Postgraduate university students’ experiences and attitudes toward culturally diverse learning environments: explorations through interview and focus group

In this presentation we explore the attitudes that Australian domestic university students hold toward cultural diversity on a large, metropolitan university campus. We will present an overview of our project methodology, which employed a qualitative approach incorporating five individual semi-structured interviews and a focus group. We then discuss the findings of the study and how they indicate that the participants’ attitudes were impacted significantly by past and present experiences of cultural diversity, and the immersion in a culturally diverse university campus environment. The findings will be contextualized in terms of how these experiences shaped the participants’ attitudes. This will provide insights into the influence of cultural diversity on Australian university campuses in shaping these attitudes. Finally, we will propose some recommendations for how more culturally inclusive learning environments can be created on university campuses as a result of this increasing diversity and how this translates into a more successful learning environment for all students.