Knowledge Hierarchies in Transnational Education ─ Staging Dissensus

The dominant approaches to transnational education programs seek equivalence in standards and/or relevance of outcomes through the transfer of Western theories, concepts and methods. Utilising a critique-interpretative approach, Jing Qi problematises these equivalence-based and relevance-oriented programs, arguing that they assume the legitimacy of the global knowledge hierarchy and impose Euro-American educational theories as defaults in non-Western contexts. The book investigates the relationship between theoretical knowledge, knowledge hierarchies and critique, in order to suggest new approaches to transnational education which advance global-local knowledge.

Grounded in a five-year study of a transnational teacher education and community capacity-building program in Northern Chile, each chapter systematically maps and analyses critiques of multiple dimensions of knowledge hierarchies in relation to a theoretical knowledge transference and production trail. A matrix mapping system is used to chart and theorise the educational actors’ critiques along the trail of translation, learning, application and innovation, of knowledge hierarchies that operate at and across global, transnational, local and the newly-created local-global levels. By examining how each critique modulates the ascendancy of knowledge hierarchies, the book explores how alternative knowledge processes that enfranchise non-western educational actors for theoretical knowledge production can be enabled in transnational education programs.

Knowledge Hierarchies in Transnational Education will be of key value to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of international education, teacher education and globalisation.

Dr Jing Qi is an educational researcher at the Faculty of Education and Social Work in the University of Sydney, and the Centre for Educational Research in the University of Western Sydney, Australia.