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A deeper dig into Global Learning

International education is a relatively new field and until recently, there was no formal education to prepare practitioners. This means that people working in international education are a colourful and diverse group, coming from a wide range of disciplines, which definitely adds to the attraction of the field. I call international education a field rather than a discipline since it is composed of a variety of established disciplines, such as languages, educational sciences, psychology, business, anthropology, history and even, in my case, classical archaeology. For this lecture, I have chosen to return to my original discipline and discuss global learning as the stages of an archaeological excavation. Cutting though the subsequent layers represents a history of international education but also my own professional history. By digging deeper down, layer after layer, I hope to uncover the essence of global learning in order to make its benefits available for all our students. This lecture consists of four sections. In the first section, I want to go back to the time when archaeology was a new discipline and see what we can learn from the research conducted at that time. In the second section I will reveal the layers of internationalisation and global learning until we come to the layer that we are currently exploring. In the third section, I will look at some of the factors and trends that will have an impact on global learning in the years to come. This shows that circumstances are quite different from when the excavation started and that global education is therefore dynamic. Finally, I will discuss what research the Research Group Global Learning will conduct, how and with whom, in the coming years.

Writing the self in global citizenship education

Higher education is tasked with preparing students for a culturally diverse and globalizing world. Additionally, western nations have an increasingly diverse student population and know the success of their students will depend in part on being able to navigate diversity. There is therefore good reason for institutions of higher learning to promote and facilitate the development of ‘global citizens’ – people who can work and relate across borders and boundaries, both real and perceived. However, teachers are not necessarily equipped to foster this learning. Many teachers are used to a reproductive way of teaching while the learning that is needed here is identity learning, directed at dialogue, internally as well as externally. This chapter proposes the potential of creative, expressive and reflective writing as a way in which personal development – a form of a reflexive internal dialogue – can be fostered to promote cultural healing and global citizenship. The writing method will be described and a case study on cultural healing in the context of Canada’s reconciliation efforts with Aboriginal people will be used to illustrate the learning process involved. The processes of writing the self and re-narrating identity has several promising benefits for both students and teachers in higher education. First it allows us to learn more about ourselves and what blocks our learning (i.e. promotes self-reflection). Second, it allows us to change our story and our identifications and therefore choose differently (i.e. self-direction). Third, it is a companion on the road of life where we literally learn to talk and listen to ourselves and articulate the tacit knowledge that can be unearthed through narrative, journal, and poetic writing. Fourth, the method is playful and creative and although tears are frequently shed in the process, students report a great enjoyment in writing and sharing their stories with others. It is a meaningful dialogue about experience and also has the potential of promoting cultural (Lengelle, Jardine, & Bonnar, 2018) healing in the context of a very diverse student body (Banks, 2015). It also has the potential for creating new bonds in the classroom and allows teachers in higher education to engage in the difficult work of facilitating global citizenship learning. The internal dialogue described here also allows us to ‘clean up’ judgements and become aware of the need to reach out to others. Not only the actual sharing of vulnerable writing in a class or online setting shows us we are not alone, but ‘writing the self’ focuses deliberately on where we have become fearful about our own and others’ identities and allows us a learning process to unearth those things, heal them in order to reach out to others.

I am a global citizen. Or am I not? International Business Schools students and Global Citizenship unified framework & a scoping literature review of the last decade (2013-2022)

This review examines the scientific articles of the last decade, approaching the subject through the methodology of the scoping literature review. Starting with the Boolean search global citizens AND education AND (international business OR international business school) in the ScienceDirect, Emerald, and Scopus databases, the review resulted in only scientific journal articles, strictly targeted at tertiary education ONLY of international business schools and ONLY in those articles that study global citizenship. For reasons of up-to-date knowledge, the present literature was content with the final decade. A total of 13 articles are recorded as a result of the aforementioned Boolean search from a total of 216 articles identified in the first phase of the search. The results will help the researchers to acquire the required knowledge base for their research, the academics to incorporate new methods in their teaching and the approach of their students, and the policymakers to adapt the schools curricula according to the data from the articles present in the literature review.

The astronaut and the empathy wall

the role of higher education in fostering young professionals’ global competence

Global Diffusion of Montessori Schools

Internationalisation at Home in a Global Perspective

This article takes the 3rd Global Survey Report of the International Association of Universities (IAU) as a starting point. The results of this worldwide survey were published in September 2010. The article discusses four questions from the survey that include internationalisation at Home (IaH) and internationalisation of the curriculum as response items. outcomes of these four questions are commented on and, where relevant and possible, compared to the results of the previous survey, which was conducted in 2005 and published in 2006. It is argued that the sections of the Global Survey that mention internationalisation of the curriculum and IaH use terminology that is not always adequate for the purpose and at times even seems contradictory. The Global Survey includes a question on internal obstacles to internationalisation, which will also be discussed here. These obstacles include the lack of engagement and limited expertise of academic staff in relation to the internationalisation process. The response items for this question do not connect these obstacles to internationalisation of the curriculum explicitly, but it is argued here that a relationship indeed exists. The same is true for issues around foreign language proficiency, which may have a strong impact on internationalisation of the home curriculum. In the conclusion, several additional questions are raised that could serve to get a clearer picture of the development of internationalisation of the curriculum in a global perspective.