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Ethical Issues in Applied Linguistics Scholarship
Edited by Peter I. De Costa, Amr Rabie-Ahmed and Carlo Cinaglia
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 7] 2024
► pp. 251–267

Chapter 14
Navigating ethical challenges in L2 writing in transnational higher education

| University of Arizona,
| University of Arizona,
| University of Arizona,
This chapter examines ethics in the work of L2 writing program administration in transnational higher education (TNHE). We specifically examine how the border-crossing nature of TNHE settings can give rise to conflicts of values and ethical dilemmas for administrators. In this chapter, we begin by reviewing the complex setting in which TNHE takes place and how navigating its institutional, political, and cultural complexities involves traversing multiple value systems. We then describe in detail two ethical dilemmas that we experience resulting from the complexity of the TNHE setting: the first relates to ethical issues related to assessment and language proficiency, and the second relates to institutional policies and practices in employees’ work-life. We use these two examples to illustrate how viewing challenging administrative issues through a lens of values and ethics allows us to reflect on and adjust our own practices and cultural biases. We end the chapter by outlining three guiding principles (related to communication, representation, and transparency) that we have found can serve as a compass for taking needed action in such complex administrative contexts.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Contextualizing ethics in transnational higher education
  • Ethical dilemmas in a TNHE L2 writing program
    • Ethical dilemmas in assessment
  • Ethical dilemmas in observing institutional policies and practices
  • At the heart of ethical dilemmas in TNHE
  • Commentary and reflection
    • Communication
    • Representation
    • Transparency
  • Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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