This project started with the Taiwanese�s Cultural & Creative Industries Policy, which demands that all new products include local cultural content. However, little is known about Taiwanese cultures. This research looked specifically at one of the cultures, the Paiwanese Tribe. This thesis reports on the research journey; identifying what the Paiwanese knew about their culture and why they were unable to produce traditional products. It argues that the displacement of the tribe has made it materially impossible to continue traditional practices. This research then identified ways of capturing spirit of traditional culture using modern technology. A successful model of working with crafts people workshops in discussed. A case is made for the use of narrative enquiry and oral history to record Paiwanese understanding. These understandings were translated into a design outcome using a design method called narrative design. The success of this research suggests that such an approach is one model that can be used in design using new technologies and materials from the re-establishment method of traditional products. The understanding generated for regaining traditional craft knowledge is extended with the design of a tea set that draws on this traditional knowledge, narrative and culture. The tea set represents this knowledge for a global market. It is argued that the design process used can guide design that transforms the culture message and delivers it for a wide audience. This design concept process is a model that can be used to develop cultural products.

In many Western societies grandparents take on the role of occasional or short-term care providers of their grandchildren. However, recent years have witnessed a significant increase, both in Australia and overseas, in the number of children being raised by their grandparents due to the inability of the children’s parents to effectively meet their parenting responsibilities.This study is an interpretive inquiry that seeks to understand the meanings grandparents attach to their experiences of the grandparent-as-parent role, rather than the traditional grandparent role. The study also investigates how assuming the non-traditional grandparent role has influenced the identity of grandparent caregivers. A narrative inquiry approach was employed to ‘hear the voices’ of 34 grandparents who were raising their grandchildren in NSW, Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with each of the participants and their narratives were subsequently analysed through the lens of identity theory.Findings from the study reveal that grandparents experience a significant degree of roleidentity conflict in their grandparent-as-parent role. The loss of their traditional grandparent role, together with the shift in commitment to the grandparent-as-parent role, has resulted in a ‘space of difference’ between the ‘ideal’ and the ‘real’ of being a grandparent. This ‘space of difference’ is made up of a series of binary experiences described as myth/reality, visible/invisible, deserving/undeserving, voice/silenced, included/excluded, which appear to have consequentially impacted grandparents’ selfesteem and self-verification processes. The study posits that grandparents lack adequate support, or doulia, resulting in a prevailing belief that their commitment to the grandparentas- parent role is not publicly acknowledged nor afforded the justice it deserves.The study concludes that both policy and practice in NSW have failed to recognise and address the complexity of experience, or the ‘space of difference’ occupied by grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, and provides a number of recommendations in response to the grandparent experiences narrated through this research.

In many Western societies grandparents take on the role of occasional or short-term care providers of their grandchildren. However, recent years have witnessed a significant increase, both in Australia and overseas, in the number of children being raised by their grandparents due to the inability of the children’s parents to effectively meet their parenting responsibilities.This study is an interpretive inquiry that seeks to understand the meanings grandparents attach to their experiences of the grandparent-as-parent role, rather than the traditional grandparent role. The study also investigates how assuming the non-traditional grandparent role has influenced the identity of grandparent caregivers. A narrative inquiry approach was employed to ‘hear the voices’ of 34 grandparents who were raising their grandchildren in NSW, Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with each of the participants and their narratives were subsequently analysed through the lens of identity theory.Findings from the study reveal that grandparents experience a significant degree of roleidentity conflict in their grandparent-as-parent role. The loss of their traditional grandparent role, together with the shift in commitment to the grandparent-as-parent role, has resulted in a ‘space of difference’ between the ‘ideal’ and the ‘real’ of being a grandparent. This ‘space of difference’ is made up of a series of binary experiences described as myth/reality, visible/invisible, deserving/undeserving, voice/silenced, included/excluded, which appear to have consequentially impacted grandparents’ selfesteem and self-verification processes. The study posits that grandparents lack adequate support, or doulia, resulting in a prevailing belief that their commitment to the grandparentas- parent role is not publicly acknowledged nor afforded the justice it deserves.The study concludes that both policy and practice in NSW have failed to recognise and address the complexity of experience, or the ‘space of difference’ occupied by grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, and provides a number of recommendations in response to the grandparent experiences narrated through this research.

In many Western societies grandparents take on the role of occasional or short-term care providers of their grandchildren. However, recent years have witnessed a significant increase, both in Australia and overseas, in the number of children being raised by their grandparents due to the inability of the children’s parents to effectively meet their parenting responsibilities.This study is an interpretive inquiry that seeks to understand the meanings grandparents attach to their experiences of the grandparent-as-parent role, rather than the traditional grandparent role. The study also investigates how assuming the non-traditional grandparent role has influenced the identity of grandparent caregivers. A narrative inquiry approach was employed to ‘hear the voices’ of 34 grandparents who were raising their grandchildren in NSW, Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with each of the participants and their narratives were subsequently analysed through the lens of identity theory.Findings from the study reveal that grandparents experience a significant degree of roleidentity conflict in their grandparent-as-parent role. The loss of their traditional grandparent role, together with the shift in commitment to the grandparent-as-parent role, has resulted in a ‘space of difference’ between the ‘ideal’ and the ‘real’ of being a grandparent. This ‘space of difference’ is made up of a series of binary experiences described as myth/reality, visible/invisible, deserving/undeserving, voice/silenced, included/excluded, which appear to have consequentially impacted grandparents’ selfesteem and self-verification processes. The study posits that grandparents lack adequate support, or doulia, resulting in a prevailing belief that their commitment to the grandparentas- parent role is not publicly acknowledged nor afforded the justice it deserves.The study concludes that both policy and practice in NSW have failed to recognise and address the complexity of experience, or the ‘space of difference’ occupied by grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, and provides a number of recommendations in response to the grandparent experiences narrated through this research.

In the past 30 years there has been a rapid and exponential growth in the numbers of people electing to complete all or part of their studies outside of their country of origin. This phenomenon has attracted considerable research attention, not least from those who are interested to describe the benefits seen to accrue from the opportunity this provides for an extended encounter with linguistic and cultural diversity. Notably, the widespread assumption that this can generate a new form of learning, commonly referred to as intercultural learning, which is understood to comprise increased tolerance, empathy and openness to the linguistic and cultural other. Despite the limited research data to substantiate these claims, among those interested to develop educational responses to globalization, the potential of intercultural contact to generate intercultural learning has considerable appeal and has been co-opted in the development of policy and practice to promote global citizenship at all levels of education. This has contributed to the emergence of a particular discourse about intercultural learning and is further fuelling the development of both short and long-stay study abroad programmes. This discourse is, however, increasingly called into question on account of the perceived overly-simplistic constructions of interculturality and learning on which it is premised. In particular, there is a growing recognition of the need to develop situated accounts of people’s everyday encounters with linguistic and cultural others which acknowledge the exigencies of the setting, as well as the impact of wider political economic and historical discourses on their positioning in intercultural encounters. The generation of ‘thick’ descriptions of people’s lived experiences of interculturality in global educational contact zones, it is argued, can lead to a more nuanced account of the intercultural learning these can afford. This was the aim of the study reported in this thesis. The study undertaken explores the relationship between an experience of interculturality and learning among 14 international students during their year-long sojourn at a university in the UK. Drawing upon a socially constructed relational understanding of learning informed by the transactional and dialogic conceptualization of learning developed by Dewey and Bakhtin among others, the study sought to generate a narrative account of participants’ experiences and learning generated from periodic individual and group interviews over the year as well as reflective accounts in participants portfolios and other opportunistic conversations recorded in the researcher log. Primary analysis of the data revealed that participants’ experiences generated a number of forms of learning. One of these, ‘learning about self in relation to linguistic and cultural other’ was identified as a form of intercultural learning, comprising learning to be more open to the other and learning about linguistic and cultural positioning. This was subsequently explored in more depth, revealing a complex interplay between these two elements and the strategic actions taken by participants to manage their encounters with linguistic and cultural others. These results revealed considerable differences in the learning trajectories and outcomes resulting from their intercultural encounter. The findings also point to the importance of sustained commitment to intercultural dialogue on the part of individuals and the perception of their ethical treatment by others as important to the direction their learning trajectories take. On the basis of these findings, it is argued that while an encounter with linguistic and cultural other may lead to increased tolerance, empathy and openness to other associated with the way intercultural learning is employed in much of the research literature, the strategic actions learners take to negotiate their linguistic and cultural positioning will critically inform the extent to which they develop these qualities. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the ways in which a situated and relational conceptualization of interculturality and learning is seen to contribute to a more informed and deeper understanding of the sorts of intercultural learning that are made possible by an intercultural encounter. I also identify a number of research agendas which can build upon the insights provided by the study.