Teaching ‘tacit knowledge' in cultural and creative industries to international students

Universities in Australia – as in many other Anglophone countries – have benefited from an influx of full fee paying international students. Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) as an increasingly desirable career for these students and associated with rising state investment has given Anglophone universities the privilege in this international educational market. The disembeddedness of these students from very different urban context impact further their learning experiences. The unprecedented growth of ‘internationals’ has also put the curriculum at odds with its original intent based on tacit knowledge training targeting local professionals. The Master of Cultural and Creative Industries at Monash University is illustrative of this multiplicity of conflicts and tensions. Via the two field trip units designed based on ‘experiential learning', the model for tacit learning, we lay out how conflicts on fundamental cultural values have been important in our course design as part of acquiring ‘a special kind of city knowledge'.