own ‘capabilities’ (Burke, Bennett, Burgess, Gray, & Southgate, 2016). Emphasising the affirmative aspects of critical pedagogy, the paper adopts a critical lens by highlighting the discomfort produced by the ‘democratic-dialogic’ approach for some of the women in the course. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper unpacks the key components of an educative approach to academic integrity and applies them to enabling pathway programs. Enabling programs progress high numbers of students from recognised equity groups into undergraduate studies and are recognised for supporting and encouraging students and fostering a sense of belonging (Burke, Bennett, Burgess, Gray, & Southgate, 2016; Hellmundt & Baker, 2017; Lane & Sharp, 2014). University measures to support academic integrity can, on the other hand, be perceived as procedure-based and punitive (Dalal, 2015). In this paper, we provide an integrative review of literature on the common features of an educative approach to academic integrity and enabling programs and introduce exemplars from two universities of enabling pedagogies applied to academic integrity. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Tragic events such as the terrorist siege in Sydney and the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris reignited the questioning of efficacy of multiculturalist policies in the West. Questions about compatibility of other cultural values with those of our (Western) ways of life were once again put to scrutiny. At the centre of these debates is the claim that some cultural (and religious) groups 'subjugate women' and are thus incompatible with our ways of life. In this paper, I address the concerns with women's rights violations stemming from tolerance of multiculturalism. Instead of considering multiculturalism and cultural rights as problematic and detrimental to minority culture women, I advocate the need for inclusive multiculturalism. I argue that we need to retain but re-define multiculturalism so it includes greater participation of women at all levels and promote that this can be done via a dialogic approach. I promote dialogic approach for two reasons. Firstly, because one of the dangers of speaking on behalf of the minority culture women is that it often results in the essentialist theorising about them. Secondly, advocating dialogue amongst women is a part of my stance as a multicultural feminist. Multicultural feminism promotes a dialogic approach, which recognises that any knowledge based on just one positioning is unfinished (Shohat, 2001). My research supports the above proposed arguments further. I conducted a qualitative study including perspectives of seventeen Afghani and twenty six Liberian women. It investigated how women negotiate the multiplicity of rights experiences in the areas of education, work and family in their countries of origin and in Australia. My research findings highlight that women make autonomous choices about their rights entitlements but they also value their culture. Thus, I propose that any pursuits of gender equality concerning minority culture women need to include engaging in dialogue with them. When promoting a dialogic approach, I also highlight the importance of working within the structures in order to facilitate authentic conversations and link this to an effective action. I argue that a dialogue amongst and between women is the platform for action and for formation of alliances sustaining that action. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The paper is derived from my PhD research, which examined the debates on the tensions between feminism and multiculturalism. To assess the validity of these theoretical contributions, I consulted the voices of those discerned by theorists as vulnerable under multicultural accommodation, namely, certain women from minority cultural groups. This paper establishes the philosophical background to my central argument that the conflict between feminism and multiculturalism is reconcilable. I align with feminist perspectives that perceive multiculturalism is not in opposition to, but in alliance with, the feminist project since representing minority culture women as constrained by their culture does not begin to capture the complexity of their choice. The first section of this paper briefly examines feminist perspectives on women’s human rights. I find that whilst global feminists campaign to redefine women's rights as human rights, other feminists have been critical not only of the definitions of the universalistic human rights paradigm, but also of global feminist conceptions of women, women's rights and of various strands of Western feminism. Notwithstanding this criticism, I maintain that women’s rights are significant in the processes of advancing women’s lives. There are many ways in which the rights framework could be used to organise and mobilise women nationally and internationally. The methods will emerge from a process of discussion that should involve women from diverse segments of society. Nevertheless, it is imperative to transcend the ‘narrowly constructed definitions of what constitutes “women’s issues” while retaining women at the centre of the discussion’ (Dutt, 2001, 235). I find the framework of multicultural feminism to be the most adequate site to position women at the centre whilst moving beyond a categorisation of women’s issues along state-or-region-bound essentialising feminist lines. Accordingly, the second half of the paper expands on the discourse of multicultural feminism, its tenets, advantages and disadvantages.

In the debates on the conflicting values between cultural rights and women‟s rights, feminists are concerned about women members of cultural groups that might oppress them with cultural practices justified under fair multicultural accommodation. In this paper I scrutinise some of these feminist concerns. By endorsing a „relational understanding of feminism‟, I argue that feminist proposals from the debates on multicultural/feminist dilemma do not account for the relational understandings of women, their identity markers and agency amongst them Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In this paper I discuss the methodology that I have employed to examine some of the issues that stemmed from conducting my doctoral research on Liberian and Afghan women in South Australia. I argue that a feminist approach is the most suitable to situate the representations of newly arrived women from minority cultures, since it challenges the invisibility and distortion of women‟s experiences. I examine some of the dilemmas associated with representation within the feminist framework and acknowledge that, to implement the most adequate strategies of representation, a feminist researcher must be mindful of the ways that the differences between others are invoked and relied upon. I argue that feminist standpoint theory provides an invaluable basis from which to commence theorising about women‟s lives. Finally, I address some of the ethical issues within my research and also, in the context of managing some of the challenges when conducting cross-cultural research, I discuss my own position as an insider/outsider. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2011. Includes bibliographic references. This thesis analyses the experiences of the rights of Afghani and Liberian women in multicultural Australia. The extensive literature from the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States warns about the tensions between women‘s rights and cultural rights amongst minority cultural groups in multicultural contexts. A feminist concern in the debates on these tensions is that the preservation of cultural laws and traditions accommodated under cultural rights impacts mainly, but not solely, on the female members of the cultural groups in question. Women are the most affected by the preservation of traditional laws particularly those who are mothers and wives, as they are considered to be bearers of culture. Informed by feminist and culturalist perspectives from these debates, the thesis investigate if there are tensions between cultural rights and women‘s rights within newly arrived refugee communities in Australia.

It can be argued that it is particularly women, from many (non- Western) nations that are not full equals under the law: they do not have the same property rights as men, the same rights of association, mobility and religious liberty. In such position, these women are indeed the victims of the cultures that they belong to. Unfortunately, their migration to the Western countries accentuates the same problem that these women experienced domestically. Research finds that in many Western multicultural settings it is not the universal human rights framework that is applied to women’s rights issues, but rather the local communal law. For these women marriage, divorce, custody of children, inheritance, financial and so on, are decided within their community and not according to national laws and practices.1 However, this question of the clash between the cultural rights (that justify practice of communal laws in multicultural settings) and women’s rights is not easily resolved. This paper will focus on the conflict around the question, what should be done when the claims of minority cultures or religions clash with the norm of gender equality that is at least formally endorsed by liberal states? In order to address the issues as well as its root causes approaches by a number of multicultural theorists, including Susan Moller Okin (1998), Ayeley Shachar (2001), Jeff Spinner-Halev (2001), Chandran Kukathas (2001) and Marilyn Friedman (2003) will be examined in the light of my own research findings on the experiences of minority women from Middle-Eastern and African communities in South Australia. Finally some potential preconditions for the resolution of the clash between minority rights and women’s rights will be recommended. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Cover title. Thesis (MInternationalStudies)--University of South Australia, [2005?]