Janice Kinghorn

A Farmer School economics professor was one of twelve Miami University faculty to spend a month in India this summer as part of a U .S . Department of Education grant, and spent the fall semester bringing her experiences to her students .

Janice Kinghorn was part of the Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad group . “The call was for social scientist and humanities faculty, and economics is a social science,” she said . “We met throughout the semester before we went learning a little bit about India We did one session on economics where I proposed readings and led a discussion . And then the other people would do the same in their areas of expertise So we knew a little bit before we went ”

“The broad aim of the Fulbright-Hays program is to provide educators in humanities, social sciences, and languages with professional development experiences overseas to help them integrate international studies into the general curriculum,” professor of psychology Vaishali Raval said .

The overall goals of the project were to:

• Promote reflective exploration of the ways in which multiple cultural influences and systems contribute to individual development, including on one’s own self development;

• Critically evaluate the ways in which knowledge and teaching practices in one’s scholarly discipline have colonial and Euro-American foundations;

• Integrate de-colonized local perspectives from India in one’s humanities and social science curricula;

• Modify pedagogical methods to meet the needs of a diverse student body

• Disseminate knowledge gained to other educators

“The idea behind the grant was not just a quick tour, but to get immersed in a place and try to understand it, and do that in a variety of places . India is so different, and understanding the cultural differences even within that country is what we were trying to do,” Kinghorn said

“I saw a lot of things that I had just read about in the past, such as microcredit enterprise and entrepreneurial efforts in rural areas, and that was really cool . I saw the problems of a developing country, the problems of a lack of public goods And the connection between a lack of public goods and the efficiency of an economy was salient,” she said “I do a lot of study abroad, and the reason I do is I find that it is a very powerful way to learn.”

The group visited Indian universities in Delhi, Dehradun, Ahmedabad, and Bangalore “At each institution, we were warmly welcomed, experienced incredible hospitality with delicious meals and thoughtful gifts, and administrators and faculty took time from their existing commitments to meet and interact with us We learned about higher education in India, explored potential avenues for curricular and research collaborations, and most importantly, developed or strengthened foundational relationships to build future partnerships,” Raval said

“We started a collaborative project where we have four topics My students were in four groups and they researched and developed a report and a presentation on those topics from the U S perspective And the students at Christ University did the same thing from the Indian perspective,” Kinghorn said “And then we had a virtual conference where they presented to each other and they had a discussion about the issues that that come up ”

“My group and our counterpart had the topic ‘Non-Monetary Inequalities .’ We wrote a report titled “Exploring NonMonetary Inequalities in USA” where we mostly focused on racial inequality and gender inequality,” senior economics major Rafid Pranto said . “We met the team from India in October where we had general discussions on non-monetary inequalities in USA and India, asked one another questions, and set up our work agenda for the collaborative project ”

“We learned that poverty is different in India compared to the US and they have very different methods in eradicating poverty We learned about the horizontal inequalities of women in India,” one of Kinghorn’s groups noted in their final report . “We learned in-depth about SHGs (self-help groups) and how they are similar in promoting economic mobility for women.”

“We learned to give time to accommodate for ‘excess’ communication and information that the other culture may have We also learned to elaborate upon ‘US’ words that might be unclear for the group in India,” another group noted .

Kinghorn said that the project helped educate her students in a couple of ways . “I think my students saw their material differently because they were trying to see it from another viewpoint,” she said . “I think the folks from India brought in perspective that my students didn’t have They talked about climate change being an issue of inequality, that poor agricultural countries like India were bearing the brunt of climate change That was not something on the radar of my students . ”

“I liked the collaborative project a lot It was the first time for me collaborating with students outside of Miami University for a class project, and I had so much to learn We found out similarities and dissimilarities between USA and India regarding existing and historical non-monetary inequalities, policy decisions, public awareness, etc ,” Pranto said “My key takeaways from this project were working effectively in a cross-cultural environment, being more detailed and flexible with communication, and asking critical questions to make conversations fruitful.”

Despite time differences, cultural notions, and transmission lags that sometimes complicated the process, Kinghorn said she was continuing the project in her spring class . “I think this is what we should be doing,” Kinghorn said . “It’s messy and it’s frustrating, but working with people who are are different than ourselves can be messy and frustrating and I think it’s what we should be giving our students opportunities to do ”