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Enhancing Learning in The Social Science Vol - 2 - 1 - Killick
Enhancing Learning in The Social Science Vol - 2 - 1 - Killick
modernity’
David Killick
Leeds Metropolitan University
G14 Macaulay Hall
Headingley Campus
Leeds LS6 3QS
UK
Biography
Section 1
It is not uncommon to find recognition that the changing shape of the world of
the twenty-first century requires a review of our current university provision.
However, among those calling for such a review it is often the case that, even
when a nod is given to global citizenship or other ethical stances, the focus is
principally on issues such as employability and global competitiveness. For
example:
(Brustein, 2007: 3)
The thrust into ‘skills’ has paralleled the marketisation of HE, with students
cast as ‘consumers’ and businesses as our ‘clients’. Universities compete
(locally and internationally) for market share, and increasingly ‘sell’
themselves through the broad ephemera of location, facilities, celebrity and
Yet we all know that the challenges of globalisation extend well beyond global
markets – and there are certainly more fundamental issues to be addressed if
we truly aspire to graduate globally competent students. These challenges
require a quite radical review of the student experience, especially, though not
exclusively, that offered through our undergraduate curricula (though beware
too of the ‘skills’ knocking at the postgraduate door). The fragmenting forces
of a globalising world challenge how we shape our identities, how we relate to
the growing diversity in those others with whom interaction is inevitable, and
how we then envision our responsibilities in relation to those global others.
Herein lie fundamental considerations for ‘higher’ education, situated as we
are at sites of personal development and learning where values are adopted,
ethics explored and identity formation is in process if not completion (Baxter
Magolda, 2009). This is the context for the rationale for internationalisation
elaborated below.
To begin with I set out six propositions leading into what I refer to as a
‘developed’ view of internationalisation (Killick, 2007).
1. A university should seek to provide an education for all its students that
is ‘fit for purpose’.
2. An education offering ‘fitness for purpose’ today is one which will
enable our students to make their way in the world of today and the worlds of
tomorrow.
3. The world we inhabit is undergoing rapid changes in many dimensions,
through processes broadly grouped under the term ‘globalisation’.
Being ‘beyond’ the traditional subject discipline and ‘across’ the university
may be seen to pose a difficulty in the context of UK three-year degrees,
which are typically tightly structured and focused, with little room for
‘additional’ knowledge or skills. However, this also offers an advantage over
contexts (for example, the USA) where longer programmes with less rigid
credit requirements have tended to allow the international or intercultural to be
dealt with as a peripheral subject area rather than being situated in the
subject itself. In relation to diversity, Kreber (2009b: 6) makes the point that ‘it
stands to reason’ for all those engaging with students to ‘respond positively to
different dimensions of diversity and employ inclusive practices’. While
incontestable in itself, surely such behaviour must also extend to interrogating
how the discipline itself responds to diversity. This has been most prominently
explored through feminist critiques, but there are other voices to be heard,
geographically, culturally, racially and temporally distributed. For this and
other reasons, I propose that curriculum internationalisation must be taken on
as the responsibility of each discipline area, rather than left as a matter to be
dealt with centrally. Nonetheless, to guide the process of internationalising the
curricula within the disciplines, it may be helpful to outline some of the core
attributes which all our students might find beneficial as they move on to make
their way in the supercomplex world of ‘continual challenge and insecurity’
(Barnett, 2000: 167). The nature of those attributes is in part determined by
However much those within academia and many of those ‘looking in’ may
think otherwise, universities do not stand outside the world and cannot hide
behind flags of academic ‘neutrality’; we are ‘more than a spectator of society’
(Green and Barblan, 2004: 15). As already alluded to, in the wake of market
forces, universities have in recent decades been driven to play their social
role out through a shift to key skills and employability (dumbing down by
skilling up). Barnett and Di Napoli (2008c) offer a host of perspectives to
suggest that this process has stripped the academy of its identity. However, it
is a mistake to attribute this loss solely to our ‘local difficulties’. Universities,
disciplines, staff and students are also located in the global flows and
associated uncertainties of postmodernity. Shifting our focus from skills to
values, from performing to being, might be an appropriate way to help us re-
establish some common core. It must be acknowledged that assigning to HE
a role of encouraging or developing values seems anathema to some (see, for
example, Shephard, 2008). Yet a view of knowledge and education which
believes it can be value-free is naive; the question is ‘not whether, but which
values ought to be promoted’ (Case, 1993: 320). In defending the inclusion of
the values of a global perspective in the curriculum, Collins invites academics
to ‘explore the sometimes hidden values and exclusiveness that underpin
their practice’, refuting ‘the notion that any academic activity is value free’
(Collins, 2005: 224). As obvious examples, consider the value positions taken
by the academy in respect of scholarship, intellectual property, academic
freedom or research ethics; more broadly, we actively oppose racism and
sexism, and espouse tolerance and the validity of human rights. Barnett goes
so far as to assert that ‘a university cannot, with dignity, retain the title of
‘university’ unless it upholds the collective virtues of tolerance and respect for
persons’ (Barnett, 2000: 27).
It may not be clear whether he was advocating most stongly for education for
conformity or for freedom, but Dearing proposed that good HE in the UK ‘can
impart tolerance, openness, and the capacity to inject positive forms of social
interaction’ (Dearing, 1997b: 23) (my italics). Dewey (1916/1966), the founder
of much educational thinking, saw education as the basis for healthy
democracy. At the other extreme, Mao Tse Tung ousted the academy for its
anti-revolutionary conservatism. Education and values cannot be dissociated,
and so it is important to recognise universities as ‘not simply sharing values
with the rest of society but also helping to shape society’ (Robinson and
Katulushi, 2005: 256). This line is, of course, replete with well-rehearsed
difficulties – who decides (and on what authority) what shape ‘we’ want? How
do we mediate between those whose preferred shapes are opposed? And so
forth. Opening the debate is a can of worms which cannot be avoided once
we embark on the process of curriculum internationalisation. At a time of such
global change (and local ‘threat’), it is a debate we should welcome.
Taking this view of value-driven rather than value-free HE, enabling students
to make their way implies engaging responsibly with the world. Enabling
graduates to take a responsible stance is a value position which underpins
this paper and the model of curriculum internationalisation advocated within it.
In the next section I briefly explore particular features of the world our
graduates may inhabit and how these relate to issues of identity and the
graduate attributes which may be relevant to HE students regardless of their
Section 2
As multiple others nudge the borders of our life-world whenever we enact our
daily lives, images of the differentiation in their lived experiences also flash
into consciousness and force upon us a recognition of the impacts we have
on the lives of geographically and socially distant others. These others have
always been with us; some of ‘us’ have always been in the position of living at
7.1 display an ability to think globally and consider issues from a variety of
perspectives
7.2 demonstrate an awareness of their own culture and its perspectives
and other cultures and their perspectives
7.3 appreciate the relation between their field of study locally and
professional traditions elsewhere
Section 3
Summary
Note
The thrust of this paper formed the introduction to a workshop on learning
outcomes at the 2008 Higher Education Academy Annual Conference. The
appendix summarises proposals arising from group work at that workshop.
Bourne, D, McKenzie, A and Shiel, C (2006) The global university: the role of
curriculum, London: Development Education Association.
DfES (Department for Education and Skills) (2004) Putting the world into
world-class education, London: DfES Publications.
DfES (2005) Developing the global dimension in the school curriculum, DfES
and DfID: DfES. Available at:
van der Wende, M (2001) ‘Internationalisation policies: about new trends and
contrasting paradigms’, Higher Education Policy, 14, pp 249–259.
Skills
Knowledge
None were identified as it was generally felt that these would be problematic
to assess.