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Why Interculturalisation (Educational Futures) ReviewWhat is the question that this study tries to respond to? One could put it simply as, "Whither higher education?" More specifically it addresses this question in the context of the impact of globalization on higher education where it is seen as a "...service, a commodity that is not only produced and consumed domestically, but also traded internationally."
For interculturalists, the key question is whether cultural diversity should be allowed to decline in the global marketplace, or whether equality and respect be shown via the accommodation and support of differences. As I write, this question is highlighted by the current news of the revolt of indigenous peoples in Peru to their government's initiative to encourage development of ancestral lands. While the struggle for tangible assets like rain forests are easy to visualize, the commercialization of higher education may be less tangible but no less real and a matter of high concern.
Xaoping Jiang addresses this question head on, providing an extensive comparision of the thinking and consequences of three major economic schools of thought and policy and their implications for the future of higher education and culture. She does extensive analyisis and compares the points of view of Neo-Marxism, Neoliberalism, and the Third Way. Each interprets and evaluates the current outcomes and predict the future impact of the domains of globalisation, the knowledge economy and the role and development of higher education in the current environment. Each of these theoretical frameworks views the role of government differently and allots it a different degree of influence in the management of the marketplace enviornment. Xaoping's difinitive choice is for the Neo-Marxist perspective.
If one can speak of the "culture" of globalisation, it is very clear that not only has Neoliberalism gained the upper hand in current economic praxis of great powers, but it has also penetrated the assumptions of the institutions of economic influence such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the OECD as they both provide resources and regulate their uses in developing areas.
The author agrees that knowedge in the new economy has become a major source of capital and Neoliberal assumptions undergird its globalization without respect to national and regional differences. Knowledge has become a "fictitious commodity." No longer a communal good but an intellectual property to be acquired and safeguarded by patents, copyrights, etc., a property quickly devalued and replaced by the next stage of development. In the light of this, it should not surprise us that plagiarsm, pirating and sabotage are weapons of disenfranchised and coerced consumers.
Higher education now serves the function of producing knowledge workers and thus forces institutions of higher learning to reframe the curricula and subject matter to meet market requirements. One might imagine this as cutting down the educational rainforest in favor of cash crops, with the eventual loss of diversity and imagination that could provide solutions for the future. It also places universities and other educational facilities in a darwinian "compete or die" posture.
Where next? In this context Xiaoping addresses the important distinction between the dominant Neoliberalist understanding of globalisation and internationalisation. While globalisation would ignore nations, states, regions, etc. in favor of global players, internationalisation, in fact a response to globalisation. It focuses on cooperative exchange and tolerance of difference serving both local and mutual interests. The author has cobbled together a credible Model of Practice for the Interationalisation of Higher Education taking into account the political, economic, educational and socio-cultural envrionments in which it must operate.
In the fourth chapter the author undertakes a deliciously concrete comparative case study of China and New Zealand, countries she is most familiar with, to illustrate the changes of national direction and internationalisation of education resulting from the current globalisation climate. Many readers may be surprised by the high level of interchange between the two countries both in education and commerce. This review of history and policy puts flesh on the bones of theory and serves as a launching platform for the penultimate chapter. Here Xaoping advocates and defends the Neo-Marxist interpretation of internationalisation as a basis for reacting fairly to and proactively managing the confluence of cultures in higher education in an equitable fashion, which she calls "interculturalisation."
The author reviews definitions of multiculturalism from a variety of perspectives and attempts to distinguish intercultral from multicultural to highlight as intercultural the aspects of cultures that persist and are the subject of exchange and even conflict in multicultural societies. The Neo-Marxist position she advocates in support of interculturalization includes strong resistence to the commodification of culture and supports active governmental intervention in markets to resist destructive forms of hybridizaton.This is seen as supporting social justice and dismantling to the degree possible the post-colonial influences of dominant powers. She adds that neo-Marxism should not be viewed as a rigid ideology but one open to change and evaluation by other theories and influences.
This leads to the need for effective intercultural communication, and Xioping demonstrates a solid overview of theory and practice in the intercultural field as it affects higher education. Fortunately the author does not get trapped in the occasionally useful but narrow boilerplate of cultural dimensions but echos the broader opinion that "all economic, political, religious, legal, educational, scientific and technological activities are cultural activities, since they are part of a certain culture." For this reviewer, it is a reminder of the limited perspective that interculturalists can place on their work, often due, I would suspect, to the Neoliberal subtext of their work as a commodity needing to be marketed and sold to students and commercial organizations. Her analysis also highlights the need for developing processes for how cultural values will be negotiated in an intercultural environment.
The final chapter briefly examines the challenges and practices facing intercultural communication. First one must recognize that intercultural communication, recognizing, supporting and negotiating differences, is per se a threat to the Neoliberal concept of globalisation where differences are problems to be done away with as soon as possible. Interculturalists are employed by commercial organizations, that though they may explicitly tout diversity and multiculturalism, nonetheless business clients tend to make it a bottom line and ROI issue. When language teachers teach a language or interculturalists inculcate theory and techniques of intercultural communication, there is the question of the Neo-liberal undertow in the end uses of this savoir-faire, i.e., to support the ability of the end users to influence "those others"effectively.
Differences safeguard and rejuvenate society, in the author's opinion and are seriously threatened by the common neoliberal paradigm and the belief in the superiority of Western models and praxis which continues to provoke extremism as a form of resistence. Intercultural communication, she insists, is in fact impossible if not grounded in an ongoing discourse about diversity and equality. The author, true to her background in languages and interpretation unfolds what has to happen on the micro level in language teaching and learning that is true to its cultural puprose. Cultural input is not an optional side dish, but the main course of language learning. In the author's words, "Intercultural competence is not so much `native speaker fluency'... but 'intercultural communicative competence'".
Nonethless, internationalisation in the market economy still means that, though the ethos may differ, and respect is shown for cultural and ethnic diversity, someone must pay for the educational enterprise, returing us to the market framework of competitive import and export of educational services. In the current collapse of the economy the question is whether the assumptions of Neo-liberalism will be shaken to any great degree. All indications so far point in the direction of propping up and revivifying the existing system without serious challenge to the fundamental assumptions lying beneath it.
The author has made this complex academic study, involving a sizeable literature review at every step, quite readable by the the use of relatively simple language, and the frequent insertion of comparative charts for viewing both the positions of the schools of thought and the history of relevent developments in pursuit of the topic. She compassionately includes a list of abbreviations at the front of the book where the reader can easily refer to them.
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