New curriculum internationalization paradigm

The evolution of curriculum internationalization requires preparing all graduates to contribute simultaneously to local and global societies. This urgency has brought about a change in the focus of curriculum internationalization since 2015.

The proposed change requires coordinated planning to achieve specific goals for improving the quality of education and research, involving all students and staff, which generate clear benefits beyond the academic community. This effort is largely undertaken through the curriculum, a key piece in shaping people and the core values of disciplines and professions.

Covid-19 has emphasized the complexity of global interconnection by illustrating how national government policies and regional conglomerates in vaccine production and distribution, for example, can improve or exacerbate social and economic inequalities. The pandemic has also made clear the importance of a global mindset, both from individuals and leaders, in understanding the repercussions of their actions on people near and far, engaging in global problem-solving through joint research and action.

Although there are different regional and national nuances in approaches and terminologies, it is possible to highlight six characteristics of the new curriculum internationalization paradigm, all connected to the evolution towards “Education 4.0.” Below, a little more about them:

Curriculum as a system: Based on the understanding that the curriculum operates as a system of articulated elements that can restrict or expand learning and its contribution to the community. Fragmented approaches by disciplinary thinking, confined to individual projects and courses, limit the potential offered by thinking of the curriculum as a system with three dimensions identified by Leask (2015): formal, informal, and hidden curriculum.

The formal curriculum is the content described in the syllabus and the planned and ordered programming of undergraduate experiences and activities. The informal curriculum refers to learning outside the classroom in activities organized not only by the university but also by external partners. These are generally optional and not assessed and support learning — peer tutoring programs, peer-assisted study sessions, and cultural festivals, among others. The hidden curriculum comprises unintentional and implicit messages communicated in the formal and informal curricula.

For example, selected textbooks send hidden messages about which knowledge counts and which does not. They are also conveyed when, for example, international students are required to undergo intercultural skills training and domestic students are not. Raising questions such as: do domestic students already possess such skills? Or are they exempt from it, being demanded only from international students who need to fit in? Such messages need to be perceived and critically analyzed, being changed according to the intended purpose for the curriculum system.

Formal, informal, and hidden elements are connected and interact in formation. Intended learning outcomes, disciplinary knowledge, pedagogy, content, and experiences inside and outside the classroom and evaluation are all elements that shape international and intercultural learning. When the three elements act articulated, by an intentional decision of the institution, they create a powerful and dynamic learning environment for all students.

Focus on learning outcomes for all: It focuses on learning outcomes necessary for all future citizens and workers. Ten years of international research summarized by Leask and Carroll (2011) show that the mere presence of international students in classes and on campus does not result in intercultural learning. This occurs when there is careful planning and intervention by teachers and support teams for intercultural learning.

The focus on learning outcomes and preparing all students, rather than activities and contributions that benefit a minority of students, is an important part of the emerging new paradigm of curriculum internationalization.

Decolonized and cognitively fair curriculum: Requires the creation of spaces and resources for questioning the formal, informal, and hidden curricula. In them, alternative cultural views of the world and diverse knowledge systems need to be considered, and how they can be recognized, examined, and valued. A decolonized curriculum can, for example, analyze the ways in which dominant approaches to knowledge production and distribution are linked to the market and the economy, and how they contribute to reproducing and maintaining the existing society, perpetuating and exacerbating inequalities. It even offers alternative ways to build a different world.

The two principles are based on the understanding that knowledge is contextually situated, rather than objective and culturally neutral. In practice, study programs can include space for students to critically examine dominant knowledge paradigms, their strengths, and weaknesses, without relying on a narrow set of worldviews.

The informal curriculum can also be decolonized by including knowledge generally absent, such as indigenous and black knowledge, among others. Disciplines themselves have strong knowledge cultures. Local knowledge traditions and paradigms are often considered less valuable, both in the formal and informal curriculum. Creating a campus culture that indicates the value attributed to different ways of seeing the world signals that everyone is welcome and adds relevant knowledge.

First intercultural, then international: Intercultural and international elements of the curriculum have always been side by side. But until recently, international orientation was dominant. However, this emphasis is changing, and interculturality has gained more importance, in part as a result of greater focus on curriculum internationalization at home for all students.

Intercultural competence is clearly multifaceted and requires the development of complex skills, attitudes, and knowledge. However, discussions on pedagogies for the development of intercultural competencies were limited until recently. Partly because intercultural learning was mistakenly seen as an automatic result of contact between individuals from different countries or regions on campus, in classrooms, or abroad.

It is important to note that the concept of interculturality not only refers to relationships developed between individuals from different countries or regions but also encompasses people within the same community with diverse ethnic, social, and identity backgrounds, among others. The increase in diversity within local communities and the massification of higher education have brought more sociocultural diversity into the classroom.

Bringing interculturalization to the forefront has several effects. It broadens the scope of theoretical concepts and ideas that influence course design and pedagogy. Secondly, when it becomes an institutional strategy, it elevates engagement with diversity in the classroom and communities to a level as important as international contacts.

Active and experiential learning: Mobility experiences provide students with active encounters with people and ideas. However, students rarely receive support to make sense of such experiences and learn from them through guided reflection that incorporates such learning into their home study program. In home classrooms, active learning strategies involve the creation of structured and timed tasks by teachers, requiring students to respond in some way to a specific idea or event.

Students can work in groups or individually for a short period to produce a tangible result shared with others. Experiential learning includes students’ work in community initiatives, both at home and abroad. Active learning can take place in the classroom, online, and on campus and is at the core of internationalized curriculum. Although immersion in overseas studies has long been seen as an ideal practice, such a view is increasingly being questioned. Innovative combinations of face-to-face and online activities focusing on the development of all students’ intercultural and international knowledge, skills, and attitudes (their interculturality) have also become more important during the pandemic.

Continuous process with purpose and context-based: Internationalization of the curriculum requires careful planning and ongoing review of what students are learning and how they are transforming as a result of this process. Both higher education and curriculum internationalization are context-dependent processes. Emphasis in one country or region may include mobility, while in another, it may not. Marmolejo & Gacel-Ávila (2016) point to a persistent focus on physical mobility of students and staff in Latin America, which, despite the benefits to individuals, has not contributed to systematic transformations and quality improvements at the sectoral and institutional levels.

In other locations, the focus has been on employability and preparing graduates for the job market, as is the case in the UK and Australia. The context also includes disciplinary, institutional, national, regional, and global dimensions and how they interact with each other.

Another key element is working with students as partners in the curriculum internationalization process. It means bringing students to participate and contribute to conceptualization, decision-making, teaching practices, learning, and evaluation. Green’s (2018) research on the topic, however, found that using students as partners challenges naturalized institutional practices. The work suggests that making students partners is a powerful way to create more inclusive and egalitarian forms of curriculum internationalization at home.

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