大学教育における多文化をめぐる揺らぎ: オーストラリア

This chapter unpacks the dilemma of articulation between local multiculturalism and global competencies in undergraduate education, using Australia as a case study. Following a brief historical overview of multicultural policies in Australian education, the chapter highlights the connections and disconnections between these policies and the growing concern with equipping graduates with skills that will make them ‘employable’ in the global labour market. Parallels are drawn between the present-day focus on intercultural competence and related concepts and the way similar challenges have been framed in the past, most notably the ‘Asia literacy’ agenda which has been a recurrent feature of policy discussions. This examination reveals a significant dis-articulation of the discourses and practices of multiculturalism, which are still prominent in the primary and secondary education spheres, and those of global employability, which dominate at undergraduate level, driven partly by a strongly instrumentalist approach to internationalization across the Australian higher education sector.