La enfermedad desde una perspectiva cultural

Knight, Tait and Yorke (2006) viewed professional learning for higher education academics as a systemic interplay between individuals and their environments, with the development of professional capabilities occurring through situated social practices complemented by event‐based educational professional development. Their study of 2401 part‐time teachers, and online responses from 248 full‐time staff, in the UK Open University, revealed those academics’ preferences for ‘social learning’ through conversing, consulting and mentoring with others to create shared meaning, followed by participation in collegiate and equitable learning teams, attending staff development activities and drawing upon printed materials. Reflective procedures and practices that melded experience, context, research and theory were also recommended to support both non‐formal and formal learning. These perspectives, however, are in conflict with training programs for intercultural competence that take an instrumentalist, objective approach based on codified knowledge (Caruana & Montgomery 2015; Kim 2010). Thus, the question of what are the most effective forms of institutional support for the professional development of academic staff in their offshore work was asked in this study.

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It is frequently advised that higher education institutions augment intercultural learning for both onshore and local staff though systematic support, particularly through formal induction programs (Dobos 2011; Gribble & Ziguras 2003; Smith L 2009), including online guides (University of South Australia 2011). Induction programs have been offered by provider universities for their home and host staff with beneficial outcomes, including increased collegiality, and a sense of belonging and identity for all academics, although if a train-the-trainer approach was employed, the likely outcome was a loss of sense of autonomy for host academics (Soontiens & Pedigo 2013).

Various approaches to redressing imbalances between home and local academics have been suggested. Leask and Carroll (2011) recommended a shift in professional development programs away from addressing knowledge and skills deficits towards the ways teachers can create learning spaces that encourage meaningful and purposeful cross- cultural interaction and engagement. Djerasimovic (2014) conceptualised transnational partnerships in offshore higher education as ‘eduscapes’ in which parties occupied power positions that were not automatically and necessarily hierarchical. Begin‐Caouette (2013) and Forstrop (2013) visualised the notion of ‘eduscapes’ as global networks characterised by close and equal transnational partnerships built on mutual understanding between stakeholders. According to Allen (2014), to achieve an effective partnership, transnational institutions needed to be flexible, culturally sensitive, share a vision, and support professional development through relevant collaborative learning activities.

As Waterval, Frambach, Driessen, and Scherpbier (2015) argued, such issues were likely to become more manageable through clear and detailed partnership agreements aimed at building and maintaining effective relationships between higher education institutions. In order to do so, such relations should be characterised by a sensitive balance of the expectations of home and host countries through shared values, trust, compromise, and effective communication (Wilkins 2017). However, Caruana and Montgomery (2015) argued that in the transnational context, the relationship between academics and their institutions shifts with the institution becoming the more significant player, a

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consequence of which was a reduction in academic autonomy which would hamper the effectiveness of collaborative partnerships.

Despite the provision of formal institutional support activities, informal mentoring from colleagues was a cultural learning strategy of choice for many academics undertaking offshore work (Gribble & Ziguras 2003; Paige & Goode 2009; Smith L 2009). Examples included informal mentoring programs with experienced staff prior to offshore teaching, and teaming with colleagues to construct and share understandings. Several other concerns have been raised as to the effectiveness of informal mentoring, especially when there were few opportunities available for evaluation of learning outcomes (Zachary & Fischler 2009). Both Smith L (2009) and Hoare (2013) warned that informal mentoring could reinforce inappropriate attitudes, behaviours and stereotypes, and entrenched ethnocentrism could be perpetuated when mentoring academics had not engaged in their own reflective intercultural development. Furthermore, Dobos (2011) and Soontiens and Pedigo (2013) were concerned that support and peer-to-peer mentoring of local staff by visiting academics was a manifestation of the underlying inequity and power differential between academic staff, when the purpose was to transition the teaching philosophies held by local academics to that required by home institutions.

As well as the focus on professional developmental for academics, Beer, Rodriguez, Taylor, Martinez-Jones, Griffin, Smith, Lamar and Anaya (2015) and Chan (2016) recommended the benefits from training and mentoring to prepare thoughtful and contemplative educational managers, especially as the evaluation of academic staff performance often rested with university and program managers, yet these administrators often worked in silos with limited understanding of the values and roles of others (Trowler, Saunders & Bamber 2012). Austin and Jones (2016) lent weight to the proposition for widening institutional support for professional development beyond academics. They identified resistance from academics as the possible consequence of an isolated institutional bureaucracy that prioritised corporate interests over academic freedom, shared governance and critical inquiry, especially when the quality of learning, its social impact and contribution, and the well-being of staff and students were perceived

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to be devalued in favour of quantitative indicators, and the competing agendas of non- academic stakeholders.

It would seem, then, that as Lynch (2013) contended, general university professional development support did not necessarily provide adequate preparation of academics for contemporary offshore work, therefore, opportunity exists for the development of high quality activities by institutions that go beyond only teaching related issues, in conjunction with more formalised support for staff when they are offshore. Experience in teaching international students in Australia, for instance, was not deemed effective preparation for offshore work, as those students were out of their home contexts, had different concerns, and required different forms of support (Seah & Edwards 2006). In addition, as Jais (2012) established, the acknowledgement and reward by institutions of offshore teaching experience as being both important and integral to academics’ career development would promote mutual quality benefits. By ascertaining the perspectives of academics who had sojourned in Hong Kong, this current study hopes to further illuminate the nature of their development preferences and needs for institutional support.