Round table discussion

Title: Culture and Knowledge: Teaching foreign notions to foreign students.

Salah Kutieleh and Sandra Egege

Abstract

The internationalisation of Australian universities presents a double challenge for student support services - to provide academic support programs which address perceived culturally-based academic differences and to provide support programs which are culturally sensitive, inclusive and which contribute to the success of international students. Critical thinking is a paradigmatic case. Universities insist that critical thinking is a requirement of quality academic work while academics bemoan the lack of a critical approach to study by international students in general, and Asian students in particular. Yet little overt acknowledgement is given to the fact that critical thinking is a specifically Western approach to knowledge claims. The challenge for transition programs is how to incorporate critical thinking within their framework without adopting either a deficit or assimilationist approach. The focus of this discussion is how best to meet this challenge.