Connecting Intellectual Projects in China and Australia: Bradley's International Student-Migrants, Bourdieu and Productive Ignorance

Abstract

Ignorance is a potentially powerful conceptual tool for analyses of pedagogies for internationalising Australian education. Ignorance typically has a negative connotation but, in this paper, knowledge and ignorance are seen as intermingling productively, with ignorance stimulating the production of knowledge, in turn creating new fields of ignorance. Bourdieu's work is illustrative of and contributes to analysis of this complex interplay of knowledge and ignorance. Pedagogically, teacher ignorance may engage international students from China in connecting intellectual projects between Australia and their homeland.