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Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication: Research Findings and Research Paradigms Across the World

AREA Presidential Session cosponsored with the World Education Research Associated:

Invited Session

Colorado Convention Centre,

Chair: Luis C. Moll, The University of Arizona

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Multilingualism and Transformative Knowledge Exchange:

Findings from changing ‘Australian’ educational research paradigms

Michael Singh

Centre for Educational Research,

Univeristy of Western SydneyAustralian Association for Research in Education

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Research education as transformativeknowledgeexchange

Western knowledge drives

research education

WorldResearchEducation

Other practices?

Monolingual, monologicaldriver of research education

‘World research education’ as a problem

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‘World education research’ as a problem

1. ‘Eurocentric diffusionism’ (Blaut, 1993) (1) knowledge flows from Western nations into non-European nations (2) the West’s present ‘supremacy’ will be permanent

2. ‘oriental globalisation’ (Hobson, 2004) Easterners created a global economy with communication networks along which their ‘resource portfolios’ (ideas, institutions and technologies) were diffused, assimilated into, and elaborated upon in the West

3. ‘alternation’ (Goody, 2010) interactions between Eurasian civilisations sees one & then another place secure sophisticated knowledge systems

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World education research for transformative knowledge exchange = being changed through gaining knowledge

that adds a source of value

(painting, Koala place, W. Shieh)

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Overview

I. Transnational flows of knowledge – Australian studies (Connell, Lyons & Keith)

II. Practising transformative knowledge exchange

III. Research process = ignorance > knowledge > ignorance

IV. Chinese knowledge as theory & problem

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I. Transnational flows of knowledge – Australian

studies

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How might Australian studies of transnational knowledge flows contribute to world education research?

(painting, The miniature Long March, Qin Ga)

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1. Connell (2007): “Southern theory” & knowing the global dynamics of metropolitan/peripheral

knowledge flows

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Knowing the global dynamics of knowledge flows

1) The peripheral South does produce theoretical knowledge - not a static, homogenous, pre-given, bounded category, exists through intellectual debates involved in defining, regulating & enacting such knowledge.

2) for metropolitan research to serve democratic purposes it can: problematise Western research; open up for questioning Western intellectual dominance & critically engage intellectual projects from the global ‘periphery’

3) ignorance due to Anglophone monolingualism & difficulties of communicating theoretical knowledge across languages - acknowledged & valued for what it reveals about the limits of knowledge

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2. Lyons (2009): “The House of Wisdom” - Knowing Arab learning transformed Western intellectual culture

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Knowing Arab learning transformed Western intellectual culture

1) ‘Arab knowledge’ comes from complex cultural milieu, having different forms (religion, politics), product of ethnically diverse peoples; & conducted in the Arab language(s)

2) varying responses to & engagements with Arab knowledge by Western Europeans (e.g. reworked for adoption, harnessed for parochial interests, ignored, disavowed)

3) Arab knowledge had to demonstrate its original contributions to knowledge (e.g. filling in areas of ignorance, providing new methods, stimulating new struggles over research values)

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3. Keith (2009): “Knowing from the Inside Out” - Knowing how China is fitting itself into the world

(painting, ‘Light & easy’ Yang Zhenzhong)

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Knowing how China is fitting itself into the world

1) ignorance of Han zi and Putonghua is not unrelated to an Australia’s Eurocentric language education policies of the past & current underfunding of Asian language education

2) ignorance of China & its efforts to learn from other countries is compounded by uninformed media reporting & simplistic political commentary.

3) learning to engage in transnational knowledge exchange through the critical dialectical understanding of Chinese & foreign knowledge.

4) look for comparative strengths & weaknesses in Chinese and foreign knowledge, establish grounds for reserving differences, criticise both ‘parasitism’ and ‘isolationism’

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II. Practising transformative knowledge exchange

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transformative knowledge exchange

(painting, Dragon or Rainbow Serpent, by Cai Guo-Qiang)

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Transformative knowledge exchange as a defining attribute of word education

research

• In exchange one gains something by giving something, altering one’s state in the process. When an exchange of word … takes place, the two parties involved are changed in terms of what they know, experience, or possess. Due to the exchange process each party has given something but has also added something, which is the source of value. (Cook, 2007: 42-43, italics in the original)

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HDR candidateknowledgesupervisor

pedagogyrationale

impact

Transformative knowledge exchange

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Practising transformative knowledge exchange

1. HDR candidates

2. Knowledge

3. supervisors

1. Possess, can access or produce experiential & other forms of knowledge

2. Context, language, people, debate

3. Selected expertise, ignorance of students & their knowledge

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Practising transformative knowledge exchange

4. pedagogies

5. rationale

6. impact

4. transfer, reciprocity, fusion, synthesis

5. democratic assembly, representation & monitoring

6. Benefits, value, power

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Practising transformative knowledge exchange

Many forms & contradictory elements:

• transplantation, transmission, transfer• absorption, assimilation • accommodation• franchise• fusion • indigenisation• reciprocity

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III. Research process = ignorance > knowledge > ignorance

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Research process = ignorance > knowledge > ignorance

(installation, A book from the sky, by Xu Bing)

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Research process = ignorance > knowledge > ignorance

types of ignorance:

1) incomplete or imperfect knowledge

2) limitations in current research knowledge

3) the difficulty in distinguishing between an individual’s ignorance & the limitations of current knowledge

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making ignorance pedagogically productive

(installation, ShangART supermarket, Xu Zhen)

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Research process = ignorance > knowledge > ignorance

ignorance • “creeps into medical practice through every

pore. Whether a physician is defining a disease, making a diagnosis, selecting a procedure, observing outcomes, assessing possibilities, assigning preferences, or putting it all together, he [sic] is walking on very slippery terrain. It is difficult for non-physicians, and for many physicians, to appreciate … how poorly we understand them …” (Groopman, 2007: 151)

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IV. Chinese knowledge as theory & problem

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‘Chinese knowledge’ for world education research

1. two or more languages

2. Chinese theoretical concepts to be used in world education research

3. Chinese critiques of Western intellectual hegemony

4. the intellectual contributions of Chinese knowledge to world

5. how Chinese intellectuals engage foreign ideas

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Empirical & epistemic China/Chinese HDR candidates

(painting Sheep station, W. Shieh)

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Questioning “Chinese knowledge”

probe substance of assertions, assumptions and rules governing these knowledge claims:

• Which ‘Chinese knowledge’ is used?

• What do they knowingly not use, & why?

• Which contexts enable its uses & which do not?

• Who can or cannot speak for Chinese knowledge?

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What constitutes ‘Chinese knowledge” treated problematically – subject to critical inquiry

1) Westernisation of Chinese intellectual culture & the debates about this

2) it is not always possible to tell what is ‘Chinese knowledge’ or what knowledge in China comes from elsewhere.

3) ‘Chinese knowledge’ is understood to be in a continuing process of re-constitution - plural, provisional and open, rather than a monolithic, singular or unchanging, homogenous entity.

4) Dominating, popular, traditional, minority & argumentative forms of Chinese knowledge

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Review

I. Transnational flows of knowledge – Australian studies (Connell, Lyons & Keith)

II. Practising transformative knowledge exchange

III. Research process = ignorance > knowledge > ignorance

IV. Chinese knowledge as theory & problem

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World education research – as transformative knowledge exchange

1. developing multilingual capabilities2. Chinese knowledge - beyond everyday & China 3. Chinese conceptual knowledge to theorise Western

education4. make explicit Chinese knowledge embedded in everyday

practices of Chinese HDR candidates5. selecting Chinese knowledge – convincing, insightful,

testable, debatable6. making sense of, & critiquing world education research

as transformative knowledge exchange7. world’s low-skilled manufacturer vs. connecting with

theoretical projects

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Singh, M. (2010), Connecting intellectual projects in China and Australia: Bradley’s international student-migrants, Bourdieu and productive ignorance. Australian Journal of Education. 54 (1) 31-45.

Singh, M. (2009), Using Chinese knowledge in internationalising research education: Jacques Rancière, an ignorant supervisor and doctoral students from China. Globalization Societies and Education. 7 (2) 185-201.

Singh, M. & Han, J. (2010), Peer review, Bourdieu and honour: Connecting Chinese and Australian intellectual projects. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 31 (2) 185-198.

Singh, M., & Han, J. (2009), Engaging Chinese ideas through Australian education: Using Chengyu to connect intellectual projects across ‘peripheral’ nations. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 30 (4) 397-411.

Selected readings

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Michael Singh to participants in this symposium,

and especially to:

Professor Dr. Ingrid Gogolin, Founding President of the World Education Research Association (http://www.weraonline.org/)

Professor Joanne Reid, President, Australian Association for Research in Education

Australian Research Council for funding Project DP0988108