Recognising Cultural Capital Through Intercultural Dialogue: An Exploration of Pedagogical Partnership

Abstract

Responding to calls for theoretically framing power in pedagogical partnership, we answer the question: How do students and teachers recognise cultural capital through intercultural dialogue? Data was collected from individual interviews, focus groups, documents, and non-participant observations of partnership project groups over 16 weeks. In total, 12 students and six teaching staff participated in this study. As a part of a larger focused ethnography, drawing on Bourdieu’s social field theory and communication accommodation theory, we conducted a reflective thematic analysis of the qualitative data set. In this article, we primarily report interview and focus group data associated with observational data. The findings reveal that participants recognised new forms of cultural capital by applying communication strategies to share meanings and negotiating different cultural norms in the ongoing dialogue. However, some found that maintaining effective intercultural dialogue was challenging, and simply engaging in partnership did not result in a productive exchange of knowledge or recognition of cultural capital. This article contributes to conceptualising intercultural dialogue as a process of negotiating capital that involves reshaping habitus and navigating cross-field tensions in partnership. We argue that recognising cultural capital requires deliberate efforts from participants to initiate and support ongoing dialogue with multiple communication strategies.

Introduction

Engaging students as partners (SaP) in teaching and learning is a growing practice in higher education (HE) that nurtures student–teacher collaboration. While scholars have applied varied terms for SaP, such as ‘student–staff partnership’, ‘students as co-creators’, and ‘pedagogical partnership’, there is a consensus that partnership entails a deep recognition of the diverse experiences and expertise of both students and teachers (Healey et al., 2014). In this article, we use ‘pedagogical partnership’ and ‘partnership’ interchangeably to refer to the practice of advocating the values of respect, reciprocity, and responsibility in student–teacher collaborations (Cook-Sather et al., 2014). Pedagogical partnership is defined as “a collaborative, reciprocal process through which all participants have the opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways, to curricular or pedagogical conceptualization, decision making, implementation, investigation, or analysis” (Cook-Sather et al., 2014, pp. 6–7).

Partnership is about a dialogical process where students and teachers bring their different but equally valuable perspectives to collaborations (Bovill, 2020). Through this process, students and teachers negotiate the existing power arrangements by validating students’ knowledge and experiences and legitimating them as knowledge holders in HE (Marquis et al., 2017). However, bringing diverse perspectives of students and teachers into dialogue “does not always easily result in a new, more fully informed perspective” (Cook-Sather, 2015, pp. 18). A recent scoping review suggested that involving members from diverse cultural-linguistic backgrounds in partnership adds complexities to negotiating power and navigating intercultural communication (Zhang et al., 2023). Scholars have increasingly called for greater attention to inclusivity in teaching and learning and for more critical framing of power within partnership practices (Cook-Sather et al., 2018; Mercer-Mapstone & Bovill, 2020; Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017). Despite these calls, there remains limited empirical research on the micro-level processes through which students and teachers from diverse backgrounds negotiate power in practice. Most existing studies report participants’ perceptions of partnership outcomes. The interactions in which cultural knowledge is shared, contested, and recognised as valuable capital were underexplored. This gap limits our understanding of how intercultural partnership can either reproduce or disrupt existing hierarchies.

In response, this article answers the research question: How do students and teachers recognise cultural capital through intercultural dialogue? The larger focused ethnography described in this article had a specific research focus on intercultural partnership practices that involve students and teachers from different cultural-linguistic backgrounds. Drawing on Bourdieu’s social field theory and communication accommodation theory, we investigated power negotiation through intercultural dialogue in practice.

Dialogue and Power in Pedagogical Partnership

There are numerous existing scholarly discussions on the role of dialogue in partnership. For example, Bovill (2020) argued, “…co-creating learning and teaching content build meaningful relationships based on values of trust, shared respect and the importance of dialogue” (pp. 43). She linked the concept of dialogue with Noddings’s (1992) educational philosophy of caring, describing it as a process of interpersonal reasoning and sharing understanding, empathy and decision-making (Bovill, 2020). Matthews (2017) suggested that “SaP offers hope for students and staff seeking relational approaches to learning – built on and through dialogue — that enable shared responsibility and joint ownership for teaching, learning, and assessment” (pp. 1). Furthermore, Cook-Sather et al. (2014) suggested that students and teachers “engage in dialogue that stretches, reaffirms, and challenges” their perspectives and traditional norms of student and teacher roles (Cook-Sather et al., 2014, pp. 166).

While there are shared understandings of the necessity of building dialogue in partnership, scholars have raised concerns about how power dynamics play out in the dialogical process (Macfarlane et al., 2018; Reynolds, 2024). For example, Reynolds (2024) explored the role of dialogue in shaping student-teacher relationships and argued that “genuine dialogue is more than ‘discussion’ or ‘conversation’ and can significantly impact the relationship between a student and faculty member who are in partnership with one another” (pp. 1). Similarly, in another study, in which academics and students reflected on their experiences of navigating power dynamics in partnership, Peseta et al. (2021) suggested that “it is very difficult to engage in partnership without an ongoing and honest conversation (as well as recognising conversation’s limits) as a foundation for collaboration” (pp. 268). Additionally, Manor et al. (2010) suggested that a “deep understanding of a situation only develops when all relevant perspectives are honored, not just those with power and authority … those most affected by power dynamics are those least likely to have a voice to express and change dynamics” (pp. 3). These scholarly discussions highlight that dialogue must go beyond surface-level exchange and actively engage with the tensions of power (Cook-Sather et al., 2019).

Intercultural partnership advocates a deep recognition of diverse cultural knowledge and experiences from students and teachers. We argue that students and teachers can shift traditional power relationships by recognising new forms of cultural capital via intercultural dialogue. We draw on Ting-Toomey and Chung’s theory on intercultural communication, which defines intercultural dialogue as “the symbolic exchange process whereby individuals from two (or more) different cultural communities attempt to negotiate shared meanings in an interactive situation within an embedded social system” (Ting-Toomey & Chung, 2012, pp. 24). To better frame and explore the power dynamics and dialogical processes in intercultural partnership practices, we investigate intercultural dialogue through the lens of Bourdieu’s social field theory and communication accommodation theory.

Theoretical Framework: Bourdieu’s Social Field Theory and Communication Accommodation Theory

We draw upon Bourdieu’s social field theory and communication accommodation theory (CAT) to frame and discuss power in intercultural partnership practices (Bourdieu, 1977, 1990b; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Giles et al., 2023). Existing partnership literature has explored power through different lenses — for example, some scholars frame power through the lens of expertise and ownership of knowledge (Seale et al., 2015); Mercer-Mapstone and Mercer (2018) deconstructed power through feminist theories; and Peseta et al. (2021) reported how power circulated in their collaborations from a practical stance by constructing fictionalised stories. In this article, we apply Bourdieu’s social field theory as it confirms the complexities of power negotiation in partnership by explaining the dynamic relationship between social structure and individual agency within practice (Rawolle & Lingard, 2022). Bourdieu’s theory implies a promise of social change effected by individuals reshaping habitus and developing a critical reflective stance within the field (Adkins, 2003; Bathmaker, 2015). This framing allows us to interpret partnership not only as a social space where power is reproduced but also as a field where power relations can be disrupted through reflexive practice and negotiation of capital. This conceptualisation resonates with scholarship framing pedagogical partnership as a liminal space — a threshold where students and teachers step outside their traditional roles, negotiate new rules of interaction, and reshape relationships (Cook-Sather & Alter, 2011).

Bourdieu posited habitus, capital, and field are interconnected, and social practice is an interaction between individuals’ dispositions (habitus) and their positioning resources (capital) within a specific social space (Bourdieu, 1984). Habitus refers to the system of dispositions shaped by social spaces, which is durable yet open to change through new experiences and interactions (Bourdieu, 1990b). Fields are spaces of social relations, each with its own rules of the game, where individuals accumulate different forms of capital to maintain or improve their positions (Bourdieu, 1984, 1986). While Bourdieu (1986, 1990a) identified multiple forms of capital (economic, social, cultural, symbolic), cultural capital is most relevant to this study but is often unequally recognised in HE, where it is typically understood as disciplinary expertise, educational credentials, and familiarity with dominant cultural norms (Tran, 2016; Yu, 2020). As a result, teachers usually hold more recognised capital than students. Students and teachers from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds also navigate different educational fields, and their previous experiences shape their “feel for the game” (Bourdieu, 1990b, pp. 66). We conceptualise partnership as a specific field that operates with a separate logic of practices from the broader HE context and advocates a redistribution of power between students and teachers by legitimating students’ experiences and knowledge as new forms of cultural capital.

To examine how the power negotiation processes unfold in intercultural partnership practices, we also draw on CAT as a complementary lens that focuses on the micro-level communicative interactions. CAT explains how individuals from different cultural and social backgrounds adjust or maintain their communication behaviours to negotiate different perspectives and co-construct meaning (Giles et al., 2023). Convergence (aligning communication styles) can facilitate shared meaning-making (Zhang & Giles, 2018) and recognition of new cultural capital, while divergence (emphasising difference) can create productive tensions that challenge assumptions and prompt negotiation of the field’s rules. Scholars have argued that “while discussion has a primary goal of convergence (reaching the best solution or answer), dialogue has a primary goal of divergence — exchanging a broad range of perspectives to achieve a deeper understanding” (Werder et al., 2010, pp. 17). We apply CAT to investigate how students and teachers negotiate cultural perspectives, build relationships, and share meaning during partnership interactions (Hewett et al., 2009). This responds to calls to refine and extend Bourdieu’s theory in the current HE context (Naidoo, 2004; Webb et al., 2017).

Accommodation refers to individuals enacting positive-oriented communication behaviours towards the other communicator (Soliz & Giles, 2014). Gallois et al. (2005) identified five accommodative strategies: approximation, interpretability, discourse management, interpersonal control, and emotional expression. By examining these strategies alongside Bourdieu’s concepts, we show how students and teachers’ communicative approaches either reinforce or disrupt existing power relations, which makes the process of habitus reconstruction visible.

Research Context

This study was conducted at a high-ranking, research-intensive Australian university that attracts international students (around 22,000 from more than 140 countries in 2024). At the time of the study, our research participants were engaged in a university-wide pilot partnership program, the Change Academy, a facilitative structured program model that incorporated workshops and teams working on projects (Healey, Bradford, et al., 2013). This program aimed to enhance culturally inclusive assessments and feedback practices through pedagogical collaborations between students and teachers. Students and teachers worked in project groups, each working independently through the semester and focused on changes to the selected course, such as reviewing current feedback structures, redesigning assessment approaches, and evaluating feedback practices. Students partnered with teaching staff to share their perspectives on and experiences of assessment and feedback practices.

Methodology

We conducted a focused ethnography to capture students’ and teachers’ interpersonal interactions as they unfolded in partnership projects. Focused ethnography investigates “specific episodes or interactions in social fields (e.g., the morning conference or supervision of interns)” (Andreassen et al., 2020, pp. 297). Twelve students and six teaching staff recruited from the Change Academy program participated in this research. Participants were recruited through an open invitation to all members in the program. Inclusion criteria required participants to be actively involved in partnership projects during the data collection period. Participation was voluntary, and informed consent was obtained individually. We sought to include both student partners and teaching staff to capture diverse perspectives on power relations. Nine students were born and educated in mainland China and speak Chinese as their native language. One student was born in Hong Kong, China, and speaks English as their native language. Another student was born in Australia but has lived overseas for most of their life and speaks Chinese as their native language. Additionally, one student is an Australian domestic student who only speaks English. Among 12 student participants, eight were postgraduate students and four undergraduates. As for the teaching staff, four are native English speakers from Anglophone countries, and two speak Chinese as their native language, with one being from China and one from Malaysia. Pseudonyms were used for all participants. To further protect confidentiality, we omitted information about participants’ specific disciplines and any potentially identifying details about project content. This study received ethics approval from the university’s human research ethics committee.

Data was collected through individual interviews, focus groups, documents (e.g., group emails, co-created documents, and project reports), and longitudinal non-participant observations from meetings of three project groups for 16 weeks. Drawing on Androsov and Zhang’s (2023) approach of presenting data collection, we summarise the different data sources, types, and sample sizes in Table 1.

Table 1.

Data Inventory: Data Sources, Types, and Sample Size

Source	Type	Sample size (number and volume)
Observation	Audio-visual recordings	25 sessions (around 26 hr)
Documents	Emails, co-created documents, and reports	38 (around 118,000 words)
Individual interview	Transcripts	22 (around 99,000 words)
Focus group	Transcripts	2 (around 9,000 words)

Non-participant observations were used to capture enacted practices, i.e., what participants were doing and saying in practice (Argyris & Schön, 1997). In addition to observational data, we collected documents, reports and emails co-created by the three groups to understand their collaborative processes. Several students signed consent forms when other group members did not want to be involved in the research; these students participated in focus groups and individual interviews. Focused groups and semi-structured individual interviews were conducted to gain a deeper understanding of participants’ interpretations of student–teacher relationships during their project and their experiences of how they changed or maintained their relationships through intercultural dialogue.

We conducted a three-step focal instance analysis of the audio-visual recordings of observational data: sensemaking and familiarising ourselves with recordings; selecting focal instances; and analysing focal instances using the theoretical framework (Derry et al., 2010; Ronayne Sohr et al., 2020). Multiple sources of data, including audio-visual recordings, interview transcripts, and documents were uploaded into NVivo 12 Plus for data management and analysis. In this article, we primarily report interview and focus group data associated with observational data. We used reflective thematic analysis to identify and interpret themes in the qualitative data set (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019). Drawing on Bourdieu’s social field theory and communication accommodation theory, we engaged in an iterative process of identifying, coding, and checking alignment with theories. Then, we identified themes through three main steps: immersing ourselves in the data, designing and refining codes, and identifying themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2019). To strengthen the trustworthiness of the study, the first author engaged in reflexive practices throughout data collection and analysis, including maintaining a research diary, regularly discussing potential biases with co-authors and conducting member checking. These strategies helped ensure that our interpretations remained grounded in participants’ perspectives.

Findings and Discussion

Overall, our findings reveal that students and teachers recognised new forms of cultural capital by moving beyond traditional, hierarchical, and teacher-dominated dialogical practices and into a more collaborative and shared meaning-making process. More importantly, they highlighted their experiences of applying multiple communication strategies to support ongoing dialogue and generating new knowledge by negotiating divergence. However, some noted maintaining effective intercultural dialogue was challenging, and simply engaging in intercultural partnership did not result in a productive exchange of perspectives or knowledge. We present our themes and subthemes in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

An Overview of the Findings

Moving Beyond Traditional, Hierarchical, and Teacher-Dominated Dialogical Practices

Many participants shared their experiences of questioning and moving beyond the taken-for-granted and teacher-dominated dialogical practices to share meanings and recognise students’ diverse knowledge and experiences as new forms of cultural capital. Throughout the partnership project, teachers and students challenged the existing rules of interaction in the HE field by changing their communication patterns and deliberately encouraging students’ contributions to pedagogical practices.

Applying Communication Strategies to Support Sharing Meanings

Our data shows that students and teachers used different communication strategies to foster a dialogical process of sharing meanings. Based on communication accommodation theory, we identified that students and teachers mainly used discourse management, interpersonal control, approximation, and interpretability to support meaning-sharing in partnership practices. ‘Discourse management’ refers to communicators’ focus on other individuals’ conversational needs in the dialogue (Gallois et al., 2005). Teachers used discourse management to engage student partners in conversations. For example, Wendy, a learning designer, shared her experiences of collaborating with student partners in group meetings:

We [teaching staff] really made sure everyone had a voice … Because when you are doing this kind of research, it’s very easy to take over, because … you know what you know. It was important to listen to their point of view.

Here, Wendy is reflecting on taken-for-granted rules in the field of HE, which is that teachers usually dominate the conversations on teaching and learning design. Wendy’s reflection of “easy to take over” implies the ease of maintaining hierarchical student-teacher relationships by reinforcing teachers’ cultural capital in practices. In this case, instead of normalising the rules of the HE field, Wendy intentionally managed the discourse and developed reflexivity in the partnership to avoid neglecting the students’ perspectives in their collaboration.

To invite student partners to take ownership of the project, some teachers challenged the role differences between students and teachers by applying interpersonal control. This approach refers to communicators focusing on role relations between individuals and allowing the changing of roles in the conversation (Gallois et al., 2005). Li, a postgraduate Chinese international student, said:

There is such a feeling of equality, especially in our communication; the teacher was more of a listener. This is important. When I was studying at a Chinese university, I couldn’t disagree with my teachers. It’s not entirely impossible, but there’s a high probability that we can’t disagree with them, and our opinions are always [expected to be] the same as theirs.

Li’s previous interactions with teachers in the Chinese educational context (field) were created within an entrenched discourse in which teachers were usually unquestioned authorities. Students agree with teachers, affirming the HE hierarchy, or the rules of the field. For Li, gaining access to the partnership field involved cross-field tensions and navigating different rules. The teacher becoming a listener in the conversation represented a disruption of traditional hierarchical student–teacher relationships. This disruption was a challenge to and a renegotiation of the established rules of the Chinese HE field. In this case, Li questioned her habitus established in the Chinese educational context and discovered her new position in the partnership field.

By positioning themselves as listeners, some teachers accommodated students’ communication styles to involve students’ views in the ongoing dialogue. For example, some adopted strategies of approximation and interpretability to share their ideas with other group members. According to Gallois et al. (2005), approximation refers to communicators adjusting their speech patterns, such as speed and tone, to help others understand. As Wendy said:

Both Janet [the course coordinator of the project group] and I have learned to pause and wait for them to add to the conversation. Because it’s very easy to interrupt and take over … [Also, we], avoid mumbling [while speaking to student partners] … I talk a bit slower or may change words to make sure [they] understand the meaning.

Some students reflected that they altered their expressions to make the information accessible for others to understand and support the conversation, which Gallois et al. (2005) defined as interpretability. For example, Qian suggested:

Effective communication is very important. Language [barriers] can cause some misunderstandings. I think this is the most troublesome part of the teamwork. Therefore, I used multiple ways to express my opinions clearly. I think it would be helpful for our whole project.

What is explicit in Qian’s statement is that she developed her agency to better engage in the game in the partnership field. In the dialogical process, she considered her opinions helpful and valuable resources for the project and used the communication strategy to make her perspectives more visible.

Based on our data, students initially adopted a deficit view while reflecting on their cultural experiences. In this case, the value of students’ diverse cultural knowledge and perspectives stayed hidden. Students and teachers can contribute to unconscious cultural reproduction where students from the dominant cultural group easily maintain their privileges and cultural capital. From Bourdieu’s perspective, an educational system “must produce a habitus conforming as closely as possible to the principles of the cultural arbitrary which it is mandated to reproduce” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990, pp. 57). The risk of cultural reproduction in intercultural partnership is relevant to existing discussions on inclusivity and equal involvement in partnerships (Cook-Sather, Slates, et al., 2021; Matthews, 2017; Mercer-Mapstone & Bovill, 2020). The value of intercultural partnerships is in creating a space for students and teachers from diverse cultural-linguistic contexts to reflect on their established habitus in teaching and learning practices and co-create new communication patterns.

Generating New Knowledge by Negotiating Divergence

Some students and teachers highlighted that they recognised new forms of cultural capital by identifying different cultural norms and negotiating divergence in dialogue. Specifically, many students and teachers highlighted that they understood assessment and feedback practices better through discussing diverse pedagogical approaches in different cultural contexts. For example, student partners’ previous learning experiences were recognised as valuable resources to help teachers understand how to better support students in assessments. A postgraduate Chinese international student, Jing, elaborated:

I gained a deeper understanding of [the] two different education systems because we discussed problems based on our previous learning experiences and compared their advantages and disadvantages … I think the education systems in Eastern and Western-style universities are completely different, including the learner–teacher relationship and teaching methods … For someone from another culture to enter this new system, whether their English is good or not, I think it would take a long time for them to adapt.

The teaching staff in Jing’s group described the process of sharing different cultural norms and learning experiences as a productive research process. Wendy explained:

The backgrounds that [international] students come from and the ways they [have been] taught are completely different to Australia … They don’t understand even those core basics covered normally in [Australian] high schools … So we need to look more at what the disconnection is [and] what is causing the problem, as opposed to quickly coming up with a solution straightaway.

These reflections signal a productive co-creation of knowledge, while it could involve conflicts, disagreement and negotiation in the process (Godbold et al., 2022). As Abbot and Cook-Sather (2020) argued that “…disagreement proved an opportunity to clarify each partner’s perspective offer various, productive ways to navigate the different expectations or perspectives staff and student partners bring to their work together” (pp. 1405). In this case, teachers became learners, and the students’ previous learning experiences and knowledge of being international students were recognised as legitimate resources (cultural capital) to enhance assessment practices in the partnership context. Student partners accumulated cultural capital through this productive intercultural dialogue, creating a better position for them in the field. Thus, student partners became active contributors in the dialogue; as Wendy reflected on the later part of their collaboration, “Both students were excellent — we didn’t really have to prompt them that much. They really wanted to contribute and get their thoughts and ideas out”.

Furthermore, the reflexivity that participants developed through negotiating different cultural perspectives extended beyond the field of partnership and went on to influence their future practice in the HE context. One course coordinator, Karen, who was from a project group working on better cultural inclusion of teaching and assessment practices, said:

I really have to reflect on that [current teaching and assessment practice]. Because it wasn’t about me speaking more clearly or slowly; it is actually about what I want to communicate in this course. It is about morality and how I explain [the concepts] philosophically and outside this framework — a framework [defined] by old white male philosophers.

Drawing on the students and teachers’ reflections, we argue that recognising new forms of cultural capital through intercultural dialogue involves intentional efforts to step outside of one’s comfort zone of communication and apply multiple strategies to support the ongoing dialogue. More importantly, students and teachers created new knowledge and reconstructed their position in the field by negotiating divergent experiences and knowledge. However, not all participants engaged in this process. Some highlighted the limits of dialogue and missed opportunities to negotiate cultural capital.

Failures of Sharing Power through Intercultural Dialogue

Although some participants recognised new forms of cultural capital by negotiating diverse perspectives and sharing meaning, others failed to move beyond the hierarchical student-teacher power relationships. The challenge was in building and maintaining effective intercultural dialogue in which students and teachers could reshape habitus and challenge the established rules of the field of HE.

Challenges in Building and Maintaining Intercultural Dialogue

Some student partners described the lack of mutual communication as a significant constraint restricting the redefinition of student–teacher relationships in intercultural partnership. For example, Lin and Yun, two student partners who worked together on one project, described their collaborative experiences as akin to “falling from a cliff” when there was a sudden cessation of group communication. In a post-program interview, Lin said:

The project didn’t meet my expectation. We had a good start, and all of us were keen to collaborate on this project. Teachers also thought we [student partners] provided helpful suggestions and planned to implement some changes, but then our connection stopped suddenly. They didn’t reply to my email. There was nothing I could do.

Lin perceived the program as having a positive start where students’ suggestions were recognised as helpful resources (capital) by teachers. However, the lack of response from teachers later on appeared to take her agency away. When reflecting on the student–teacher relationship, Yun said, “I think we still had a traditional learner–teacher relationship in our project … Creating the project documents felt similar to completing an assignment. Nothing happened when this assignment was submitted to the teacher. There was no response”. Lin and Yun had expected to change the traditional student–teacher relationship, but the group failed to build a collaborative relationship because of the lack of effort from the teacher and the cessation of group communication. Simply engaging in the partnership did not result in enriched conversations or recognition of new forms of cultural capital.

In a post-program interview, Lin stated that she and another student partner primarily acted as listeners and followers in the limited group interactions. She explained:

In our limited communication, the teacher had a pre-set outline or framework for this project, and we [student partners] would follow the teacher’s ideas. This is because, as students, we are not experienced, and we may not have completed the subject before, which means the teacher is more familiar with the course than us. Teachers would like to listen to our suggestions and perspectives, but ultimately the final decision is up to them.

From Bourdieu’s perspective (1990b), Lin and Yun played a game with the established rules in the field of HE instead of creating a partnership. Their collaboration unfolded with one clear rule: the teacher’s disciplinary expertise and knowledge of the course was the most reliable and legitimate resource in teaching and learning. Thus, the teacher was the decision maker who judged if the student partners’ suggestions were worth taking on. The pre-set outline of the project reinforced the teacher’s cultural capital because the outline design process did not involve students’ views. While students had a strong desire to change their habitus of interaction with teachers and to contribute to the project, the value of their perspectives remained hidden because the rules of the HE field were unchanged. The rules seem ‘natural’ to teaching staff, which is a feel for the game (Bourdieu, 1990b). It requires a deliberate effort from students and teachers to build a dialogue in which capital is negotiated and to reflect on the established rules. In this case, the sudden cessation of group communication made all further negotiation impossible.

One-Way Communication Initiated by Student Partners

As individuals new to the field of partnership, Lin and Yun showed their agency in challenging the established status quo between students and teachers by initiating communication and building relationships with teachers. However, their ability to challenge the existing rules in HE was constrained by the lack of mutual effort from the teacher. Lin said:

I need more communication … The biggest challenge was the lack of responses. I’ve done what I could do on my own … The learner–teacher relationship needs to be based on our idea sharing and communication with each other. I was willing to reach out and communicate with teachers, but no one from their team got back to me. This was one-way communication, and it was not mutual … [so] it is impossible to build [a] relationship.

Another student, Bing, who worked with a different project group, shared a similar experience:

We won’t know whether they [will] implement the changes or not … They might not care about how this partnership project is going. Their priority might be to improve their course instead. Once they got some useful feedback from us, then they [might] think it doesn’t matter how the project progresses.

What is explicit in Bing’s sharing is the lack of ownership of the project as a student. While partnership advocates that students work with teachers as partners, Bing felt she was a data source for teachers to gather feedback. The partnership values of reciprocity and shared responsibility were missing in Bing’s partnership project, as the one-way communication did not open a channel for students to get involved in the changes implemented in the course. Instead, it reinforced the logic of the HE field that “students assume a low level of agency and are usually subordinate to the expert teacher” (Cook-Sather et al., 2014, pp. 160).

Lin had a similar explanation for the teachers’ limited effort and commitment put into the communication process, stating, “Teachers might have many tasks to finish and care about, and this project was not their priority, or they didn’t have [the] time or energy to continue it”. Implicit in Lin’s explanation is the perception of a possible underestimation of the value of building partnerships from the teachers’ side. This links to existing scholarly discussions on uncertainty and scepticism towards implementing partnerships in HE contexts (de Bie, 2022). Through Bourdieu’s lens, we understand that tangible outcomes, such as research grants and publications, are considered as recognised cultural capital in the HE field. For teachers, challenging the existing rules of interaction might not guarantee an accumulation of recognised cultural capital. Thus, teachers might question the necessity of investing time and energy in building and maintaining an ongoing dialogue.

Concluding Thoughts

This article explored how students and teachers recognise cultural capital through intercultural dialogue in partnership practices. Our findings show that some participants moved beyond traditional, hierarchical, teacher-dominated practices to acknowledge diverse cultural knowledge and experiences as valuable contributions. Others, however, described difficulties in sustaining dialogue and overcoming one-way communication, which limited opportunities to challenge existing rules of interaction in higher education and negotiate cultural capital. We conceptualise intercultural dialogue as a process of negotiating capital that can reshape habitus and redistribute power between students and teachers by legitimising students’ experiences as new forms of cultural capital.

This study contributes to SaP scholarship by providing a dialogical process analysis of how power is enacted and potentially disrupted in intercultural partnerships, moving beyond outcome-focused studies. It also contributes to intercultural communication research by demonstrating how communication accommodation strategies can support or constrain shared meaning-making in culturally and linguistically diverse groups in university pedagogies partnership practices. This study offers an analytical lens to understanding dialogical interactions in partnership as both a site of power reproduction and a space for transformation, which extends scholarly discussion on the complexities of sharing power in partnership (Cook-Sather et al., 2018).

We caution against attributing challenges in partnership solely to students’ cultural norms and language skills. Our findings highlight the crucial role of teachers in initiating and sustaining intercultural dialogue that enables meaningful participation. Aligned with other scholarly criticism of neoliberal values that privilege the foundational role of market forces in shaping educational policies and practices (Rizvi, 2017), we argue that intercultural partnership, which requires time, relational effort and reflection, as a valuable practice to think and act beyond the “conceptual prism of its neoliberal imaginary” (Rizvi, 2017, pp. 3). Future research should explore how teachers can be supported to create equitable spaces for intercultural dialogue and how partnership practices can be adapted to diverse cultural and institutional contexts. Investigating how such practices can remain sensitive to participants’ varied beliefs, identities, and geographical locations would further strengthen the development of inclusive partnership practices.