Forgetting Culturally Diverse Equity Groups In Australian Doctoral Policy?

Population parity rates are useful for holding governments and universities to account for their inclusion of diverse groups of students that have traditionally been underrepresented within higher education (Naepi, 2021). They assist governments and universities to redirect resources and support to these students. However, using population parity as the only key measure of equity avoids critical questions about ongoing Northern dominance of knowledge production in various disciplines (Ahmed, 2021; Smith, 2021). It also avoids questions about how we might achieve epistemic justice and better recognition of the cultural knowledge, skills, networks and resources people from equity groups bring into higher education (Singh et al., 2006). This paper focuses on the most recent Australian federal government commissioned review of doctoral education by the Australian Council of Learned Academics (2016). The bulk of the report focused on the need for greater links between industry and doctoral education but there was an additional section on under-represented groups in HDR training. Particular attention was paid to the very low participation rates of Indigenous candidates in doctoral education. This remains a highly significant issue in Australian doctoral education that requires a great deal more urgent consideration that our research team has explored in other publications (e.g. Raciti et al., 2024). There have been no other significant reviews or policy documents focusing on doctoral education since that time. The recent Australian University Accord (AUA) (2024) focuses primarily on the need for industry PhDs and for scholarships for First Nations PhD candidates. This document continues the pattern of policy silence regarding domestic culturally diverse doctoral candidates. Domestic transcultural candidates’ enrolment and completion rates no longer appear in any government reporting of ‘equity groups’ in higher degree by research (HDR) programs. The 2019 Student Equity in HDR Report only considers the themes of financial support, gender in some disciplines, socioeconomic status, regional and remote status and candidates with disabilities. Migrant and culturally diverse candidates may only feature incidentally if they also happen to be part of these other equity groups. There is no recognition that using ‘language spoken at home’ is an inadequate proxy for cultural diversity within Australia, despite much research (eg. Padilla, 2004). There is no acknowledgement of the highly uneven participation, experiences and outcomes of transcultural candidates in doctoral education. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, this paper suggests that an overwhelming focus on counting avoids addressing vital epistemological questions about the diverse knowledge transcultural candidates bring to Australian research. We highlight the ways doctoral policies do not capture the significant diversities within transcultural communities. We recommend the use of Nancy Fraser’s concept of participatory parity instead of population parity in government policy as a way of incorporating three elements of social justice – redistribution, recognition and representation. Focusing on the element of recognition, we extend Fraser’s notion of cultural recognition to include valuing diverse cultural knowledge systems which might create the conditions for epistemic justice in Australian doctoral education policy. References available on request