All in! Organizations with successful inclusive strategies lead the way!

The U.S. has a long history of discriminatory policy and practices that have created long standing issues for people who occupy various minority statuses. Civil Rights policies have been implemented in the U.S. to counter these challenges, however, it is less clear how these policies have created better community spaces for people over time. In fact, there is much evidence to suggest that these policies have not reduced the experiences of discrimination and may have merely made them dormant (e.g., micro aggressions).
Nonprofits are organizational spaces within community where we would expect them to enact more ethical values internally, however, the structure and processes within may not be in alignment with such goals of supporting diversity and inclusion. This session will explore, what makes diversity and inclusion initiatives successful? What have we learned from civil rights polices and who has benefited from the policies? What changes are needed to be impactful in the future? How does the intersection of various “isms” (e.g., sexism, racism, ableism, ageism, etc.) influence policy changes that would create more inclusive settings for all? I will present on what strategies and practices have resulted in successful diverse and inclusive nonprofit settings.

Deconstructing Meanings of Diversity Within University Spaces

For many, diversity has become synonymous with acceptance and inclusion for groups of difference and disadvantage (Bell & Hartmann, 2007; Vertovec, 2012). Within universities and institutions, it is celebrated, paraded and employed as a way to possess and pronounce the social differences that make up the populations that occupy these spaces (Ahmed, 2007). This presentation draws on critical studies to deconstruct the way that these frames are given meaning and experienced at the ground level by the individuals they refer to.
Through in-depth interviews with students of culturally and socially diverse backgrounds using thematic discourse analysis, diversity has been found to be negotiated at three major levels: broadly experienced as an interaction that is ideological and political in nature; and the important as a product of inclusion and welcoming for those that have experienced the opposite. This research is significant as it addresses a widely discussed and promoted topic that has been minimally addressed in Australian literature from the bottom up, with implications on understanding and maintaining psychosocial factors of inclusion.

This study is aimed to explore culture shock among a specific group of college students in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The group consists of students who are migrating from their hometown in various regions of Indonesia to Yogyakarta to study at Sanata Dharma University. The students are required to stay at the university’s on-campus accommodation during their study. Many social and academic problems have been identified among the residents, presumably triggered by culture shock. The study will first review the culture shock theory and relevant previous studies. Then, it will explore the students’ lived experience regarding intercultural relations and how they cope with cultural differences of Yogyakarta. At this stage, FGD will be employed to collect data, and thematic analysis to analyse the data. The systematic review and thematic analysis will be followed by: development of measurement scale and design of psychoeducational intervention. Quasi-experiment approach, one group pretest-posttest design, will be used to examine the effectiveness of the psychoeducational intervention. Currently, the study is still in its early stages. By the time the study is presented at ICCP conference, it will be in the stage of intervention implementation.

Second-Generation Australians: The Negotiation of Ethnic Identity and Sense of Belonging

With 20.9% of individuals born in Australia to at least one overseas-born parent (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017), growing up as a second-generation Australian with diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds can be both a resource and complexity in the processes of constructing ethnic identity and sense of belonging. This presentation reports qualitative data that was collected from second-generation Australians of diverse backgrounds about their experiences of ethnic identity negotiation and belonging. Informed by dialogical conceptions of the self and thematic analysis of the interview data, findings showed that second generation’s identity negotiation and experiences of belonging are made difficult due to racism and racialisation. In navigating these race-related experiences, second-generations practice dialogical positions and create hybrid forms of ethnic identification. They also use a combination of social markers, experiences of exclusion and connectedness to culture to understand where they belong. Summoning their dialogical positions and using the resources which indicate their margins of belonging, second-generations draw upon their hybrid ethnic identities according to context and ethnic surroundings to enhance their sense of belonging. The data highlights the markers and boarders, driven by ideologies and power within contemporary Australia, which are used to form fluid ethnic identities and negotiate belonging.

Examining changes in ethno-national attitudes to Australian identity over two decades.

The Australian identity is often constructed as two categories: ethno-national and civic. Historically, ethno-national attitudes have dominated, contributing to the racism and oppression of people of various cultural groups, via perpetuation of out-group conceptualisations of those who do not fit within the ethno-national construction of Australian identity (i.e. white, speaks English, and born in Australia). Preliminary research suggests that people are beginning to change in their conceptualisations of Australian identity and that ethno-national attitudes may be decreasing. The aims of this research were 1) to examine changes in ethno-national attitudes between 1995, 2003, and 2013, taking into account place of birth and sex, and 2) to examine the relationship between ethno-national attitudes, pride in Australia, and anti-immigration attitudes in Australia across time. This research provides an understanding for how change (or lack thereof) in ethno-national attitudes may impact on the exclusionary Australian identity, and the potential implications for racism, discrimination, and oppression of people considered the ‘out-group’.

Provoking Colonial Memory of Frontier Massacre in the Settler Australian Context

Truth telling is fundamental to a settler nation coming to terms with its brutal past and accepting moral and legal responsibility for recognising the sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples. Yet, Australia remains resistant to engaging with the uncomfortable truth of wholesale massacre and dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on which the country is founded and settler Australia continues to prosper. Despite a sustained Indigenous counter narrative, resistance disconnects the past from the present in the national consciousness, maintaining a status quo which circumvents the political and social change required to achieve a more ethical, equal and decolonised society.
As a settler PhD student under the supervision of the Moondani Balluk Academic Unit at Victoria University, I am researching how disconnect features in the colonial memory of settler descendants with an inter-generational connection to frontier massacre. By engaging in deep relational conversation as methodology how is colonial memory provoked to connect family histories to the unjust present of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples? What can we learn from engaging in ethical dialogue around deeply sensitive, yet critically important historical truth telling which underpins the shifting of national consciousness? I would like to share some of my challenges and breakthroughs in the preliminary stages of this research journey and engage in any discussion which may arise.

Mexican University Students accompanying Indigenous Day Laborers Families: approach from Community Psychology

In Mexico poverty continues to be lived to a greater extent by indigenous people forced to migrate to the centre of the country for specific tasks of the crop cycles, mainly in the harvest season. This generates the cyclic arrival of indigenous families to the state of Guanajuato, to work as day laborers, an activity in which the whole family participates, including girls and boys.
In this work we approach the experience of accompaniment that the NA VALÍ program has developed in the city of León, attending three axes: education, nutrition and health. This program has the participation of university students who share day-to-day attention in the harvest field; for them, this experience is usually a trigger that mobilizes their social conscience.
From the perspective of community psychology, we seek to know how this experience has subjectively impacted these young students, how they redefine their reality and social commitment . We conducted participant observations and interviews that were later categorized and analysed, obtaining significant results for the three dimensions raised: affective aspects, mobilization of conscience and social responsibility. The findings stand out: the recognition of cultural diversity, an increase in empathy and a conceptual change regarding the idea of justice.

The health of migrants and refugees. Community and psychosocial support approach.

International organizations promoting the social protection of migrants and refugees identify health as a priority area of attention, particularly with regard to mental health. Research on the social determinants of health suggests that migration affects the health of migrants. In Uruguay, the Refugee Statute, the Migration Law, as well as the guiding principles of the Integrated National Health System (SNIS) and its primary health-care perspective, provide a framework of rights that support universal access to health care for its inhabitants without distinction. However, there are currently significant obstacles to migrants' full access to health care. This paper describes the recent processes of research and action on immigration in Montevideo, Uruguay carried out by the Research Group "Human Mobility, Work, Health and Human Rights", Universidad de la República. It presents and analyses the experience of psychosocial support offered to refugees and migrants. Finally, it presents the design of a project based on a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodological approach to be developed in 2020: "Processes of social integration and inequities in the health of transnational immigrants in the city of Montevideo, their relationship with the type of employment and the context of reception".

Key words: refugees, migrants, mental health, uruguay