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This paper explores the importance of intercultural context in regulating quality in transnational higher education. It examines multiple perspectives and claims regarding the need for quality assurance, the feasibility of partnerships, and the impact of international guidelines. The paper highlights the unpredictability of quality assurance within intercultural contexts and the potential negative outcomes of a non-critical acceptance of norms and standards. It also discusses the concept of intercultural communication and the ongoing negotiation of real and imagined worlds. The paper concludes by suggesting alternative perspectives and the importance of transdisciplinarity in regulating quality as an intercultural semiosis.
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Regulating quality in transnational higher education: How important is intercultural context? Peter McDowell Charles Darwin University
In the quality assurance literature • Multiple, divergent perspectives (contestation) • Aim: transnational higher education as trade • Aim: transnational higher education as internationalisation • Claim: QA is needed to avoid negative outcomes • Claim: QA is infeasible without partnerships • Result: overlapping bilateral arrangements
Critical perspectives in the literature • A notable lack of critical perspectives • QA (regulation) often seen as benign • Are international guidelines really necessary? • The UNESCO guidelines allow own undermining • QA within intercultural contexts is unpredictable • Audit culture encourages non-critical acceptance of norms and standards
Intercultural communication • Plenty of reflexivity and theoretical dialogue • From communicative to intercultural competence • Earlier: referencing against a target culture • Superseded by an emergent, pluri-cultural ideal • Manifold contextualised interactions • Ongoing negotiation of real and imagined worlds • Metaphor of the ‘third place’
Revisiting quality assurance • Bilateralism mimics target culture referencing • International guidelines ‘defining’ competency • Both of these goals have been superseded in the theory of intercultural communication • Currently a ‘third place’ exists at the margins • Bilateralism limits the openness, dynamism, and virtuality needed for the acquisition of intercultural competence (cultural context is vital)
Alternative perspectives • Sociology: problematic concept of ‘nation’ • Geography: ‘nation’ connected to the imaginary • Geography: spatiality, territoriality are persistent • Politics, ethics: cosmopolitanism, citizenry • Education: entrenched institutions, pedagogies • International relations: status of English • Various responses to the effects of globalisation
Transdisciplinarity • The various, relevant disciplines tend to support one another conceptually, foundationally • Disciplines overflowing their own boundaries • Expanding views on transcultural practices • Identity formation within educational settings • Disciplinary transitions, transformations • QA (regulation) is intercultural semiosis
Thank you Citation (full paper): McDowell, P. (2013, June). Regulating quality in transnational higher education: How important is intercultural context? Proceedings of the International Conference on Impacts of Globalization on Quality in Higher Education, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Contact: peter.mcdowell@cdu.edu.au
