Postgraduate boundary crossings?

Abstract

This Special Issue: Crossing Philosophical, Cultural and Geographic Boundaries in Educational Scholarship?: Postgraduate Experiences arose out of an invited panel of postgraduate speakers at the 42nd Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia Conference, held 7–10 December 2012 in Chiayi, Taiwan. The wider conference theme of “Crossing Boundaries” generated lively discussions about what such encounters and experiences might mean in the broader sphere of education; while the postgraduate speakers were invited to address their personal experience of boundaries during doctoral study. The central thrust of this invitation was to consider the extent to which such boundaries could (or should) be crossed through postgraduate experiences, and to gain a deeper appreciation of what this might mean for scholars who venture – physically and/or philosophically – outside of familiar terrain. The papers that comprise this issue provide associated cross-cultural, cross-country and cross-philosophical narratives, reflections and interrogations of their experiences in this regard. In doing so the authors provide a rich landscape through which to consider boundary crossing as an opportunity to expand on knowledge and/or to appreciate ones own position through encounters with ‘other’. Such crossings (or attempts to cross) presented significant challenges to these students, as they reveal in this issue. Their insights highlight the point that crossing philosophical, cultural and geographic boundaries is often a difficult relationship between all three, and, that there are costs involved. Such profoundly confronting experiences of crossing (or not crossing) are not necessarily bridges to be traversed as much as a means of confronting boundaries through which students might gain important insights – about themselves as persons of culture, scholars and members of a global society that is characterized by difference. This complex encounter – for all its pleasure and pain – is, evident through every paper in this issue, and sets the scene for important 21st century dialogues concerning diversity and difference in education.