University of South Australia Cultural Awareness Survey

Simply put, cultural awareness means learning about cultures different from your own.

Culture includes how people communicate, their customs, beliefs, values, and the way they see the world. As Terry Cross and his colleagues explained in 1989, culture shapes how people think, talk, act, and live their daily lives.

Cultural awareness is just the first step. It's about gaining knowledge, but doesn't necessarily involve changing how you act or the services you provide.

Note: In this guide, we use terms like 'Aboriginal', 'First Nations' and 'Indigenous' to refer to people who identify as Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. We use 'peoples' and 'cultures' to show there are many different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural groups.

How Cultural Awareness Fits with Other Important Concepts

Cultural Awareness

This is about knowing - learning about different cultures without necessarily changing your actions.

Cultural Competence

This is about doing - using your cultural knowledge to change how you behave and work with people from different cultures. It involves showing respect, building relationships based on give-and-take, and thinking about your own actions and assumptions.

Cultural Safety

This is about creating safe spaces - making sure services and environments respect cultural differences. The most important thing about cultural safety is that only the person receiving the service can decide if they feel culturally safe.

What Cultural Awareness Is NOT

Research shows that many people misunderstand cultural awareness:

• It's not just learning a few facts about another culture
• It's not seeing cultures as "exotic" or "different" compared to what's "normal"
• It's not something you can fully develop in a single day of training
• It's not about making everyone fit into the dominant culture

Common Problems with Cultural Awareness Training

Too Short and One-Time Only

Many researchers have found that brief workshops don't give people enough time to really learn or change how they think. As one researcher put it, "One-off workshops don't provide enough incentive for individuals to change their practice or reflect on their ideas."

Creating an "Us vs. Them" View

Sometimes training focuses too much on differences, which can make people see cultures as separate from each other. This can strengthen stereotypes instead of breaking them down.

Simplifying Complex Cultures

Many training programs reduce rich, diverse Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures to simple summaries or stereotypes. This doesn't show the true depth and variety of these cultures.

Ignoring Power Differences

Training often doesn't address the effects of colonization or how racism continues to affect people today, both as individuals and within institutions like universities.

What Makes Good Cultural Awareness Training

Research shows that good cultural awareness training:

Centres Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voices

First Nations peoples should lead in creating and delivering cultural awareness content, not just have their experiences filtered through non-Indigenous perspectives.

Includes Colonial History

Understanding how colonization has affected and continues to affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples helps people better understand current challenges and strengths.

Encourages Self-Reflection

Good training helps people examine their own cultural background and biases before learning about others. It starts with recognizing we all have culture and assumptions.

Connects to Real Life

The most useful training includes topics like kinship systems, language, cultural protocols, and historical impacts that help people understand real situations they might encounter.

Builds on Itself Over Time

Learning about culture takes time. The best training happens over multiple sessions with opportunities to practice and reflect, not just in one workshop.

Moving from Awareness to Action

Cultural awareness is just the beginning. As researchers Westwood and Westwood explained in 2010, cultural competence involves a two-way learning process. This means:

1. First developing awareness (knowledge)
2. Then developing understanding (deeper learning)
3. Finally taking informed action (changing behaviour)

Cultural Awareness Training at UniSA

The University of South Australia is committed to developing cultural awareness training that actually works and is:  

• Is relevant to our university community
• Centers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives
• Addresses both individual attitudes and university systems
• Builds lasting skills, not just one-time learning

Thank you for reading this guide.

This guide is based on research by Cross et al. (1989), Papps & Ramsden (1996), Westwood & Westwood (2010), Kowal & Paradies et al. (2013), Parmenter & Trigger (2017), Sinclair (2017, 2020), Styres (2017), Taylor & Lalovic et al. (2019), and Rissel & Wilson (2022). >