The social consequences of industrial accidents : disabled mine workers in Lesotho

No abstract providedGR 201

‘Inner qualities versus inequalities’: A case study of student change learning about Aboriginal health using sequential, explanatory mixed methods

Racism and lack of self-determination in health care perpetuate injury and injustice to Aboriginal people. To instil cultural safety at individual, organisational, community and systems levels, a key site of action has been health professional education that seeks to elicit reflexivity, cultural humility and a working understanding of Aboriginal health concepts. Studies in Aboriginal community settings show Family Well Being (FWB) empowerment education is effective in supporting personal and collective reflexivity and transformation through empowering life skills development. Implementation of FWB within educational settings shows early signs of effectiveness among students. Yet knowledge of the steps and processes of student change is lacking. This mixed methods explanatory case study sought to measure and understand change in postgraduate students of a leading Australian university learning about Aboriginal health and wellbeing through blended delivery, including through face-to-face immersion in FWB in an urban classroom. Three interrelated studies investigated fidelity and acceptability of the program, measured and analysed growth and empowerment in students, and explained processes of change observed, through thematic analysis of asynchronous online discussions using lenses based on transformative learning and empowerment. Researcher reflexivity was promoted by Aboriginal supervision. Over six years, 194 students enrolled in two different Aboriginal public health courses, 85 of them in the FWB course. As well as achieving program fidelity and acceptability, pre/post-course change in students across a range of emotional empowerment, personal growth and life-long learning processes was measured in the FWB group. Thematic analysis revealed students’ fluid and recursive processes of transformative learning in their professional selves and capacities to act in domains important to Aboriginal health. This case study contributes new knowledge critical to strengthening health professional capabilities for ever more complex, uncertain and emotionally demanding sites of practice, and to work in empowering ways—with, not for, Aboriginal people and communities

'Between Shadow and Light': A hermeneutic inquiry of Aboriginal families' meaningful world of caring, ageing and dementia

Dementia in Australia's Indigenous population is an area of growing public health concern with prevalence rates three to five times higher than for the non-Indigenous population. In both ageing populations, Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia are the two most common causes of dementia. A number of scholarly paradigms traverse the dementia field. This range shifts from the portrayal of dementia in predominantly Western diagnostic terms on the one hand, to cultural approaches for Indigenous populations on the other. This thesis highlights the 'lived relation' of research in the human encounter of the ageing and dementia experience. The study began with the centrality of the family caregiver in an Indigenous 'world' of ageing and dementia and then moved into a focus on 'being-in-research' in this complex space. The study used the methods of in-depth conversational interviews with family caregivers, 'yarning circles' with carers and community members in a group setting, and detailed journaling to facilitate critical thinking. Phenomenological, existential and hermeneutic analysis and writing techniques were used to take the reader deep inside the immersive space of these 'worlds'. The study approached the scholarship as a philosophy and methodology and as an existential method for 'being-in' the practice of the research. The work drew on the way time and history are expressed in human experiencing which resonates deeply with Indigenous thought. The study provides original research in an area of growing public health concern and contributes to an emerging literature on the experience of carers in Australia, in particular, the experience of Aboriginal carers in urban communities. It recognises the importance of reflexivity in developing researcher presence for the complexity and richness of research and practice in both the dementia and Indigenous health fields