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David Carter This edition of Crossings presents papers from a recent conference organised by InASA and the Australian Studies Centre at the University of Queensland. Participants at the conference came from across Australia and from the UK, China, Taiwan, Japan, and Indonesia. The conference, “Teaching Across Cultures: Australian Studies in an International Context”, addressed the increasingly international contexts in which Australian studies occurs, not only when Australia is being taught overseas, but also in Australia itself where our classrooms often include a majority of international students. And as Sara Wills point out in her essay, even where the classroom is comprised primarily of local students, in a multicultural society we cannot assume a single shared ethnic identity. Some issues are common to all of us—how to teach the diverse aspects of Australian society, history, culture and politics to students with little or no background knowledge—while other issues are peculiar to the local or national context in which Australian studies finds itself, whether in New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, Wales or Taiwan, Sydney or Lismore. |
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The essays cover a wide range of topics and contexts, moving from specific problems of pedagogy and assessment to broader philosophical and political issues. Discussions at the conference also addressed the programs already in place or being established to assist in the support of Australian studies overseas. The bilateral bodies with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade—the Australia-China Council, the Australia-Indonesia Institute, the Australia-Japan Foundation and the Australia-India Council—are now all managing Australian studies programs. The InASA executive has agreed to publish a selection of essays from the conference plus a new commissioned pieces in a book on the same topic of teaching Australian studies in an international context. Watch this space! Let me also bring to your attention the 2003 Australian Studies Centre Masterclass on the theme of "Territorial Techniques" being offered by the University of Queensland 31 October-2 November. Click here for more. < < < enter > > > |