Finding voice: the higher education experiences of students from diverse backgrounds

Diversity in the student body, particularly the inclusion of disadvantaged groups, has been incorporated into the discourse of inclusive education, with social justice and equality now part of the agenda. However, the conflation of diversity with equality potentially obscures some structural elements of the contemporary university system. This research reports on the experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) social work students and their experiences and maps the views of CALD student's engagement with the social work course. Overall data indicated that for CALD students to successfully engage with their studies, social work programmes must address the personal, cultural and political dislocation that CALD students experience while undertaking their studies