"Only White People can be Racist: What does Power have to do with Prejudice?"

Social researchers and activists who use the sociological definition of racism – that 'Racism = Prejudice + Power' – generally aim to attain racial equality by equalising differences in social power among racial groups. However, this definition can be taken to extreme when the role of social power is given disproportionately more weight than the role prejudice in explaining the occurrence and entrenchment of racism in society, such as assertions that racism is synonymous with White supremacy. Such a definition is logically flawed, demonstrates reverse racism, is disempowering for individuals from all racial groups who strive for racial equality, and absolves those who do not. We examine how the recent literature on cultural competency may provide a more effective strategic framework for reducing racism. Cultural competency is a move away from ethnocentrism and towards respect and value for cultural difference, with no racial group treated as a reference point around which the discourse on race relations revolves. In short, by properly acknowledging the role of prejudice, and not exclusively focusing on power, all racial groups can be better empowered to take responsibility for protecting the human right to racial equality

Shifting towards sustainability: Education for climate change adaptation

The document reports on a scoping study which investigated the professional training and development needs of architects, landscape architects, planners and engineers in climate change adaptation through engaging relevant accrediting institutions in an action inquiry process. The project sought to go further than a normal scoping study would, as it aimed to also assist the professional institutions involved to begin to think about, and take action on, professional development in climate change adaptation. This document highlights: • the need for education in climate change adaptation for built environment professionals • the current status of education for climate change adaptation in Australian tertiary institutions and in continuing professional development programs • how the project led to organisational change and initiatives that promoted education about and for climate change • the outcomes of the project both for the individual professional institutions and collectively • project findings and recommendations for promoting education in climate change adaptation

Child protection, domestic violence, and ethnic minorities: Narrative results from a mixed methods study in Australia.

OBJECTIVE:To help address a long-standing gap in research and knowledge, this paper explores the issue of what service providers need to be aware of to best meet the needs of ethnic minority children and families who have come to the attention of child protection authorities and have substantiated reports of domestic violence. METHOD:The results are written in narrative form, combining informed insider perspectives with a small subset of data drawn from a larger rigorous mixed methods study in Australia, that involved an exhaustive literature review, review of 120 randomly selected case files, and in-depth qualitative interviews with 29 ethnic minority families involved in the child protection system and 17 child protection caseworkers. RESULTS AND SIGNIFICANCE:Three issues for ethnic minorities relating to the nexus of child protection and domestic violence are identified: (i) being in the child protection system tarnishes family name, which is greatly valued, leading to a preference for child maltreatment and family violence to remain private, and for compliance with Apprehended Violence Orders (AVOs) and service uptake/engagement to be low, (ii) family cohesion is also highly valued, so family violence victims may sacrifice their own personal safety to protect the family unity and cultural safety of their children, and (iii) family violence interacts with cultural factors for ethnic minorities but does occur in all families; attributing it to race or culture would be racism. Several implications for practice are identified, falling under a broad umbrella approach that asks for child protection authorities and family violence agencies to work collaboratively. A call for empirically rigorous future research is also made to ensure practice is evidence-based

Service Organisations’ Cultural Competency When Working with Ethnic Minority Victims/Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse: Results from a Program Evaluation Study in Australia

Founded in the results of a systematic literature review, a professional development program was developed about the needs of ethnic minority victims/survivors of child sexual abuse, with one component on the role of organisations. The objective was to address the misperception that frontline workers are more responsible for cultural competency. The program was delivered across Australia in 2019 (T1 n = 112, T2 n = 44). Data collection for the program evaluation was conducted over six months using a mixed-methods design. The results show that: (a) a sizeable portion of organisations (16%) do not have any ethnic minority staff, and very few are in management positions (6–13%); (b) ethnic minority staff, and staff in organisations specialised for ethnic minority communities, offer choice to clients about ethnically-matched service providers more often; (c) there is evidence supporting the usefulness of ongoing training; (d) the use of a multicultural framework was rated higher ‘in principle’ than ‘in practice’, and ratings increased after the program; (e) the proportion of organisations collecting ethnicity-related data did not increase over time; (f) all organisations specialised for ethnic minority communities had visually inclusive websites but was only 54% for mainstream organisations; and (g) organisations specialised for ethnic minority communities have stronger links with other local ethnic minority community organisations. Overall, the program is seen as useful for promoting cultural competency at the organisational level; clearly identifying key mandatory and ideal elements, which support good practice with this highly vulnerable and marginalised client group

Gender Inequity and Academic Progression: How Much of Our Silence Is Chosen?

In late 2019, I was invited by Societies Journal to establish a Special Issue on a topic of my choosing [...

Introduction to Special Issue on Personal Essays in Social Science

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How useful is the term 'culturally and linguistically diiverse' (CALD) in Australian research and policy discourse?

Can this term provide researchers, practitioners, and policy makers with a better ability to monitor and respond to their level of social exclusion and inequity to services, opportunities and representation, as the basis for promoting ethnic equality in the future, asks this paper. Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) was introduced in 1996 to replace Non-English Speaking Background (NESB), both of which are commonly used in the social policy discourse to refer to all of Australia’s ethnic groups other than the English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon majority. However, CALD has developed negative connotations. It can produce ‘relational exclusion’, or the feeling of not belonging, for both minority ethnics groups as well as the majority, and it can produce ‘distributional’ exclusion, which refers to unequal access to services, opportunities, or representation. The authors of this paper presented at the 2009 Australian Social Policy Conference argue that CALD should only be used in a functional way to celebrate Australia’s diversity, but not in a categorical way to refer to a sub-group of its population. For this latter function, they propose the term ‘Australians Ethnically Diverse and Different from the Majority’ (AEDDM). This paper looks at how this term can provide researchers, practitioners, and policy makers with a better ability to monitor and respond to their level of social exclusion and inequity to services, opportunities and representation, as the basis for promoting ethnic equality in the future

Enhancing family and relationship service accessibility and delivery to culturally and linguistically diverse families in Australia

Family relationship services span a diverse and extensive range of interventions that aim to support and nurture family relationships, and so provide an important source of support to families in Australia. However, there is a dearth of research and information on service accessibility and the effectiveness of interventions in the family relationship services sector across different cultural groups in Australia. This paper builds on and synthesises the emerging international and national literature to develop a practice and policy framework that can be used to help overcome inequities in access to or culturally inappropriate service delivery of family relationship services for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) families in Australia. Broadly, there are two main aims of this paper. The first is to identify the key issues, challenges and needs of CALD families when accessing and using family relationship services, as well as the key issues, challenges and needs of service providers and practitioners when they deliver services to CALD clients. Secondly, this paper aims to use the identified concerns of CALD families and service providers and practitioners to make practice, procedure and policy recommendations. These recommendations can be used to increase the inclusion and engagement of CALD families in the family relationship services sector

"Only White People can be Racist: What does Power have to do with Prejudice?"

Social researchers and activists who use the sociological definition of racism – that 'Racism = Prejudice + Power' – generally aim to attain racial equality by equalising differences in social power among racial groups. However, this definition can be taken to extreme when the role of social power is given disproportionately more weight than the role prejudice in explaining the occurrence and entrenchment of racism in society, such as assertions that racism is synonymous with White supremacy. Such a definition is logically flawed, demonstrates reverse racism, is disempowering for individuals from all racial groups who strive for racial equality, and absolves those who do not. We examine how the recent literature on cultural competency may provide a more effective strategic framework for reducing racism. Cultural competency is a move away from ethnocentrism and towards respect and value for cultural difference, with no racial group treated as a reference point around which the discourse on race relations revolves. In short, by properly acknowledging the role of prejudice, and not exclusively focusing on power, all racial groups can be better empowered to take responsibility for protecting the human right to racial equality