"The impressive and stimulating essays in Bridging Transcultural Divides deal with the cultural and educational issues in the Australian context. (...) The books central message is that education for Asian students in Australia, and more broadly in the West, can no longer been seen as a one-way transfer of knowledge, but must be understood as a process of reciprocal learning in which both teachers and students are changed by the experience." - Prof. Tim Wright, University of Sheffield.

Written with passion, the stories told in this book are those of the search, loss and recreation of identities. From the Fiji-born women living in Canada looking for themselves to the Japanese of Korean origin having lost touch with their original culture, from the Catalonian demand for recognition to the quest for a common European heritage, we can read of the endless need of peoples to find their rightful place in our multicultural societies.

The Bachelor of Arts (BA) was the first recognised degree at the University of Adelaide. Although informal classes for some subjects were held at the University between 1873 and 1875, the first official University lecture was a Latin lecture at 10 am on Monday 28 March 1876. This was followed by lectures in Greek, English and Mental Philosophy. By 1878, the first BA student, Thomas Ainslie Caterer, completed his studies for the BA degree and in 1879 became the first graduate of the University of Adelaide. Even though the BA was the first degree it was not until eight years later in 1887 that the Faculty of Arts was inaugurated (after the Faculty of Law in 1884, a Board of Studies in Music in 1885 and the Faculty of Medicine in 1885). Following the creation of a separate science degree in 1882 many scientific subjects were removed from the BA. For the next five years the subjects were Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Logic, English, History, and Comparative Philology. Later other subjects such as French, German and Political Economy were added toward the end of the nineteenth century. In 1897 the Elder Conservatorium of Music was created as the first music school of its type in Australia, although at that time it was not part of the Faculty of Arts. In the first 50 years of the Universitys existence, less than ten BA students graduated each year. At the start of the 21st century this figure had climbed to over 300 BA graduates per year but what is interesting is that by 2010 the number of BA graduates was equalled by the number of graduates from separate named degrees within the Faculty plus 70 Music graduates. In addition, during the first decade of the twenty-first century, there were over 60 coursework postgraduates plus more than 40 research postgraduates graduating each year.

This volume revisits the notions of Orientalism, Occidentalism and, to a certain extent, Reverse Orientalism/Occidentalism in the 21st century, adopting post-modern, constructionist and potentially non-essentialising approaches. The representations of the ‘cultural Other’ in education, literature and the arts are examined by scholars working in Australia, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the USA. Vinyl compilations, TV series, novels, institutional discourses and surveys, amongst others, are examined so as to better understand how people construct their identity in relation to an imagined and idealised Other. This book will appeal to all researchers and students interested in cultural identity and stereotypes of the ‘East’ and the ‘West’, in particular in the fields of academic mobility, cultural studies, intercultural education, postcolonial literature and media studies.

Intercultural Twinnings presents innovative practices that enable direct contact between people of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, languages, and religions. This collection explores models and intervention tools to support the work of teachers, researchers, practitioners, and students.

Teachers of Chinese as a foreign language in many international contexts are searching for pedagogic solutions to promote effective learning. Models of innovative and successful approaches are urgently needed. This volume presents a collection of compelling and empirically rich research studies that showcases innovative developments in the practice of teaching Chinese as a foreign language. The studies focus on three interrelated areas: learners, teachers, and applications of new technologies. Specifically, the studies explore methods for fostering learner-centred classrooms, autonomous learners, intercultural learning, the role of teacher views and identities, the nature of a ‘middle ground’ approach, and technologies that accommodate the unique aspects of the Chinese language, with new options for mobile and interactive learners. Providing both inspiration and practical models for language practitioners and researchers, it offers a vital resource for teachers’ professional development, and for pre-service teacher education.

Intercultural pragmatics addresses one of the major issues of human communication in the globalized world: how do people interact with each other in a language other than their native tongue, and with native speakers of the language of interaction? Bringing together a globally-representative team of scholars, this Handbook provides an authoritative overview to this fascinating field of study, as well as a theoretical framework. Chapters are grouped into 5 thematic areas: theoretical foundation, key issues in Intercultural Pragmatics research, the interface between Intercultural Pragmatics and related disciplines, Intercultural Pragmatics in different types of communication, and language learning. It addresses key concepts and research issues in Intercultural Pragmatics, and will trigger fresh lines of enquiry and generate new research questions. Comprehensive in its scope, it is essential reading not only for scholars of pragmatics, but also of discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, communication, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and second language teaching and learning.

This book examines and shares concrete and specific strategies and policies for doing liberal arts education in a wide range of contexts. It deepens readers’ understanding of the processes of adopting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches to the development and teaching of liberal arts courses, integrating diversity and inclusion in policies and practices of liberal arts education, and institutionalizing evidence-based policy making. Moreover, it provides educators and policymakers with practical guidelines on how to incorporate core values of liberal arts education.

Language teachers are key figures in preparing young people for participation in an increasingly multilingual and culturally diverse world, yet little is known about how they go about this in practice. This book uses examples of classroom interaction to reveal how teachers of languages act as intercultural mediators and the implications of this for practice. To date, there has been little exploration of how teachers mediate language and culture learning from an intercultural perspective, and what underlies their mediation practices in terms of their conceptions of intercultural language teaching and learning. This book offers an account of what teachers are thinking, feeling and doing as they enact an intercultural perspective on language teaching and learning.