Edition 8
Diversity + Inclusion in Higher Education
Mar 2025
EDITED BY GUY KEULEMANS and SMILJANA GLISOVIC — The past decade has seen increasing attention placed on the inclusion of diversity in higher education, but evidence of actual progress from the academic and student experience seems less apparent than claims of intent made by university management.
BY NOAH MOON AND PETA MURRAY — Since RMIT's Creative Writing program began partnering with The Big Issue in 2022, three generations of first year students have had an opportunity to make their way into the world of creative nonfiction via dabblings in the memoiresque.
BY AMBER JANOWICZ AND DONNA MAZZA — Amber Janowicz's research project Epistles of the Body: Tracing Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) through Feminist Waves and Personal Narratives, comes after twenty-five years of medical misdiagnosis and two decades battling to reach her higher education goals.
BY DIDA SUNDET, LYNDALL ADAMS AND JOANNE DICKSON — Neurodivergent (ND) and neurotypical brains function differently – both can achieve similar goals, but in unique ways. From seeing neurodivergence in a strictly deficit framework, we are slowly moving towards neuro-affirmative models in diagnostic and care practices where focus shifts from disability to neurological difference.
BY KATHERINE MOLINE, CHANTELLE BAISTOW AND SCOTT BROWN — This report contends that creating opportunities for students with neurodiversity in Australian Honours research training programs often draws from a history of progressive Euro American approaches to inclusive education.
BY KIM PERCY — For some of us, being creative is innate and many of us are driven by what Jill Orr refers to as a ‘need to create’ (Orr, J. 2024). As a sessional university lecturer, I have taught in visual art, photography, communication design, design media and professional art practice. During the last fifteen years, I have observed an increased proportion of students who have self-reported as neurodiverse.
BY DOREEN DONOVAN AND GUY KEULEMANS — Recent shifts to decolonise higher education curricula (Times Higher Education, 2025; Askland et al., 2022; Moss et al., 2022; Gopal, 2021; Muldoon, 2019), alongside strategic priorities of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) (Eaton, 2022; Salmi & D’Addio, 2020; Cumming et al., 2023) have coincided with calls to improve higher degree research (HDR) training in Australia.
BY ADRIAN HARRIS — Ata-foafoa ma fa’atinoga i le va o feso’otaiga fa’aleaganu’u: Fa’atinoga o tomai patino i totonu o nei feso’otaiga: Creative practice and the vā: Making meaning within intercultural relational spaces
BY BUJIKHAM BATMUNKH AND GUY KEULEMANS — The Mongolian yurt has evolved over centuries to accommodate nomadic people living year round in dynamic climates ranging from temperature as extreme as 40 degrees Celsius to minus 40 degrees Celsius.
BY WAJIHA PERVEZ — My favourite childhood memory is excitedly climbing onto my grandmother’s shoulders as she sat in her sewing corner, delicately stitching my clothes. It was her love language. She hand-stitched my clothes for every special occasion: birthdays, Eid, and my auntie’s wedding.
BY DAI TRANG NGUYEN — As a textile artist and international student from Vietnam, my journey in higher education has been a continuous process of weaving together cultural identity and creative exploration. Living far from home deepened my connection to my Eastern heritage, making it an inseparable thread in the fabric of my research.
BY AMELIA WALKER, HELEN GRIMMETT & ALI BLACK — The term ‘ludic inquiry’ indicates methods of pedagogy and research wherein playing games facilitates problem-posing and knowledge making. We recently shared the privilege and pleasure of co-editing a book where each of the diverse chapters uniquely apply ludic inquiry towards problems of power, privilege, and in/equity in higher education (Walker, Grimmett & Black 2025).
BY ANNE RYDEN — This piece discusses a teaching initiative that draws on the principles and values of the Indigenous methodology of yarning to bring into play the individual educational, cultural and personal experiences of a highly diverse cohort of students in a foundational postgraduate research methods unit.
BY ALY DE GROOT, AMANDA MORRIS, LARISSA PICKALLA AND LUCY STEWART — At Charles Darwin University (CDU), the Academy of the Arts (with campuses in Darwin and Alice Springs) is learning to work closely with First Nations communities, students, artists and educators.
