Practitioner Spotlight
Implementing the Kin & Country Framework at Scale: A Personality Psychology Case Study
The context
At Macquarie University, the Kin & Country Framework was integrated into a personality psychology unit spanning three delivery modes: on-campus, online synchronous, and fully asynchronous Open Universities Australia (OUA) students, totalling over 1,400 enrolments.
Don’t let scale put you off: Implementing an Indigenous framework in a large, multimodal unit can feel daunting, but scale and complexity should not be barriers.
I almost talked myself out of this: I remember thinking that, as a non-Indigenous educator, I shouldn’t teach this. After listening to Indigenous colleagues walk me through the Framework, I realised I needed to incorporate it into my unit. I could see the value it would bring to psychology students who, in their future careers, need to apply and adapt to different ways of listening to one another.
Students used the Framework's four perspectives, Grandparent, Eagle, Ant, and Grandchild, to analyse a contemporary social media case study in a group assignment.
It pushed them to move beyond a single viewpoint and hold several perspectives at once: cross-generational wisdom, big-picture context, specific evidence, and future-focused thinking. Groups that worked well together and engaged with the four perspectives produced remarkable work, going well beyond what a single-viewpoint analysis would have yielded. The framework helped groups work together rather than dividing slides among themselves and producing pseudo-group work that only combined 4 or 5 individual parts. Delivery had to adapt to accommodate the needs of the different cohorts:
- On-campus students practised the Framework live in lectures, with peer leaders circulating to support small groups.
- Online synchronous students and OUA students worked with peer leaders via Teams during live lectures or completed the accompanying lecture worksheet at their own pace.
Online delivery was harder to get right than on campus. But it worked, especially for mature-age students, who often found the Framework particularly valuable, bringing their own life experience to the perspective-taking in ways that added depth.
The collaborative and generative nature of the Kin and Country Framework supports the co-production of knowledges in student group work.
This lesson also applies to facilitators and teachers wishing to engage with the Framework and embed it in their teaching –if at first it isn’t clear, trust that the perspectives will guide you!
Key Learnings
Scale is a challenge, but not an obstacle. The Kin & Country Framework worked with well over a thousand students because it was built into structured, repeatable activities, not dependent on any one delivery mode.
Give students dedicated time to practise, ideally in tutorials. Our tutorials were already locked in before the framework was introduced, so my lectures had to do double duty: content and practice. I recommend scheduling dedicated tutorial time.
Plan for infrastructure early. Technology and scheduling can challenge a good idea. I recommend thinking the requirements through (and checking tech limitations) before starting.
The framework is versatile and adaptable. Ben, a secondary school teacher, took the unit as an OUA student and was so struck by the value of perspective-taking that he brought it into his own Year 12 classroom. His students went on to achieve Band 6 in the HSC.