95743 Diversity and Culture

How 95743 is assessed

Weights come from the Canvas assessment overview, which numbers the tasks 1, 3 and 4; the assignment pages call the essay Assessment 2 and the group event Assessment 3. The Assessment 1 page says quizzes are completed and assessed in class, while the Quiz 4 page shows a window from 3pm Monday to 11:59pm Sunday with one attempt, so check each quiz page. Extensions of one week or less are requested from the subject coordinator by email before the due day; longer ones go through special consideration. Separately from the table, the delivery and workshop pages on Canvas require attendance at no fewer than 80% of workshops to pass the subject.

Current 95743 dates

Dates are as published in the Canvas assignment pages for the essay and the advocacy event and the Quiz 4 page for the Spring 2026 offering. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.

What 95743 covers

95743 runs as six modules across the Spring 2026 session.

Module 1 defines culture and identity, Module 2 covers the multicultural experiment and power, Module 3 turns to diversity policy and the cultural factors that shape health, Module 4 studies power and representation through the AIDS crisis and neurodiversity, Module 5 looks at cultural perspectives and at family violence within culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and Module 6 covers community engagement and cultural competence.

The mark comes from quizzes worth 40%, a comparative essay worth 30% and a group advocacy event worth 30%.

The subject description frames the world as a matrix of cultural interactions and identities built from race, gender, nationality, sexuality, disability, age and social status, and it asks you to examine your own perspectives, biases and prejudices alongside the power dynamics that run through institutions.

The content is organised as six modules. Module 1 defines culture and identity.

Module 2 traces the history of diversity and multiculturalism and introduces theories of power, including the three faces of power and intersectionality. Module 3 moves to diversity in practice: the layers of diversity policy, the cultural factors that influence health and two models for designing interventions, the Health Belief Model and the PEN-3 cultural model.

Module 4 studies power through the AIDS crisis in the United States using social construction theory, and representation through neurodiversity. Module 5 examines cultural perspectives on family and domestic violence within culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Module 6 covers cultural competence, Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity and practical protocols for community engagement.

Lectures are delivered on Canvas as recordings, and a four-hour workshop on campus runs fortnightly, with some workshops moved online.

Your mark comes from three tasks: four short multiple-choice quizzes worth 10% each, an individual comparative analysis of two health promotion campaigns from different cultural contexts worth 30%, and a group presentation pitching a community advocacy event to a funding board, also worth 30%. Attendance at no fewer than 80% of workshops is required to pass.

This guide follows the module order and adds worked examples and practice written for each topic, so that you can recognise the models in a quiz and use them in your essay and pitch.

Worked example · free

Place a target group on the power and perception quadrant and plan its move

Key terms

Culture

The shared patterns of behaviour, interaction, thinking and emotional understanding that people learn through socialisation and that mark who belongs to a group.

Cultural Identity

A person’s sense of belonging to one or more cultures, built from physical and psychological elements and open to change over time.

Multiculturalism

An approach to diversity in which groups keep distinct identities within a larger society, often pictured as a salad bowl rather than a melting pot.

Assimilation

The process in which a minority group comes to resemble the dominant culture, losing distinct practices over time.

Intersectionality

The overlapping of social categories such as ethnicity, class, sexuality and gender, which creates interdependent systems of disadvantage or privilege.

Three Faces of Power

Lukes’ model separating overt power over decisions, covert power over the agenda and latent power over what people believe they want.

Social Construction Theory

A policy theory holding that the images attached to target groups, combined with their political power, decide who receives benefits and who carries burdens.

Health Belief Model

A model explaining health behaviour through perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits and barriers, cues to action and self-efficacy.

PEN-3 Cultural Model

A model that puts culture at the centre of health promotion through three dimensions: a behaviour’s impact, its influences and the focus of intervention.

Neurodiversity Paradigm

A perspective that treats neurological differences such as autism and ADHD as natural human variation rather than disorders needing cure.

Cultural Competence

A set of behaviours, attitudes and policies that lets a system, agency or professional work effectively in cross-cultural situations.

Bennett’s DMIS

A six-stage continuum running from denial of cultural difference to its integration, used to set goals for intercultural training.

CALD Communities

Culturally and linguistically diverse communities, defined by birthplace, ancestry, religion or the language spoken at home.

95743 FAQ

Questions students ask in each 95743 chapter

What is the difference between external and internal components of culture?

External, or materialist, components are features an outsider can observe, such as language, food, traditions and ethnicity. Internal, or psychological, components are patterns inside people, such as thoughts, values, ideologies and gender identity. The second group is larger and harder to see, which is why the lecture uses an iceberg image. Chapter 01 · Defining Culture and Identity

Why does the lecture call race a divisive classification?

Because the markers and categories of race are chosen by people rather than set by biology. Official schemes have drawn the lines in different places at different times, and colonial powers used such distinctions to rank and control populations, so the classification itself has done social work. Chapter 02 · Diversity, Race and the Multicultural Experiment

How do covert and latent power differ?

Covert power is still exercised by someone: a decision-maker quietly keeps an issue off the agenda while those affected are unaware. Latent power needs no such steering, because people have come to believe the existing arrangement serves their own interests, which makes it the most insidious of the three faces. Chapter 03 · Power, Resistance and Intersectionality

Why is the international layer hard to enforce?

The lecture names three problems: jurisdiction, because international law competes with national systems; compliance, because international bodies have limited power to punish those who break the rules; and representation, because some countries and peoples have little say in setting the terms. Chapter 04 · Diversity Policy: Layers and Debates

What does the lecture conclude from long-lived communities?

Research on places such as Okinawa, Ikaria and Sardinia points to a mix of diet, genetics, social networks, work and mental focus. The lecture reads this as evidence that culture, the unseen and non-biological side of life, may matter as much as biology, or more. Chapter 05 · Cultural Factors That Shape Health

What are the limitations of the Health Belief Model?

The lecture lists six: it ignores attitudes and other individual determinants that make up culture, it misses habitual behaviour such as smoking, it overlooks actions taken for social rather than health reasons, it leaves out environmental and economic constraints, it assumes equal access to information, and it assumes health is the main goal. Chapter 06 · The Health Belief Model and PEN-3

Why did early names for AIDS matter?

Names such as gay-related immune deficiency and the 4H disease tied the illness to already stigmatised groups. That framing supported an image of people with AIDS as deviant and their illness as deserved, which the lecture links to slow and blaming policy responses. Chapter 07 · Social Construction and the AIDS Crisis

Who coined the term neurodiversity?

The lecture credits Judy Singer, an Australian sociologist whose 1998 thesis was published by the University of Technology Sydney. Her analogy was ecological: just as biodiversity makes an ecosystem stable and adaptable, respecting neurodiversity is argued to strengthen a culture. Chapter 08 · Neurodiversity and Inclusive Language

What does the reading mean by calling domestic violence a human rights issue?

James argues that violence in the home is more than a gender issue, because it violates women's human rights. Framing it this way lets services challenge abuse without condemning a whole culture, and in her community groups it helped men and women recognise violence as wrong. Chapter 09 · Domestic and Family Violence in CALD Communities

Which DMIS stages are ethnocentric and which are ethnorelative?

Denial, defense and minimization are ethnocentric, because one's own culture is treated as central to reality. Acceptance, adaptation and integration are ethnorelative, because cultures are understood relative to each other and behaviour is read within its context. Chapter 10 · Cultural Competence, the DMIS and CALD Engagement

Can I choose campaigns from Australia and overseas?

Yes, as long as the two campaigns target similar health issues or goals but were run within different cultural frameworks. A campaign that targets a culturally specific group within Australia can also count as a distinct context if you describe it carefully. Chapter 11 · Comparing Health Promotion Campaigns

What counts as a suitable event?

The brief gives examples: a health or awareness fair, a fundraiser or walkathon, workshops or forums, an awareness or advocacy campaign, a protest or mobilisation, or an outreach service such as mobile testing. The test is whether it suits the community and meets your stated objectives. Chapter 12 · Designing a Community Advocacy Event

How to prepare for the assessments

Treat 95743 as two kinds of study running side by side. The quizzes reward exact recall of terms and models, so after each lecture write the key vocabulary list from the module overview from memory and check it: Module 2 alone lists terms from ethnocide to intersectionality, and Module 6 adds ethnocentric, ethnorelative, heuristics and cultural programming.

Practise the models in their parts, such as the six Health Belief Model constructs, the three PEN-3 dimensions and the six DMIS stages, until you can name and order them quickly.

The essay and the pitch reward application, so start collecting evidence early. The Module 3 pre-work already asks you to find a paper where a cultural factor shaped a campaign, and that paper can seed your essay.

For the pitch, decide the community and issue with your group by Week 9, research the population before designing the event, and test every choice against the guiding questions on inclusion, safety and stereotypes. When a model will not connect to your campaign, ask Sia to walk through one construct at a time with a fresh example; it explains the reasoning and checks yours without writing your assessment for you.