Aboriginal Social Work Academics: Failure to Thrive due to Having to Fight to Survive?

ABSTRACT

The Behrendt report (2012) highlighted the significant lack of representation of Aboriginal people in higher education. It called for a collaborative approach by governments, universities, and professional bodies to drive systemic changes. In the last decade, this has resulted in an increase of Aboriginal students, staff, and researchers. This article presents a qualitative research study in which Aboriginal social work academic participants described their experiences of curriculum changes, workload, and research in the academy. Implications for universities, and social work programs, in particular, show where more is needed in the form of antiracist action plans and follow-through with these to address failure to thrive due to having to fight to survive in the academy.

IMPLICATIONS

• Aboriginal social work academics are continuing to find academia to be socially and politically unsafe and unfairly competitive.

• Universities are experienced by Aboriginal social work academics as being often unsupportive and untrustworthy workplaces.

• Non-Aboriginal social work academics need to increase their commitment to, and actions regarding, antiracist practice with their Aboriginal colleagues.

KEYWORDS:

• Aboriginal Social Work Academics
• Australia
• Systemic Racism
• Antiracist Action

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the participants because without them there would be no article. Thank you to Professor Christine Morley for being so generous with her project and for being an Ally in this work. Thank you to Claire Morse, Krystal Evans, Sanja Radovic, Wallea Eaglehawk, and Richard Burns for editing.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).