Overview
In an increasingly mobile world, many people are experiencing periods of time immersed in different cultural contexts, either as part of our work, study, volunteering or leisure. This unit provides you with theoretical and scholarly support for cultural immersion at the point of experiencing it in order to help deepen your understanding of yourself and of your new cultural context. Cultural immersion can be a potentially powerful transformative learning experience if undertaken with such support and can develop effective cultural competence skills and knowledge. As this unit explores cultural disruption, it is recommended you take this unit at the beginning of a cultural immersion experience. The unit content will help you to make sense of the disruption and support you in developing strategies and resources to facilitate cultural integration and the development of respectful cross-cultural relationships.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
There are no requisites for this unit.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2023
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes – in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University’s Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure – Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure – International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback – Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Informal feedback from students
Students enjoy real life examples that relate the material in the unit to experiences they have had or might have working in the field of Public Health.
The study guide and supplementary materials on Moodle should link theory to real life experiences through examples students are familiar with, especially drawing on current Public Health issues discussed in the media and hence known to students.
Feedback from Unit Cordinator's observations
Students benefit from collaboration, brainstorming, and mutual discussion of unit contents.
Classes should be structured to allow students to work together in small groups on activities designed to support interaction and collaboration as well as scaffold learning.
- Explain the experiences of cultural disruption and integration
- Identify community and institutional strategies and resources that enable cultural integration
- Critically reflect on own experiences of cultural disruption and integration
- Critically reflect on developing and maintaining respectful cross-cultural relationships.
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Group Work - 50% | ||||
| 2 - Reflective Practice Assignment - 50% | ||||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1 - Knowledge | ||||
| 2 - Communication | ||||
| 3 - Cognitive, technical and creative skills | ||||
| 4 - Research | ||||
| 5 - Self-management | ||||
| 6 - Ethical and Professional Responsibility | ||||
| 7 - Leadership | ||||
| 8 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | ||||
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |
| 1 - Group Work - 50% | ||||||||
| 2 - Reflective Practice Assignment - 50% | ||||||||
Textbooks
There are no required textbooks.
Additional Textbook Information
Although there are no prescribed or recommended text books, students are advised to source a copy of the relevant text books to complete the assessments for their chosen topic.
IT Resources
- CQUniversity Student Email
- Internet
- Unit Website (Moodle)
- Computer - ability to access study materials, access Zoom application for meetings and view instructional videos.
All submissions for this unit must use the referencing styles below:
For further information, see the Assessment Tasks.
s.kaphle@cqu.edu.au
Module/Topic
Introduction to Culture and Health
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Module/Topic
Module 2: Perception of Health and Illness
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Module/Topic
Module 3: Health Construct and Knowledge
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Module/Topic
Module 4: Cultural - Linguistic Barriers and Health Inequalities
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Module/Topic
Module 5: Traditional versus Medical Model of Health
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Assessment 1: Group Paper
Module/Topic
Vacation
Chapter
No class
Events and Submissions/Topic
Module/Topic
Module 6: Culture, Ethnicity and Health
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Assessment 1: Group Presentation
Group Paper Presentation Due: Week 6 Friday (21 Apr 2023) 11:00 pm AEST
Module/Topic
Migrant Health
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Module/Topic
Refugee Health
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Module/Topic
Indigenous Health
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Module/Topic
Culturally Safe Health Care Practice
Chapter
Check Moodle for reading materials
Events and Submissions/Topic
Lecture
Tutorial
Module/Topic
Reflective Practice Essay
Chapter
Assessment Writing
Events and Submissions/Topic
Assessment 2: Reflective Practice Essay
Unit Evaluation
Reflective Practice Essay Due: Week 11 Friday (26 May 2023) 11:00 pm AEST
Module/Topic
Chapter
Events and Submissions/Topic
1 Group Work
There are many health conditions that are defined by culture, rather than by clinical signs and symptoms. We say that these conditions are “culture bound,” meaning that they only exist within a certain cultural group because they derive from a perception of reality that is shaped by a set of cultural practices, assumptions, and interpretations. These are very real conditions, but they are defined by cultural beliefs, expectations and experiences.
In a group of five members, each group will choose one of the following health conditions to explore cultural and medical significance of it.
1. Diabetes
2. Cancer
3. Tuberculosis
4. Mental Disorder
5. Sexually Transmitted Diseases
6. Cardiovascular Diseases
Once the health condition is chosen, presentation must answer the following questions using evidence from the literature.
Assessment Questions
1. What specific cultural beliefs and practices about the health condition exist in the community?
2. To what extent do these cultural beliefs and practices correspond to medical views to understand and manage health condition?
3. To manage this particular health condition, how do the health care practice compare to the community practice?
4. Taking socio-cultural perspective into the account, what are the complexities in managing the chosen health condition?
5. What are the public health implications of differences in defining and managing the health condition from the medical and cultural perspectives? How do these differences impact public health practice?
Week 6 Friday (21 Apr 2023) 11:00 pm AEST
Please submit your assessment paper and presentation slides before due date/time via Moodle.
Week 8 Friday (5 May 2023)
Feedback provided
Each group will have 10 minutes for their presentation and each member of the group will be responsible for answering one question, preparing a slide, writing presentation notes and presenting in class. Although this is a group assessment task, students will be assessed individually against following criteria.
1. Ability to conduct research and gather evidence to answer the allocated question
2. Ability to use evidence to provide critical arguments around the health condition
3. Ability to prepare an academically sound presentation in Powerpoint
4. Ability to present clearly, concisely and succinctly
5. Appropriate citations and referencing
- Explain the experiences of cultural disruption and integration
- Identify community and institutional strategies and resources that enable cultural integration
- Knowledge
- Communication
- Self-management
- Ethical and Professional Responsibility
2 Reflective Practice Assignment
We each come to public health with a set of our own beliefs, assumptions, experiences, judgements, and views that reflect our culture and upbringing, as well as the events in our life. For this assignment, you must think about your own health experiences and the way they have been impacted by your own socio-cultural background and how you think about health.
Assessment Questions
Firstly, think about how your family perceive about health and illness.
What is their understanding of health and illness? How do they treat illness? How do they decide when medical help needed? What are their preferred ways of managing health and illness?
Secondly, compare how your personal view about health and illness with how your family and other people in your community see it.
What is your personal view around health and illness? Is it similar to what your family think, or it is different and why? Is your family act differently to the most people in the community? If they are different, then explain why and how their behaviour was shaped in a way that is different to others in the community.
Thirdly, critique about the responsibility to health and managing illnesses.
Who do you think is responsible for health - the individual involved, the family, the society in which he or she lives, the government, health services or others? Discuss why you think that way.
Finally, discuss how socio-cultural context of populations impacts health.
Discuss the ways socio-cultural context of population might affect professional practice in public health, including why it is necessary for a public health practitioner to be aware of socio-cultural differences in health.
Week 11 Friday (26 May 2023) 11:00 pm AEST
Please submit your assessment before due date/time via Moodle.
Review/Exam Week Friday (9 June 2023)
Feedback provided
This essay must be written as a first person. This is an individual 2000-word reflective assessment. Your reflections on these areas should be supported by evidence from literature, textbooks or other reputable sources. All references must be cited appropriately with a reference list included. You cannot use materials from Google or any internet sources which do not meet academic standards and guidelines.
This reflective practice assessment will be assessed against the following criteria.
1. A deep reflection with ability to write clearly following academic practices
2. Logically draws and analyses personal perspectives around health and illness
3. Critically examines and compares the familial and social context of health
4. Succinctly provides evidence-based arguments around responsibilities to health
5. Appropriate grammar, citations and references
- Critically reflect on own experiences of cultural disruption and integration
- Critically reflect on developing and maintaining respectful cross-cultural relationships.
- Knowledge
- Communication
- Self-management
- Ethical and Professional Responsibility
As a CQUniversity student you are expected to act honestly in all aspects of your academic work.
Any assessable work undertaken or submitted for review or assessment must be your own work. Assessable work is any type of work you do to meet the assessment requirements in the unit, including draft work submitted for review and feedback and final work to be assessed.
When you use the ideas, words or data of others in your assessment, you must thoroughly and clearly acknowledge the source of this information by using the correct referencing style for your unit. Using others’ work without proper acknowledgement may be considered a form of intellectual dishonesty.
Participating honestly, respectfully, responsibly, and fairly in your university study ensures the CQUniversity qualification you earn will be valued as a true indication of your individual academic achievement and will continue to receive the respect and recognition it deserves.
As a student, you are responsible for reading and following CQUniversity’s policies, including the Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure. This policy sets out CQUniversity’s expectations of you to act with integrity, examples of academic integrity breaches to avoid, the processes used to address alleged breaches of academic integrity, and potential penalties.
What is a breach of academic integrity?
A breach of academic integrity includes but is not limited to plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion, cheating, contract cheating, and academic misconduct. The Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure defines what these terms mean and gives examples.
Why is academic integrity important?
A breach of academic integrity may result in one or more penalties, including suspension or even expulsion from the University. It can also have negative implications for student visas and future enrolment at CQUniversity or elsewhere. Students who engage in contract cheating also risk being blackmailed by contract cheating services.
Where can I get assistance?
For academic advice and guidance, the Academic Learning Centre (ALC) can support you in becoming confident in completing assessments with integrity and of high standard.
What can you do to act with integrity?
