Preparing Students for Cross-cultural Practice: Indigenous Australians as a case study

This article discusses a successful evidence-based strategy for embedding teaching of cultural competence in relation to Indigenous Australians within undergraduate psychology. A multistage project commencing in 2004 led to the development of new courses in psychology, and subsequently to curriculum guidelines to assist other lecturers in developing such courses. The authors describe the model of cultural competence that underpins these courses, arguing that its principles are equally applicable to working in diverse cultural contexts, not just with Indigenous Australians. Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and suggests that students can generalise the knowledge and skills learned in Indigenous-related courses to interacting and working with people from other cultural contexts.