Akademische Wissensproduktion als interkulturelles Forschungsfeld

Abstract

Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der akademischen Wissensproduktion im kulturellen Vergleich und als interkulturelles Forschungsfeld. Auf der Grundlage eines gemeinsamen Projekts verschiedener europäischer Universitäten soll die Wechselwirkung von institutionellen Vorgaben und akademischer Kommunikation zum Thema einer Studie gemacht werden. Exemplarisch werden funktionale Lehr- und Lernstile zum Untersuchungsgegenstand gemacht. Methodisch soll sowohl phänomenologisch beschreibend als auch empirisch-analytisch vorgegangen werden. Innerhalb des Projekts sollen universitäre Gesprächstypen und Textsorten betrachtet werden. Dabei sollen die einzelnen akademischen Milieus so kleinschrittig, dicht und genau beschrieben werden, um zu einer Analyse zu gelangen, die den Eigenheiten des spezifischen kulturellen akademischen Milieus Rechnung trägt.

This article focuses on academic knowledge production, especially on academic communication as a field of research in intercultural studies. Based on a common project of different European Universities it is intended to point out cultural specifics as well as the reciprocity of the institutional frame work and academic communication as subjects of research. There is a perceived necessity that the humanities' own hermeneutic basic assumptions should be reflected more critically. For instance the conception of what we call a good way of teaching differs in different cultures (civilizations). Using the way of phenomenological description and empirical studies of different phenomena within the academic setting, the subject offers many possibilities for being interlinked with other topics. Actually we try to work out within the project culture specific features of academic communication, e.g. different ways of teaching and learning styles, different ways of examining and grading the students, different types of academic texts (or different understanding of the types), and culture-specific academic rituals as consultation hours (the so-called Sprechstunde in German, which is not the same as the office hour in the US). Another interesting field for empirical research are styles of academic communications like e-mailing (especially between professors and students). Our goal is to describe the considered academic settings as concrete and thick as possible to get an analysis which points out the singularities of the different cultural and social academic environments and allows comparisons from an intercultural perspective.