Harnessing culturally responsive pedagogies to inspire life-long learning in graduates

The health professions in Australia increasingly expect graduates to apply culturally safe health care. For accreditation, health courses must indicate how students will develop capacities for culturally safe health care practice in their future working lives. In this presentation, I share how I draw on culturally responsive pedagogies to design learning and teaching environments that inspire students to become health professionals committed to ongoing learning and practice around culturally safe health care. One: teaching with culture so that learning experiences connect with the diversity and cultural specificity of students' lives. Two: ensuring scaffolded, collaborative learning opportunities. Three: emphasising multiple worldviews and pluriversal perspectives. Four: acknowledging how teachers are crucial to making/inhibiting culturally responsive climates in the classroom. Through these illustrations from teaching practice, I demonstrate how culturally responsive pedagogies support students to have learning experiences that cultivate their skills to work with patients in culturally safe ways, preparing them to meet their health professions' expectations. The presentation concludes with a discussion about the broader utility of culturally responsive pedagogies for creating learning and teaching environments that can equip all graduates with capacities for living and working as global citizens in a diverse and changing world.