Followers, customers, or partners? Comparing conceptualisations of students as partners in Australian, Mainland Chinese, and Hong Kong universities

Engaging students as partners (SaP) is an approach promoting meaningful pedagogical relationships in higher education. Scholars have called for more culturally situated research on SaP that compares Anglophone countries with other contexts. In response, we conducted an exploratory qualitative study by interviewing 36 undergraduate students from Australia, Mainland China, and Hong Kong. Adopting the relational lens of SaP, the interviews focused on conceptualisations of pedagogical partnership, specifically learner–teacher identities and power dynamics. Through comparative and reflexive thematic analysis, we found that understandings of partnership in different contexts were influenced by broader cultural differences. The findings showed that the perception of SaP in Australia was consistent with the prevailing Western discourse, but the notion of SaP was adapted and re-shaped in Mainland China, and in Hong Kong, there were diverse interpretations of it. This study contributes to new understandings of the influence of specific sociocultural and policy variations in SaP practises through culturally situated and comparative research using theorisations of perpetual translation. We argue for future research to contribute collective insights and nuanced, diverse understandings that expand SaP as an approach to global scholarship.