Term Paper on "Growing Smaller All the Time. Goods Flow"

Term Paper 14 pages (4351 words) Sources: 15

[EXCERPT] . . . .

growing smaller all the time. Goods flow across international boundaries as easily as carbon dioxide. The idea that we are all global citizens is not simply a metaphor any longer: It is the simple truth. This erasing of traditional boundaries and borders extends to the world of higher education. This might seem to be one of the most natural arenas in which there can be porous borders since education is a realm in which people learn new perspectives. Or at least it is supposed to be. But as Cadman (2000) makes clear, there are as many potential culture clashes within the field of higher education as in any other. This paper examines Cadman's analysis of ways in which higher educational can be truly transcultural and so serve to benefit students from any cultural background.

Cadman's major task in this paper is to problematize the concept of internationalization of education by examining the preconceptions that the students and especially the faculty at the University of Adelaide have about the process of education itself and to what extent these preconceptions are rooted in culturally specific ideas. She notes that Australian faculty, trained in the traditions of the Western university, have key beliefs about teaching that tend 1) to focus on the transfer of knowledge and 2) assume that only certain kinds of critical thinking (and therefore only certain types of approaches to research) qualify as valid.

Cadman argues that the university should make the shift from "internalization," which is the sincere desire to welcome to the university students from other cultures, to a position of transculturalism, in which both Australians and students from other nations learn from each other and each begin to shift their concept of the ideal education.

Synopsis of the Study

Cadman begins her analysis of how well international students have been integrated into the University of Adelaide with a brief historical overview of the ways in which the international student population had changed in the previous years. Australian universities have welcomed international students, she notes, both out of a sense that these students will help broaden the experience and therefore the education of the Australian students and -- and there is of course nothing wrong with this -- because international students bring money into the university. But while both of these goals on the part of university administrators are perfectly acceptable, Cadman suggests that Australian universities were perhaps a bit naive in assuming that there would be a better fit between their expectations (and those of their students) and the expectations and needs of the international students.

All interactions between people from different cultures hold the potential to be highly complicated and are peculiarly subject to miscommunication when those on both sides do not make an intentional effort to view relationships and interactions from the perspective of the other side. Or, when the cultures are so different from each other that it is impossible to have a good understanding of what someone from a different culture is experiencing, at least those on both sides must be aware that there is a constant potential for misunderstandings. While all parties to cross-cultural relationships must be aware of this, however, it is especially important for those who have the greater power to be more aware and more sensitive to the ways in which culture can disrupt what might seem to be even the most transparent of communicative acts.

The University of Adelaide "actively promotes itself as welcoming international postgraduates," Cadman writes, but while the initial impetus for the welcome mat's being spread out was to help share "liberal values" (such as the goodness of education for all and the importance that all students have access to as much education as possible) the lure for the university has shifted to seeing international students as a "very necessary source of income." One of the strengths of this paper is that Cadman is not apologetic about the fact that the university has to think about funding. If she had framed this research in terms that did not include the financial, it would have seemed naive and would not have been nearly as useful in terms of prompting university staff into rethinking their policies and strategies towards international students.

This shift -- from a Platonic form of education to one that includes a weather eye on the bottom line -- might be seen as problematic for a number of reasons (a point that Cadman only touches upon). However, it is immediately and most certainly problematic in that if international students provide necessary funds to the university and they are not happy with the education that they are getting, then they will leave and take their money with them. To the extent that the university needs the funding brought in by international students, the staff must convince the students that they are getting an education that is worth what they are paying. But while Cadman is very straightforward about the financial aspect of the problem, she is also clearly concerned (even passionately so) that the students are receiving an education that will serve them well over the long-term. She clearly believes that Western universities can meet a need that international students may not find at home.

Cadman argues that both students and university faculty and administrators have in certain key ways proven to be less than hospitable to international students, seeing them as simply having bought a seat at the table but not coming equipped with the necessary intellectual background or rigor to perform as well as the Australian students. At least implicit in her critique of the University of Adelaide -- at least before it began to address the issue -- is the idea of cultural imperialism. International students had been made to feel, she suggests, that they should consider themselves at least a little honored that they had even been allowed to buy the seat at the table.

Woods & Woods (1995) elaborate this point, arguing that Australian universities have essentially been selling their prestige as Western universities, a prestige based on the fact that Western academic conventions are inherently better than those practiced in the other parts of the world. While not denying that this has sometimes been the case, she believes that it neither should be nor need be the case. For it is not just people from 'somewhere else' who are global citizens, but all of us. And if international students come to Australia to learn both about an academic subject and about a new culture, then the Australian students sitting next to them in class should be encouraged to acquire a broader perspective on the world as well.

Selling Western academic prestige is not illegitimate; however, it is short-sighted, she writes. A university might be able to bring in international students for a few years by (essentially) simply selling degrees without trying to make any real, lasting intellectual bridges between the cultures involves. However, such a policy is unlikely to keep bringing international students to a university since international students can legitimately ask for both a degree and an education. Moreover, by simply requiring that international students change themselves so that they fit in as neatly as possible is to surrender a great deal of potential for education (Carr & Kemmis, 1986).

"The educational and ethical issues of internationalising postgraduate education are rarely considered," she writes, by which she means (in part) that Australian students and faculty can in fact learn a great deal from their international students. And what the Australians can learn is not simply the relatively trivial (if fascinating) kind of information that tourists exchange with each other, but a much more fundamental sharing and even blending of epistemologies.

Different cultures produce different world views, which are both reflected in the educational process and in turn shape that process. Investigating the underlying ideas of culture is something that can occur in any classroom in which students from different cultures gather, but only if there is both eagerness and humility on both sides. Cadman describes a situation in which these have not been present, a situation that has repeatedly compromised the experiences of international student.

Much of the focus of Cadman's article is on the possibility that a new "bridging" program will provide a sort of epistemological space that will help international students learn the culture of the Australian university. For the universities must -- if they are to act ethically -- must educate their students not only in the subject matter at hand but must also give them the tools to think in ways that will allow them to succeed. And (as Woods & Woods, 1995; and Lulat & Altbach, 1985 explore). But even as the university faculty help their international students learn to think in Western ways, the faculty and staff must be sensitive not to valorize such a way of thinking as if it were the only possible approach to research and learning.

While it is certainly acceptable for University of Adelaide faculty… READ MORE

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