Internationalisation, globalisation and curriculum development

Chapter 1

Internationalisation, Globalisation and Curriculum Innovation Betty Leask

Introduction Internationalisation is not a new concept in higher education. However, the shape and purpose of internationalisation in the higher education environment has undergone many changes – many of those related to globalisation. Various phases in the internationalisation of higher education and various types of response to a somewhat mobile and increasingly diverse student population in the UK, Australia, Europe, Malaysia and the USA have been described in the literature (Back et al., 1997; Mestenhauser, 1998; Van der Wende, 2000; Lee, 2000; Webb, 2005; De Vita, 2007). One could argue that internationalisation of the curriculum in higher education is constantly in a process of transformation (Foucault, 1981). Furthermore, given the rapid pace of change in the world as a result of globalisation, this constant state of transformation is perhaps understandable, even if the transformations themselves are not predictable. But are we responding appropriately?

In 1998, Josef Mestenhauser argued that if we are to internationalise the curriculum we will need to challenge both the nature of the curriculum and the paradigms on which it is based (p. 21). He argued that up to that point in time internationalisation of the curriculum had been focused too much on projects and programmes designed to train a few students as future international affairs specialists, completely ignoring the fact that all graduates will work in a global setting, as engineers, accountants, doctors, etc. This chapter is an attempt to explore some of the issues associated with curriculum reform and innovation for internationalisation. It makes direct reference to the findings of research into the impact of changes implemented in an Australian university at about the time Mestenhauser was writing – changes designed to transform and internationalise the curriculum in a large

Betty Leask University of South Australia

M. Hellstén, A. Reid (eds.) Researching International Pedagogies, © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

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Australian university. The research highlighted some of the issues associated with curriculum innovation and provided some insights into possible ways forward.

Internationalisation and Globalisation Internationalisation in the higher education sector is a much debated and diversely interpreted concept and a number of definitions have been developed and elaborated over the years (Knight, 1994; de Wit, 1997; Van der Wende, 1997; Hamilton, 1998). Knight (1997) was correct when she stated that ‘it is clear that internationalisation means different things to different people, and as a result there is a great diversity of interpretations attributed to the concept’ (p. 5). However, two common themes of relevance here have emerged in discussions around internationalisation in higher education – globalisation and inter-cultural competence.

It is almost impossible to talk about internationalisation without referring to globalisation and indeed there is much to be learned about internationalisation from its relationship to globalisation, ‘those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single world society, a global society’ usually against their will or at least without their conscious consent (Albrow, 1990, p. 9). Globalisation has been a speedy process which has increased the interconnections between nations and peoples of the world. The forces of globalisation include the rapid increase in movement of people, money, services, goods, images and ideas around the world.

The cross-border provision of education is an important contributor to the growth of a global knowledge society in which ideas move rapidly around the world, crossing many borders, being ‘bought’ and ‘sold’ to create a fluid global ‘ideoscape’ (Appadurai, 1990, p. 296). As such, cross-border provision of education is a force, a primary medium and an agent of globalisation. Cross-border higher education includes the movement of people (students and academic staff), providers (institutions with a virtual or physical presence in a host country), programmes (courses or programmes of instruction) and projects (such as joint curricula or development projects) as part of international development cooperation, academic exchanges and linkages and trade in education services, and is on the internationalisation agenda of many higher education institutions (Knight, 2004). Thus internationalisation of higher education is clearly linked to globalisation – but the relationship is complex, multifaceted and, for some at least, problematic.

Marginson (1999, p. 19) argues that as the main function of internationalisation is the ‘formation of the skills … required to operate in the global environment itself’, it is in itself a form of soft imperialism which imposes ‘Western’ ways of thinking, doing and acting on an ever-increasing proportion of the world population. Marginson also argues that ‘by spreading English language and Americanised practices, global education markets colonise national cultures and identities’ and sustain imbalance in the power relationship between developed and developing nations (Marginson, 2003, p. 25). Furthermore, the key role played by English in the popular media and on the Internet has resulted in an increased demand for English language education and for

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education in English-speaking countries. This has resulted in an increasingly mobile student population from developing countries into developed English-speaking countries. The dominance of English-speaking countries such as the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia in the international education market supports this argument.

However, the internationalisation of education is seen by some as a reaction and response to the forces of globalisation rather than as a contributor (Van der Wende, 2001). Giddens (1999) argues that it is a positive response to globalisation which stimulates nations to interact and enrich each other with fresh cultural insights and exchanges. Certainly it is difficult to see how higher education could not respond to, and embrace, the forces of globalisation, even though this may also have resulted in it contributing to the flow of ideas, people, goods and capital associated with globalisation. Indeed, Marginson argues that globalisation has ‘transformed higher education throughout the world’, propelling local institutions ‘irreversibly into the world-wide environment’ (2003, p. 2).

There is yet another dimension to the relationship between internationalisation and globalisation. Sanderson (2004) argues that our response to globalisation is complicated by our fear of ‘the Cultural Other’ and that issues related to culture, identity and ‘fear of the unknown’, the threatening ‘Cultural Other’, have resulted in much ‘unfinished business’ which we are now being forced to address because of the forces of globalisation. We cannot escape, hide or run from the threatening ‘Cultural Other’ as the forces of globalisation bring us ever closer together, as our worlds more frequently ‘meet’ and ‘collide’.

Clearly the concepts of globalisation and internationalisation are interactive and evolving. Their discourses are inevitably linked – responsive to each other and interconnected in various ways while also being distinctly different. What is clear, however, is that in a globalised society and economy the ability to communicate across cultures, with ‘Cultural Others’, assumes greater importance than ever before. Those who were once far away are now our neighbours, and our cultural and economic survival depends on them whilst also being threatened by them. This reality of global society is evident in changes to the student population resulting from increasing student mobility across linguistic, cultural and national borders.

The resultant diversity in the classroom combined with the impact of globalisation on the way we all live our lives, including the way we work, who we work with and what we do at work, has resulted in a focus in higher education on the development of international and inter-cultural perspectives in all graduates, so that they can be active and critical participants in world society. We would expect that the curriculum would have responded to these changes in the world and in the classroom.

What Is ‘The Curriculum’ The term curriculum is derived from the Latin word currere (to run) and, translated, literally means a circular athletic track (Kemmis & Fitzclarence, 1991, p. 24; Smith & Lovat, 1991, p. 13; Goodson, 1995, p. 25). The implications of this etymology are

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that the curriculum may be perceived as ‘a course to be followed’ (Goodson, 1995, p. 25); involving activity and inclusive of the experience of the runners (Smith & Lovat, 1991, p. 13); an orderly, planned and controlled cycle of study. Since 1633 – the first recorded use of the term (Kemmis & Fitzclarence, 1991, p. 23) – there has however been much scholarly debate regarding the definition of the curriculum – its nature and scope – and its possibilities and limitations. All such debates reflect the socio-political and economic context within which they occur (Smith & Lovat, 1991, p. 5), although some of the issues raised in the past resonate with those seeking to internationalise the curriculum today. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for example, it was noted that the curriculum had the potential to give learners ‘access to what amounted to different “worlds” ’ (Goodson, 1995, p. 27) but also to restrict learners if too narrowly focused. Later definitions have focused on a more holistic, chaotic and complex view of curriculum inclusive of content, pedagogy, assessment and competencies; planned and unplanned experiences; intention and actuality. In this chapter, it is this view of curriculum as encompassing all aspects of the learning/ teaching situation that will be taken (Kemmis & Fitzclarence, 1991, p. 21). This means that the curriculum is in practice inseparable from teaching and pedagogy.

This is the lens that I will use to frame my discussion of internationalisation of the curriculum. I will assume that the processes by which we, as educators, select and order content, decide on and describe intended learning outcomes, organise learning activities and assess learner achievement are part of the curriculum. Thus, the objectives of the teaching, the actual processes of learning and teaching, including interactions in the classroom and the competencies developed by learners, are all as important as the content and its ordering and sequencing. All are places where we might consider making changes and improvements if our aim is to internationalise the curriculum through innovation.

Curriculum Innovation for Internationalisation Given this relationship between globalisation, internationalisation in higher education and the role of higher education to develop and disseminate new and existing knowledge and develop new skills in global citizens and professionals, curriculum innovation is vitally important. Curriculum innovation is always designed to improve and may be minor or major, incremental or radical. Minor innovations involve small steps forward and there is usually a degree of certainty regarding the outcome.

Major, radical innovation, however, involves much bigger steps and less certainty of outcome. Major innovation may require a new way of seeing the world. Given the discussion in the previous sections concerning internationalisation, globalisation and the curriculum, curriculum innovation for internationalisation may involve minor or major changes to any aspect of the learning/teaching situation which results in all graduates being better prepared to live and work in a globalised society.

This implies that an internationalised curriculum must, as a minimum, cater to the rapidly changing and divergent needs of all students as global citizens. Thus, it

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will need to encompass a broad range of knowledge, experiences and processes, and explore and evaluate the effectiveness of many ways of teaching and assessing student learning. It will require continuous effort focused on pedagogy, learning processes, content and the achievement of outcomes. Some or all of this may require radical, rather than incremental, innovation – that is, new ways of conceptualising knowledge and the curriculum, rather than minor improvements to existing ways of organising and delivering the curriculum. However, managing curriculum change in an educational organisation is complex, regardless of whether the change is driven from ‘the top down’, through policy, or from the ‘bottom up’, through the classroom. People and systems may be equally resistant to change and find it difficult to move into new paradigms.

In the next section, I will describe a case study of a curriculum innovation for internationalisation. As it unfolds it will become clear that decisions about curriculum innovation for internationalisation are not neutral – they make ‘assumptions about the nature of reality, truth and knowledge’ and construct ‘views of reality, truth and knowledge in practice’ (Smith & Lovat, 1991, p. 7). These assumptions are largely based on our life experiences and our values and beliefs (Smith & Lovat, 1991, pp. 6–7) – where ‘our’ refers to the individuals and groups involved in the decision-making, and to a certain extent institutional character and mission. The challenge of curriculum innovation for internationalisation is thus personal, professional and institutional. It is personal in that, if we are to think differently about what we teach and how we teach as individuals and as groups, we must first understand why we view and order the world in particular ways and how the assumptions we make are related to our cultural background and conditioning. It is professional in that much of the curriculum is organised around traditional disciplines and the paradigms associated with them: curriculum innovation for internationalisation that is focused on more than the disconnected projects and tasks referred to by Mestenhauser (1998) will require us to think outside of the traditional paradigms associated with the disciplines in which we work. And it is institutional in that institutions are themselves both global and national, thus reflecting the dilemmas faced by graduates with multiple roles and identities.

A Case Study This case study is a reflective description of a curriculum innovation for internationalisation implemented at a large Australian University in the late 1990s.

The innovation itself, the processes by which it was implemented and some of the outcomes of the innovation have been the subject of a number of research projects and papers which collectively throw light on some of the issues faced by those seeking to implement curriculum innovation for internationalisation. The case study is used here to highlight some critical issues around curriculum innovation for internationalisation which are discussed later in this chapter.

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Internationalisation of the curriculum was first identified as being a significant component of the approach to internationalisation of the University of South Australia in a study conducted by four staff members in 1996 (Luong et al., 1996).

It defined an internationalised curriculum as one which values ‘empathy and intellectual curiosity through which … learners participate in a mutually beneficial, internationally and multiculturally aware learning process, engaging with, and constructing, global “state of the art” knowledge, developing understanding and useful skills, and preparing themselves to continue learning throughout personally and vocationally fulfilling lives’ (p. 16). This definition focused internationalisation of the curriculum in the institution on the learning process and on the development of skills and attitudes within students (including the development of international and cross-cultural understanding and empathy) as much as on curriculum content and the development of knowledge in students.

Internationalisation of the curriculum was further defined in 1996 with the introduction of a set of seven Graduate Qualities, the seventh of which was that ‘a graduate of the University of South Australia will demonstrate international perspectives as a professional and as a citizen’.

The key ideas framing the introduction of Graduate Qualities came from Joseph Hough (1991), who argued for a concern for the common good as one of the criteria for educational excellence, the common good including ‘those conditions such as peace, unity, and justice, that make possible relations among individuals that will promote mutual communication for the purpose of living well’ (p. 100). Hough also argued that universities had in effect become inward-looking and self-serving organisations, rather than outward-looking community-focused organisations. He called for interdisciplinary discourse and for a focus on the ‘global notion of our common good, which transcends individualism, nationalism and anthropocentrism’ because ‘the larger issues of the common good are transnational’ (p. 117); he called for a refocusing in universities from research to teaching and suggested that all members of faculty should be required to teach (p. 118). This would, he argued, help to counterbalance the narrow professional and national preoccupations which have come to dominate as a result of universities focusing too much on research and not enough on teaching – in effect they would correct the ‘distortion’. Hough’s views resonated with the University’s mission and goals.

The introduction in 1996 of the seven Graduate Qualities of a University of South Australia graduate was a curriculum innovation designed to focus attention on learning and teaching and, in particular, on the development of specific competencies in graduates linked to a concern for the common good and educational, and in particular teaching, excellence. While they were to some extent ‘bottom-up’, in that a small group of academic staff was involved in production of the initial report and there was some consultation with the broader university community as they were developed, there is no doubt that the Graduate Qualities were championed by the Chancellor and a few key senior staff. They were clearly intended as an aid to curriculum planning and drivers of curriculum change and innovation in all undergraduate programmes. The Graduate Qualities that were adopted were that A graduate of the University of South Australia (UniSA) will:

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1. Operate effectively with and upon a body of knowledge of sufficient depth to begin professional practice 2. Be prepared for life-long learning in pursuit of personal development and excellence in professional practice 3. Be an effective problem solver, capable of applying logical, critical and creative thinking to a range of problems 4. Be able to work both autonomously and collaboratively as a professional 5. Be committed to ethical action and social responsibility as a professional and a citizen 6. Communicate effectively in professional practice and as a member of the community 7. Demonstrate international perspectives as a professional and as a citizen As part of the programme planning and approval process, academic staff were required to indicate the balance of Graduate Qualities that they intended would be developed in courses within a programme, the intention being to ensure that there was a correlation between the needs of the workplace and the skills balance demonstrated by graduates of the programme.

As indicated above, Graduate Quality 7 at UniSA related specifically to internationalisation. As with all Graduate Qualities it was stated in guidelines to staff that the specific skills required in different professions may be quite different for this Graduate Quality. For example, the international perspectives required of a nurse or a pharmacist might focus more on sociocultural understanding than those of an engineer, where the focus might be more on the understanding of the global and environmental responsibilities of the professional engineer and the need for sustainable development. And while practising nurses, pharmacists and engineers should all be able to recognise inter-cultural issues relevant to their professional practice and have a broad understanding of social, cultural and global issues affecting their profession, the strategies they will need to use to deal with them will be different in some ways even though they may be similar in others.

Comparable differences were seen to exist between the international perspectives required of, for example, accountants and teachers. The nature, importance and application of the graduate quality were therefore intended to be subtly different in different professions. Nine indicators were provided to academic staff as a guide to the general sorts of characteristics that graduates who have achieved the quality might exhibit. As part of the programme-planning process, it was assumed that programme- and course-writers would develop more elaborated or different indicators which related specifically to their discipline area. The intention was that the development of this and other graduate qualities in students would then be embedded into the regular teaching, learning and assessment tasks occurring within the programme. The generic indicators for Graduate Quality 7 are detailed in Table 1.1.

The indicators pick up some aspects of internationalisation identified by Luong et al. (1996) in their earlier report.

The focus in these generic indicators is a dual one – there is emphasis on the acquisition of skills and knowledge related to professional areas as well as on the

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Table 1.1 Graduate Quality 7: generic indicators A graduate who demonstrates international perspectives as a professional Indicator and a citizen will: 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9

Display an ability to think globally and consider issues from a variety of perspectives Demonstrate an awareness of their own culture and its perspectives and other cultures and their perspectives Appreciate the relation between their field of study locally and professional traditions elsewhere Recognise intercultural issues relevant to their professional practice Appreciate the importance of multicultural diversity to professional practice and citizenship Appreciate the complex and interacting factors that contribute to notions of culture and cultural relationships Value diversity of language and culture Appreciate and demonstrate the capacity to apply international standards and practices within the discipline or professional area Demonstrate awareness of the implications of local decisions and actions for international communities and of international decisions and actions for local communities

development of values and cross-cultural awareness. Inter-cultural learning (the development of an understanding and valuing of their own and other cultures) is the focus of indicators 7.2, 7.4, 7.6 and 7.7; the development of knowledge and understanding is the focus of 7.3 and 7.5 and the application of what has been learned to professional practice is the focus of 7.1, 7.8 and 7.9.

Following their introduction in 1996, a range of staff-development workshops and online resources was provided to assist both staff and students to interpret this Graduate Quality. However, as is frequently the case, it was difficult to determine uptake, so in 2003, as an academic developer with a specific responsibility for internationalisation of the curriculum, I embarked on a research project to explore what a small sample of staff and students understood this ‘definition’ of internationalisation of the curriculum to mean within their discipline and how they implemented it in the classroom. A series of focus group and individual interviews were conducted with 16 students and 8 staff in Hong Kong and Adelaide, and discourse analysis of the data was used to identify some of the themes and issues emerging in the 8 years since the curriculum innovation – the introduction of a Graduate Quality focused on the development of international perspectives in all undergraduate students. The aim of this research was not to tell the whole story but rather to gain some indication of the ways in which Graduate Quality 7 was understood by a small sample of staff and students within one discipline area, Business, in two completely different cultural settings, Hong Kong and Australia. The ‘snapshots’ of experience in different places and at different times provided some understanding of the effectiveness of this curriculum innovation.

The research showed that students and staff shared an understanding of international perspectives as the skills and knowledge required to work effectively in

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diverse national and cultural contexts and that teachers who could identify and assist their students to develop these were valued by students. It also showed that those staff who were efficient inter-cultural learners themselves were best equipped to develop international and inter-cultural perspectives in their students. However, neither students nor staff were confident that the development of international perspectives could be measured through assessment tasks. Students and staff were clear that internationalisation of the curriculum is about much more than the ‘cultural tourism’ that is common – a few international examples, preferably as unique and entertaining as possible, sprinkled haphazardly over a curriculum. The teacher developing Graduate Quality 7 in students was seen as playing an important role in changing students’ ‘mindset’, the way they thought about things. This was seen as an important outcome of the curriculum, related to personal growth, respect for difference, the ability to operate in an increasingly globalised and multiculturally diverse business world, the personal application of complex perspectives within professional contexts and the ability to actively and effectively engage with cultural others. The ‘cultural tourism’ approach does not recognise the cultural foundations on which the curriculum itself is built and does not encourage ‘engagement’ which recognises the contributions made by culturally different others to the knowledge of the discipline. Nor does it make explicit the culture-specific assumptions and biases that are built into that knowledge and influence the way that the discipline knowledge is applied in practice – arguably the foundations of an internationalised curriculum.

The research also suggested that the preparation of graduates to live and work in a globalised society requires the development of students’ understanding of the ways in which cultural difference and diversity combined with the increasing connectedness of the world impacts specifically on their personal lives and on professional practice, and that explicit alignment between Graduate Quality 7, objectives, teaching and learning arrangements and assessment was an area requiring more attention.

A second, larger and loosely connected study funded by Australian Education International (AEI), in the Department of Education Science and Training (DEST) and administered by the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC), was conducted in 2005 (Leask et al., 2005). The aim of this study was to develop a professional development framework for offshore teaching. Questionnaires were sent to over 100 transnational students and staff and interviews were subsequently conducted with 61 University of South Australia and partner staff and students in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. One of the findings of this research was that flexibility in teaching style was extremely important when teaching an internationalised curriculum to a diverse student population. The study also found that where the teaching arrangements require skills in inter-cultural engagement there are many opportunities for teaching staff to develop their own international perspectives, but that sometimes administrative processes and management structures were inadvertently working against these opportunities being utilised. Opportunities for even minor curriculum innovation were thus often not pursued. The challenge of the research project was to develop strategies, structures and resources to assist

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academic staff to learn from and with their students – to take a critical approach to methodology and question their own and others’ assumptions about the ‘best’ ways to organise content, to teach and to learn – and to incorporate this learning into the curriculum effectively and efficiently.

Two other internally funded research projects indicated that teams of staff working together to internationalise the curriculum using Graduate Quality 7 as a guide had changed the way they planned their teaching and organised content and learning and assessment activities.

Much was learned by the institution and by the individuals within it as a result of the introduction of this major curriculum innovation for internationalisation.

Graduate Quality 7 has undoubtedly facilitated much debate around the nature of internationalisation of the curriculum and appropriate objectives, teaching activities and assessment. This has resulted in staff changing the way they think about what they teach and how they teach it, and students learning new skills. In this regard, it has been an effective curriculum innovation for internationalisation which has resulted in some positive changes to several aspects of the curriculum. Reflections on the process of innovation itself have also been useful and have provided valuable insights into issues related to curriculum innovation for internationalisation. These insights are the major focus of the next section.

What Can We Learn from This?

While this case study is based on one institution, case study methods do allow researchers to effectively understand a particular issue through analysis of a variety of information from a range of sources (Berg, 2001, p. 225). Insights into five critical areas related to curriculum innovation for internationalisation are described below, some of which are clearly related.

An Institutional Framework for Change The introduction of Graduate Qualities was a major curriculum innovation – a big step, a new way of planning and organising the curriculum, the results of which were somewhat uncertain at the outset. They provided a framework for change situated within the institution as well as within a broader debate around competencybased curriculum development.

The University’s Mission Statement emphasises equity and the application of knowledge in professional settings. It indicates a commitment to the pursuit of scholarship, research and intellectual innovation that is responsive to the local, national and international communities it serves. A commitment to internationalisation is also evident in several of the University’s goals. Goals 2 and 5 relate to meeting the needs of all student groups, Goal 4 to fostering responsible social and

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cultural analysis and debate, and Goal 7 to being recognised internationally for educating professionals, applying knowledge and serving the community. UniSA’s Anti-Racism Policy relates to all aspects of the University and its operations. This policy promotes and enhances awareness, understanding and acceptance regarding the differences that exist between cultural groups and acknowledges and celebrates the breadth of experience and intellectual resources that people from diverse backgrounds bring to the life of the university. It affirms the University’s commitment to a culturally inclusive environment, one which not only recognises, but validates, each group’s experiences through the content of courses and the teaching, learning and assessment arrangements. These commitments and intentions are incorporated in a range of ways into more practical guidelines for staff. The University’s Code of Good Practice: University Teaching defines good teaching practice as being student-centred – sensitive to the different backgrounds, needs, values and experiences of all student groups and Teaching Guides and workshops are available to assist staff to teach a culturally diverse student body.

Graduate Quality 7 explicitly aligned the intentions of the curriculum innovation for internationalisation with the institutional mission and goals, including the broader internationalisation goals, and ensured that financial resources were made available for the development of resources and services to support the innovation.

By using Graduate Quality 7 as a driver for change, internationalisation of the curriculum was given focus and direction within a broader institutional context, the outcomes of an internationalised curriculum mandated for all students and, theoretically at least, all staff were involved.

The Inter-cultural in an Internationalised Curriculum Knight (2003) describes the inter-cultural as ‘relating to the diversity of cultures that exist within countries, communities, and institutions’. Inter-cultural engagement and learning is not, however, an easy thing to achieve. It is psychologically intense and has a number of risk factors associated with it, including risk of embarrassment and risk of failure (Paige, 1993, p. 13). But inter-cultural engagement is at the heart of inter-cultural education which ‘strives to develop critical engagement, self-reflection and sensitivity towards any aspect of interaction and communication between “self” and “others”’ (Papademetre, 2003, p. 1). Inter-cultural engagement requires an understanding of how the languages and cultures of others influence their thoughts, values, actions and feelings, and it is frequently argued that this understanding of others must be predicated by an appreciation of the ways in which our own language and culture influence our actions, reactions, values and beliefs. This is complex and challenging in the classroom and involves students and staff moving into a ‘third place’ (Crozet et al., 1999, p. 13), a meeting place between different cultures where there is recognition of the manifestation of cultural difference, and where equal and meaningful reconstructive cross-cultural dialogue can occur.

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Inter-cultural learning is often assumed by teachers and administrators to be an automatic outcome and benefit of having a range of cultures together on campus (AEI, 1998, p. 2) – the assumption being that proximity → inter-cultural contact → inter-cultural learning/competence. However, research in Australia and overseas into the interaction and engagement between different cultural groups on campus (Volet & Ang, 1998; Robertson et al., 2000) does not support the crude proximity → inter-cultural contact → inter-cultural learning/competence equation.

The links between an internationalised curriculum and inter-cultural learning and engagement were highlighted for staff and students by this curriculum innovation for internationalisation. The indicators of Graduate Quality 7 are a public statement of the focus of internationalisation of the curriculum and constitute policy in relation to the internationalisation of teaching, learning and assessment arrangements. They focus on both broadening the scope of the course to include international content and contact and the use of approaches to teaching and learning which assist in the development of inter-cultural communication skills in all students. This is complex and requires considerable effort on the part of teachers, who in a multicultural classroom teaching an international curriculum must promote and manage inter-cultural engagement on a number of levels – but particularly between and with students. In many instances, they must themselves become effective inter-cultural learners, able to recognise their own as well as others assumptions about teaching and learning and respond appropriately.

When attempting to implement Graduate Quality 7, diversity in the classroom is clearly a valuable resource. International students provide an imperative for us to incorporate the discipline perspectives of cultural others into our teaching whilst they are also, to some extent, cultural ambassadors and a source of that perspective.

Kalantzis and Cope (2000) argue that the complexity of education in an international environment requires that we address ‘the question of different cultures of learning and teaching’ in such a way that we open up ‘new and diverse paths of learning’ and ‘cross-fertilise’ different strategies for teaching and learning and acquiring new knowledge (p. 42). Graduate Quality 7 has made it clear that intercultural learning is an important part of internationalisation of the curriculum at UniSA and has highlighted the need to provide staff and students with more opportunities to develop their cultural skills and understandings.

Group Work in an Internationalised Curriculum The interviews in the first research project highlighted the importance in an internationalised curriculum of the development and implementation of teaching strategies which facilitate and reward inter-cultural engagement. Graduate Quality 7 has been useful as a stimulus for discussions around how to organise teaching, learning and assessment so that cross-cultural interaction is required and rewarded. It is clear, however, that we need to pay much more attention to the provision of opportunities throughout a programme of study for students from different cultures to work

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together in small groups on structured and assessed tasks which none can complete without input related to cultural perspectives from cultural others.

Group work is vitally important in an internationalised curriculum. Van der Wende (2000) argued for the need for ‘a strong emphasis on interactive and collaborative learning processes in an internationalised curriculum’ (p. 25). In this research, the joys and difficulties of group work were mentioned frequently by staff and students. Teachers would like it to work automatically and naturally and do not always see that they have a role in making it work for students – others lack the skills and experience required to use it to internationalise the curriculum through enabling, encouraging and rewarding inter-cultural engagement. Those staff who persevered with it talked of the time taken to work through issues with students who didn’t want to work in groups, didn’t want to work in ‘that’ group or felt disadvantaged because they had to work in mixed culture groups (or in some instances any group).

Thus, while cultural diversity within the student body is a valuable resource for internationalisation of the curriculum much work is needed in order for the benefit to be realised through group work. Indeed, it can exaggerate problems, rather than resolving them. De Vita (2007) argues that cultural diversity in the classroom has the potential to highlight and exacerbate pedagogic problems. In relation to group work these problems include ‘barriers to effective intercultural communication, such as cultural stereotyping’ (p. 158) and failure to provide opportunities for students to learn the skills required to participate in group activities requiring rigorous academic debate and argument.

Assessment It is clear that more research is needed into how to assess the development of international perspectives. Assessment was identified in both studies as complex and problematic. Difficulties were associated with the personal nature of international perspectives, with integration (the degree to which they had been embedded in the curriculum) and with the difficulty of measuring depth of engagement and understanding as against superficial fulfilment of assessment requirements. Some staff thought that despite the difficulties, it would be possible to measure international perspectives through reflective activities and tutorial work; others dismissed it as impossible because of its personal nature and the extent to which it had been integrated making it impossible to extract it and assess it separately. Staff and students had difficulty making links between specific assessment tasks and the development of international perspectives in the discipline, and therefore could rarely identify appropriate assessment criteria for the development of international perspectives.

Interestingly and somewhat unexpectedly, students were better able to identify assessments that had tested their development of international perspectives than staff.

If students are to realise the potential for learning provided by the cultural diversity surrounding them in the class, their workplaces and in the global society,

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assessment tasks that require communication and engagement across cultures need to incorporate criteria that specify the inter-cultural skills and knowledge that will be rewarded. We cannot assume that inter-cultural communication, inside or outside the classroom, will develop naturally (De Vita, 2007) or that students will be able to make these links themselves. Assessment of the achievement of international perspectives needs to be explicit, structured and systematic rather than implicit, haphazard and incidental. This is likely to require that we are more innovative in our assessment practices.

Managing Curriculum Change In managing curriculum innovation for internationalisation it is important to recognise the complexity of what we are attempting and to recognise that the beliefs and perceptions of academic staff, themselves culturally influenced, will impact on their readiness to embrace and drive change in the curriculum. Bland et al. (2000 in Gijselaers & Harendza, 2006, p. 106) identified three components for curriculum change in medical schools – internal networking, resource allocation and the institution’s relationship with its external environment. Communities of practice (Wenger, 1999) comprised of multicultural staff across a range of disciplines; access to resources to support inter-cultural engagement (e.g. funding for travel to undertake collaboration with scholars from other cultures on inter-disciplinary projects) and strategies to extend international partnerships with universities beyond study abroad and exchange agreements may provide some way forward.

Finally, reflections on the experience of implementing a major curriculum innovation for internationalisation have shown that it is vitally important to engage academic staff with the change agenda from the outset, in order to avoid a reactionary response and entrenched and defensive behaviour. Curriculum change is inevitably somewhat ‘messy’ and chaotic. Not all staff were comfortable with this; others saw it as an advantage. At all times, however, it is important to recognise and respond to the need for professional development that will encourage engagement with the change agenda – as ultimately what happens in the classroom will determine the effectiveness or otherwise of any change agenda driven by the institution.

The Biggest Challenge The biggest challenge in internationalising the curriculum is still moving beyond traditional discipline perspectives focused on the provision of international examples and teaching international students to ‘interdisciplinary and integrative thinking’ (Mestenhauser, 1998, p. 23). While Graduate Quality 7 has effectively focused staff and student attention on the need for all students to develop the skills that will enable inter-cultural engagement, there is still much to be learned about how to do this and how to assess progress towards this goal.

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Mestenhauser (1998, p. 21) described internationalisation of the curriculum as an ‘educational reform’ that requires that we think differently about the universality of knowledge. This in itself requires a meta-analysis of the curriculum, in particular of the role that culture plays in the construction of knowledge and how this has traditionally been reflected in and integrated into the syllabus, learning outcomes, organisation of learning and assessment activities and teacher activity. It requires consideration of questions such as: ● ● ● ●

●

How is what I will be teaching culturally constructed and shaped?

How is thinking in the discipline unique and culturally constructed?

What does this mean for the way I teach it?

What skills do I need to develop in students to assist them to understand the cultural construction of knowledge?

What possibilities are there in this course for students to explore the ways in which their own and others cultures organise knowledge and approach professional practice?

In order to answer these questions, staff need to be self-reflective and develop ‘several kinds of knowledge’ (Mestenhauser, 1998, p. 2), new pedagogies and challenge tightly held views about what to teach, how to teach it and assess it and in what order. This is the next stage in the process of implementing the major curriculum innovation for internationalisation described here.

Conclusion Curriculum innovation for internationalisation requires an understanding of the way in which discipline knowledge and professional practice are culturally constructed and active engagement with the diversity of cultures existing within classrooms, countries, communities and institutions. Internationalisation of the curriculum is concerned with the development of inter-cultural understanding in all students and all staff, the ability to see professional issues from a variety of national and cultural perspectives and with building cross-cultural communication and understanding through new curriculum content and teaching and learning processes.

It is essential to be innovative in our approach to internationalisation of the curriculum. A case study of a major curriculum innovation for internationalisation at a large Australian university initiated in 1996 suggests that a strategic approach at an institutional level is an advantage but that attention must also be given to the details of pedagogy and professional development for academic staff – in particular to the development of skills as inter-cultural learners and understandings of the cultural foundations of knowledge. The most successful approaches are likely to be those that recognise the complexity of the task of curriculum reform, understand the relationships between knowledge and culture, and challenge the way staff and students think about knowledge, learning and teaching. Even so, little will be achieved without a shared will and resources to support the personal development

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of students and staff who together will ultimately determine the success or otherwise of any curriculum innovation for internationalisation.

Curriculum innovation for internationalisation will always involve engagement in cross-cultural relationships on a range of levels – relationships between individuals, institutions and nations; relationships across and within cultures and national borders; relationships between culture and knowledge. In summary, if higher education is to be relevant to the needs of the global community to which we all belong, curriculum innovation for internationalisation must be both holistic and integrated, situated within a broader institutional framework but also owned by academic staff and students.

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