Cultural literacy in an Australian multicultural higher education setting: the case of doctoral students

Introduction: Australia is a highly multicultural society, with 51.5% of its population being born overseas or having at least one parent born overseas (Australian Government, Department of Home Affairs, 2024). The cultural and linguistic diversity of the Australian population is an invaluable asset, but it can also pose obstacles on the path to reconciling one’s native cultural background with the norms of the Western world, which is the domain of cultural literacy (Hirsch, 1987). Challenges related to cultural literacy, among other settings, are noticeable among Australian students, including those who pursue doctoral degrees.

Methods: The current paper presents a research project that aimed to investigate the challenges that Western Sydney University (WSU) students encounter during their candidature in the domain of cultural adaptation to the educational setting, that is, to a greater or lesser extent, different to their original cultural norms. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 28 postgraduate research students, both domestic and international, and 12 supervisors from WSU. The collected data was analysed in the NVivo 15 platform by means of thematic analysis.

Results: The results indicate that numerous aspects of postgraduate research students’ candidature can be affected by insufficient adaptation to Western academic norms. Some of them are challenges with adjusting to writing conventions applicable in Western academia, challenges within the domain of research skills, such as critical thinking and analysis, as well as challenges in interpersonal relationships within the candidate-supervisor dyad. This shows that cultural literacy is related to and can affect candidates’ academic/non-academic communication skills and research skills.

Conclusions: Based on the results, the paper offers recommendations for universities on how to improve their postgraduate research students’ cultural literacy through systematic and continuous institutional support.