Global Cultural Flows and Pedagogic Dilemmas: Teaching in the Global University Contact Zone

Abstract

Sites of internationalized education are the result of, and in turn contribute to, the cultural processes of globalization. These sites have created new education contact zones which may pose moral dilemmas for the teachers therein - in particular for the teachers employed in the cultural contact zones of English as a Second Language (ESL), English for Academic Purposes (EAP), and Foundation preparatory programs. This paper reviews theorizations of culture, cultural identity and cultural processes under conditions of globalization, and then analyzes teachers' interview accounts of pedagogic choices in designing and enacting educational programs for international students in the contact zone of the global university. Specifically, it examines the ways in which teachers navigate and manage the dilemmas created between their professional ethic of cultural respect, and the curricula of linguistic/cultural orientation to Western higher education. It is proposed that teachers' different assumptions about the cultural processes of globalization contribute to the construction of a range of strategies and moral positions when managing such dilemmas. Moreover, it is suggested that holistic, tightly bounded notions of culture no longer adequately inform pedagogic practice in these globalized and globalizing sites.

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