Should we care about global intercultural collaboration? (original) (raw)

A literature review on International collaboration on Higher Education

2012),observe that the scope of environmental challenges are global and requires solutions that incorporate knowledge across disciplines, organisations and cultures. In addition, most individual institutions are often incapable of solving complex problems on their own which calls for collaborations among various groups or organisations. These authors also posit that working across interdisciplinary, organisation and cultural borders entails, team work, clear communication, collaboration among people with different knowledge, values, and approaches, networking, teaching and learning about complex topics and a willingness to apply diverse methods (Schmidt et al., (2012:297). In other words, international collaborations entail learning to anticipate uncertainties and teachable skills.

What Does Internationalisation or Interculturalisation Look Like in the Future in the Higher Education Sector?

Professional Learning in the Work Place for International Students, 2017

What is internationalisation? What is interculturalisation? What will these concepts look like in the future? Will they exist or move beyond their current state? Where are universities/higher education institutions headed with their international strategies as they prepare global citizens for the future? How will universities of the future cater for international students? These are the questions considered in this final chapter. This chapter contains reflections from the team members. We begin by defining internationalisation and interculturalisation in relation to employability. This is followed with reflections on the project as it was experienced within the six participating universities. We then bring together the reflections to highlight the key themes, which inform recommendations for practice and future research.

The Globalisation of Higher Education: Developing Internationalised Education Research and Practice

2018

Globalisation of Higher Education—Developing Internationalised Education Research and Practice is a joint initiative of multiple research teams investigating different dimensions of study abroad. This collaboration provided the opportunity to bring together researchers and practitioners working in the area of university internationalisation: Through this book, we are able to share their stories and best practices as inspiration, cautionary tales, and programme models. As editors, we are humbled by the support and enthusiasm all the authors have shown. In 2014, the Australian government initiated the New Colombo Program, which would see 17,500 students undertake a study abroad experience as part of their tertiary education. Implementing this policy placed increased focus on this important area of tertiary education, an area with which each of the editors has been involved through designing, implementing, facilitating, and researching international student mobility. Whilst most of us in the sector are excited about the prospect of more funding being provided to encourage study abroad, the authors were aware that to meet the government’s targets for students would require many more staff to begin a journey with study abroad and international education. The lack of resources supporting outbound mobility meant that many of these new programmes might be developed without the knowledge and resources left by pioneers in the field; hard lessons were likely to be learned through trial and error innumerable times if something was not done.

Internationalising Higher Education

Routledge eBooks, 2007

This is one of a series of strategic frameworks led by Higher Education Academy (HEA). It provides a structure to inspire and assist in the process of internationalising higher education (HE), with the aim of preparing graduates to live in and contribute responsibly to a globally interconnected society. HEA believes all students studying United Kingdom (UK) programmes across the world should experience a high quality, equitable and global learning experience. The framework offers a common point of reference to shape policy, practice and partnerships. It was developed in collaboration with the UK HE sector but is likely to have relevance for HE systems throughout the world.

Internationalizing higher education: a critical overview

2018

Internationalization has become one of the central themes of higher education in recent years. This theme or agenda has many manifestations including: competing for a greater proportion of international staff and students, encouraging staff and student exchanges between institutions, internationalizing the curricula for home students, and fostering a greater degree of intercultural contact between students. Straddling these various initiatives are also two other major dimensions through which higher education now legitimates its purpose: the development of graduate attributes as well as global citizens. Some initiatives are primarily directed at institutional economic benefit or prestige in the pecking order employability, others at enhancing students’ employability, and yet others focus more on citizenship and civic responsibility. These are not mutually exclusive although there has been a more recent concern with the development of the latter. This paper provides a critical overvi...

Higher education gone global: Introduction to the special issue

Learning and Teaching, 2012

In order to prosper as a so-called knowledge society in a global economy, countries worldwide are increasingly emphasising the need to internationalise their higher education institutions and attract the best and brightest students and staff from abroad. This article explores the shifting rationales for internationalisation and how today, based on novel forms of comparability and exchange, a new and highly stratifi ed arena for higher education is developing. By focusing on the conferences and fairs where actors negotiate and position higher education on various scales, not least a global one, the article introduces the core themes of this special issue and presents one possible context for the following articles.

WORKING IN THE BORDER ZONE: DEVELOPING CULTURAL COMPETENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION FOR A GLOBALIZED WORLD

In this paper we examine the tension between the educational needs of a globalized world and the institutional structures of a globalized education system. The globalized education system encompasses market-driven funding arrangements for both research and teaching in higher education, which depend on international ratings systems structured around traditional discipline areas. The development of these competitive market structures has resulted in the removal by institutions of 'unsuccessful' disciplines, and a risk-averse approach to cross-disciplinary, problem-focused research and curricula. One of the most important consequences of this discipline-based education system is a missed opportunity to encourage reflexive thinking about discipline-based normative assumptions and world views. An advantage of interdisciplinary work is that it casts new light on the practitioner’s own discipline, as well as enabling a critique of assumptions in other disciplines. A reflexive and critical approach to disciplinary knowledge is, we propose, one of the conditions necessary for cultural competence in both researchers and students. Yet just as it is now argued that the globalized world needs graduates who are culturally competent - cross-culturally aware, reflexive, engaged with community in messy non-discipline-specific problems, able to critique and integrate information from many knowledge sources and work collaboratively – the competitive global education system increasingly marginalizes the cultural and structural contexts which foster such cultural competence. We provide two case studies in Indigenous Australia and the Pacific: both involve students and demonstrate the special quality and value of cultural competence and its connection with work across, and beyond, academic disciplines. We conclude that, while the political economy of the globalized education system is largely inimical to interdisciplinary work and the development of cultural competence, catalysing and supporting these processes is the responsibility of higher education institutions in a globalized world.