DEMOCRATISING AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH EDUCATION THROUGH THE TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE OF THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE

Many students from "Eastern" countries are studying in "Western" universities. In Australia approximately 80 per cent of international students come from Asian countries, and 21 per cent of these are from mainland China (Bradley, 2008). These students bring with them a repertoire of knowledge from their own countries, but whether this is valuable and/ or valued is open to investigation. During their studies and/or research in Australia, these intellectual assets seem to be ignored (Singh, 2009, 2010). The international students from Asia want to, and are supposed to learn advanced technological and social-cultural knowledge from Australia. To do so, they are expected, and sometimes helped to adapt to the local intellectual community. In this way, the internationalising research education in Western Anglophone countries such as Australia emphasises the teaching of these international students, mostly from Asian countries, Western knowledge through English. This is not surprising. The students themselves often desire such knowledge. The theoretical knowledge transferred to Asian students through Australian international education in social sciences is largely derived from Europe and North America.

However, in an era when democracy is emphasised in many fields – military as well as intellectual, what does this flow of theoretical knowledge from the West to the East mean for Australian research education in particular? Is it possible to reconceptualise Australian international education as a two-way, reciprocal process of transnational knowledge exchange through Australia/Asia intellectual engagement? This book focuses on the problems posed by the "mute" uses of Chinese intellectual assets for the democratisation of Australian research education and pedagogies that could turn those "mute" resources into audible "speech" in transnational academic communication.

Problematizing democracy in Australian research education

The internationalisation of Australian research education poses problems for democracy. The understanding and practice of global knowledge flows in this process largely focuses on the one-way knowledge transfer between nations (Alatas, 2006). This contemporary global flow of knowledge, from the West to the East, from the centre to the periphery, preserves the intellectual, and in particular the theoretical dominance of Western countries (Connell, 2007). Altbach (2001) holds

Both the basic institutional structure of modern higher education and science and the intellectual underpinnings are Western in nature and have come to dominate the world. All contemporary universities are based on the Western model, regardless of their location. (p. 200)

In the internationalisation of research education, this means knowledge production and its distribution are centralised around a Euro-American axis. The majority of the world's research and development expenditures are presently made by a small number of industrialised countries. So-called developing nations, "including China and India, account for under 10 percent of the world total" (Altbach, 2001, p. 202). However, whether this conception of hegemonic knowledge flows still applies and whether the democratisation of education through internationalisation is on the horizon invites further investigation. Weiler (2001) argues that "the decentralisation and democratisation of the international knowledge order becomes one of the most pressing and noble tasks for our institutions of higher education" (p. 43). But how can this "democratisation" be achieved? Grossberg (cited in Wright, 2001) contends that

we should be creating new paths of [knowledge] distribution and dissemination, and new communities of discourse and obligation. All too often, the dissemination of work in cultural studies [of education] follows the path of cultural and economic imperialism. ... it has become more and more difficult to actually talk about a place that is not already interconnected to other places. (pp. 156-157)

Innovative ways of distributing and disseminating non-Western linguistic and theoretical knowledge in Australian research education have to be found to promote communication and understanding among researchers from different educational cultures. This task is urgent in an era when the whole world is interconnected to an increasing extent. Consequently, more efforts need be taken to learn about the higher order knowledge – the theoretical assets – from different nations and to engage these into the pedagogical processes of internationalising Australian research education. A popular Chinese concept states, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (sanren xing, biyou woshi), which means even when three people are traveling together, one of them has something that I can learn. In other words, with the East and the West studying together, they can always learn something from each other. International research students from Asia come to Australia to learn "advanced" Western ideas but it is not appropriate that this education is practiced as a one-way process in which they are treated as passive "blank slate". Therefore, it would be beneficial if a learning environment was created where the East/West, North/South intellectual assets are critically engaged so that the democratisation of Australian research education can be advanced.

This potential intellectual interaction becomes even more necessary, when Eastern countries, especially China and India, are undergoing an international resurgence, and beginning "to influence the educational processes" (Goody, 2010, p. 110). International research students from all over Asia bring with them to Australia their distinctive linguistic and theoretical assets (or the potential to access or generate these resources). These represent a potential source of novel contributions to the Australian academy which are not accessible to Western educators who do not speak the many languages used by students from continental Asia.

Generating new theoretical tools out of Asian linguistic resources could hold considerable significance both for the research...