Towards diverse, critical understandings of “international” for higher education
Abstract
Purpose
The study explores diverse and critical understandings of “international” in a higher education curriculum context, situated in a curriculum review of a postgraduate taught programme entitled “International Education” at a university located in England. Our study problematises and decentres some dominant, normalised notions of “international”, exploring critical possibilities of engaging with the term for higher education internationalisation.
Design/methodology/approach
We examined a set of programme curriculum documents and conducted a survey exploring teaching staff’s uses and interpretations of “international” in their design and delivery of course units. Through a thematic analysis of the dataset, we identify what “international” might mean or how it may be missing across the curriculum.
Findings
Our findings suggest a locally-developed conceptualisation of “international” beyond the normalised interpretation of “international” as the inclusion or comparison of multiple nations, and different, other countries around the global world. More diverse, critical understandings of the term have been considered, including international as intercultural, competences, ethics, languages and methods. The study provides an example approach to reflective scholarship that programmes can undergo in order to develop clarity, depth and purposefulness into internationalisation as enacted in a local curriculum context.
Originality/value
The study provides a first step towards establishing clearer guidelines on internationalising the curriculum by higher education institutions and individual programmes in order to challenge a superficial engagement of “international” within internationalisation. It exemplifies a starting point for making purposeful steps away from normalised notions and assumptions of international education and facilitates development towards its critical, ethically-grounded opportunities.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our external examiner, Emily Henderson, for providing insightful feedback on the programme curriculum, which has informed a critical, reflective starting point for this scholarship. We would also like to thank all teaching staff and students who have contributed to the process of reflecting critically on the element of “international” in curriculum design and teaching practices.
Citation
Huang, Z.M., Cockayne, H. and Mittelmeier, J. (2024), "Towards diverse, critical understandings of “international” for higher education", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-08-2023-0277
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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