Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Trede 2013
Trede 2013
Intercultural Education
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20
To cite this article: Franziska Trede, Wendy Bowles & Donna Bridges (2013) Developing
intercultural competence and global citizenship through international experiences: academics’
perceptions, Intercultural Education, 24:5, 442-455, DOI: 10.1080/14675986.2013.825578
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
Intercultural Education, 2013
Vol. 24, No. 5, 442–455, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2013.825578
The Education For Practice Institute, Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 450, Silverwater
Sydney NSW 2128, Australia
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
Introduction
There is a growing trend to internationalise university education and offer students
international experiences as part of their university curriculum. Providing such expe-
riences without a pedagogical framework that helps students to reflect on self and
others, and make meaning of their experiences can run the risk of reinforcing unre-
flected beliefs and values about other countries, customs and norms. Well-developed
pedagogical frameworks can enable students to develop their intercultural compe-
tence and qualities for global citizenship. However, this requires academic educators
who are skilled in developing intercultural competence and global citizenship. In this
paper, we explore academics’ perceptions and practices in preparing students for
international experiences as part of Charles Sturt University’s professional entry
programmes. In particular, we are curious about academics’ understandings of
Global citizenship
Global citizenship is a concept closely aligned to notions of intercultural
competence. Israel, Miller, and Reed (2011, 309) argue that global citizenship ‘…
involves a sense of self that is grounded in specific places (home communities and
nations), while also being conscious of those commitments in the broader context of
global belonging and global collaboration’. In their view, global citizenship brings
the global and local together; for example it involves ‘inclusive debates’ about how
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
to protect the environment, respect human rights and respond to disasters in other
countries. Thus, ‘… global citizenship is a pluralistic, postmodern identity that
cannot be reduced to a single essence or single allegiance’ (Israel, Miller, and Reed
2011, 313). We conceive global citizenship as a conceptual value framework
underpinned by social responsibility, global equality and human rights. Such a
global citizenship framework aligns well with notions of intercultural competence.
However, we are well aware that other value frameworks can underpin intercultural
competence. This paper shares the understanding of the term ‘global citizenship’ as
discussed by Israel, Miller, and Reed (2011) and eloquently articulated by Morais
and Ogen (2011, 449):
the world differently. Giroux (2005, 164) adds that critical reflection enables
students to become aware of how knowledge excludes other ways of thinking and it
‘rejects distinctions between high and low culture’.
Trede and Hill (2012) identify critical self-awareness, respect for diverse
interpretations of practices and the use of inclusive dialogues as key principles of
cultural competence. Yashima (2010) discusses culture-general attributes such as
self-efficacy, tolerance of ambiguity, critical thinking/creativity, non ethno-centric
and openness which can be applied in specific cultural contexts where other attri-
butes such as social, political and cultural knowledge, language ability and specific
communication skills are needed. McRae and Ramji (2011, 347–348) categorise
intercultural competence into ‘active and passive skills’. The latter include skills
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
conflict (Le Roux 2002) and reinforcing existing inequalities. Without critical self
reflection and adequate support students can retreat into taken for granted ways of
coping that denigrate rather than appreciate and engage with difference.
In today’s globalised world, no matter what path students choose to take in their career
upon graduation, they will be living and working in a culturally diverse setting.
(McRae and Ramji 2011, 347)
This quote highlights that the ability to live and work in a culturally diverse
setting, in other words to develop intercultural competence, is becoming a survival
skill in today’s globalised world. It also implies a close interconnection between
global citizenship and intercultural competence.
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
exchanges, to create international links between institutions and people, and to lay
foundations for international diplomacy. This level of internationalisation is seen as a
vital contribution to Australia’s ability to communicate, collaborate and contribute
globally (DEEWR 2009). International workplace learning placements and short-term
mobility programmes are part of this approach to international higher education and
offer the opportunity to provide Australian students with an international experience
as part of their domestic study programme or course. Short-term mobility
programmes have been described as ‘a short burst of international experience relevant
to your degree and … something that you could do in your break or as part of your
subject’ (CSU Global 2010).
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
Methodology
The research questions that guided our research design were: how do academics
prepare students for international experiences and how do they integrate understand-
ings of intercultural competence into their course programmes? We sought to under-
stand more deeply preparation practices for intercultural learning by engaging
participants in a question and answer dialogue. This study adopted a philosophical
hermeneutics approach which is a good fit with dialogically exploring the percep-
tions and practices of participants. Philosophical hermeneutics is the art and science
of interpreting dialogues (Gadamer 1996). The focus is on shared understanding of a
chosen phenomenon. Shared understanding means that interpretations are not
imposed but generated through explorative dialogues. In this study, the data
collection phase comprised dialogues between research participants and researchers.
The data analysis phase comprised dialogues amongst the researchers.
Ethics clearance was obtained. We recruited participants for this project via the
university’s electronic newsletter and in collaboration with the university’s global
programme. We used a purposeful and snowball sampling technique (Minichiello,
Aroni, and Hays 2008). It was not our aim to generalise about preparation practice
Intercultural Education 447
Findings
Our findings reveal that there was not one shared pedagogical approach to prepare
students for intercultural competence and global citizenship amongst the participants
in this study. Interviewees who had well-developed pedagogical approaches also had
an ability to articulate their understandings of intercultural competence and global
citizenship, whereas others who felt that the international experience in itself was
sufficient to enable students to develop intercultural competence had un-informed
positions towards intercultural competence and global citizenship. We discuss our
findings as they emerged from our data analysis under the following themes:
perceived purposes and benefits, courses approach, informal preparation, assessment
of intercultural preparation and perceptions of developing intercultural competence
and global citizenship.
Experiential learning was adopted without planning and reflecting. The underlying
values of raising awareness of global inequality and human rights issues were only
discussed by a minority of our participants.
Ten of the twelve participants reported that attendance by students at the
pre-departure workshops delivered by CSU global’s student mobility unit was
mandatory. In these workshops, students were prepared for immunisation and visa
requirements focusing on procedural essentials without addressing cultural and
global issues in the host countries. Eight interviewees did not offer additional socio-
cultural preparations for their students, besides taking part in informal discussions
and ad hoc advice. Two interviewees felt that their course itself prepared students
adequately for the cultural aspect of their international placement and that additional
preparation was not necessary. It was beyond the scope of this study to review
course curricula to establish their pedagogical intent.
Interviewee 4: [There is a focus on] being amongst people that are from other cultures,
bringing and unpacking all their prejudice and bias. So we spent a lot of time …
because they’re going to work with a whole range of … people who will be from a
range of backgrounds and cultures.
The interviewee from the social work course stated that students are exposed to
intercultural literature throughout their studies:
Interviewee 11: The actual preparation begins about one year before the placement
and students are asked to read cross cultural literature, particularly the cultural context
of the country where they are going … And students are also informed about the
working culture and how it is different from developed countries.
Interviewee 12: Things like universal human rights, again that underpins our whole …
course, we talk about … human rights all the time … Globalisation, is certainly
Intercultural Education 449
addressed and it gets progressively addressed as students’ progress through the course
more. So in fourth year, in fact, right at this point in time, the students are doing a con-
temporary practice issue subject which concentrates on things like the bigger picture of
the profession and anti oppressive practices and cultural sensitivity.
of the concepts and skills associated with global citizenship and intercultural
competence discussed above.
Interviewee 9: ‘We do talk to them about the country … informally we talk to them
about the country and how it’s structured and they’re all aware that it’s … gone
through a lot of political instability … in the past and that there’s a lot of subsistence
… and lower well-being. So they have a general understanding of all that and we
definitely talk to them informally about that. We don’t sit them down and give them
lectures at length about the country, we’d rather them see it for themselves …
The pedagogical intentions behind these pre-departure activities were not further
elaborated. The danger is that if these intentions are not explicit such activities could
be a disservice to sensitising students for complex and diverse experiences abroad,
450 F. Trede et al.
rather than raising their awareness and preparing them to be open to the upcoming
experience.
The diversity in preparation for international experience is evident from these
responses. Whereas some courses have globalisation, social justice and multicultur-
alism embedded others perceive international experiences as an add-on to a course
without explicit integration. Apart from the general travel preparation workshops
organised by CSU Global, it appears to be a matter of chance and the attitude of the
academic whether and how students are prepared for international experiences
before they leave Australia.
Only one interviewee reported that the subject incorporating the international
experience included two preparatory assessment tasks prior to departure and
reflection tasks upon return. The assessment tasks required preparation of a literature
review on a self-chosen topic that related to understanding the theories, the current
level of knowledge around development, the role of tourism in cultural change,
economic change, the responses of local communities to that and the models for
achieving good outcomes. This participant articulated the pedagogical purpose of his
preparation design as follows:
Interviewee 2: And so we talk about the ethics, the philosophy of it … you know the
environment, society, culture, the economy, the tourist experience, they’re all so totally
interlinked that you can’t exclude one.
This quote exemplifies a belief that disciplinary rather than professional practice
was the key focus of the international placement. Interviewee 6 emphasised the
importance of simply being there as a tool for intercultural learning. Preparation was
believed to be difficult to integrate into the course. Students have ‘enough on their
plates doing core subjects’. Furthermore, this interviewee believed that the interna-
tional experience is the best way to be exposed to intercultural issues and to learn
by seeing and living it. He believed that experience and dealing with the issues in
the country is richer and better than theory.
Interviewee 12, while emphasising the importance of learning intercultural
competence and preparing students for global citizenship, believed that preparation
is far less important than carefully structured experiential learning in the
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
international context. While his students undergo a two day preparation session, it is
more about the actual professional practices they will be doing while overseas, than
cultural preparation.
Interviewee 12: I’m not real sure of the value of doing it (preparation about culture,
language, politics). This is a contention in our school with some staff who feel that our
lack of not doing these sort of things is if you like, not enhancing the student’s experi-
ence. Whereas I prefer a much more experiential way of students doing it and when
they’re talking with their interpreters or talking with their language teacher, or talking
with people at the orphanage, they find out more about things that happen and get
different views.
Interviewee 12: So there’s that issue, um, we deal with stereotypes, I don’t outwardly
deal with stereotypes, but I challenge students when they start to complain about the
way things are done and that sort of thing, but it’s not the stereotypes as such, it’s a
lack of understanding that, that this is not Australia and things are done differently in
this country at this time. And we’ll talk about that, the whole of idea of the language
and the communication and that, to me it’s really important that we have the interpret-
ers and we have some language classes … and then the interpreters who are with us
give us another perspective, from their point of view and from a young Vietnamese
person’s point of view.
In contrast, there were three interviewees who expressed doubt that the
experience alone could develop intercultural competence. These respondents placed
importance on intentional preparation for and reflections after international
experiences as illustrated by this quote:
Interviewee 03: I don’t know if you can just send someone overseas and they come
back and you tick the box that they’re culturally competent and aware and they
become global citizens … I think you could prepare people a little bit … making
people consider some of the cultural, contextual factors … I think it’s a real challenge
because it’s such a hard concept to define, it’s not like you can just write an essay and
452 F. Trede et al.
all of a sudden you become competent in that area … Perhaps the debrief afterwards
and the reflection is something that is really perhaps, as important.
Interviewee 2: I would suggest to you that everybody that’s taking their students
overseas has to find some reason for doing that. It can’t be just because the university
wants them to. There’s gotta be some reason for it to contribute to the student’s
education and then their experience.
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
Interviewee 8: I think they [students] needed more preparation than what they were
given. CSU Global had given them a generic presentation on how to be an ambassador
for CSU and international travel … and I had had two sessions with the students …
trying to give them information about the country and culture but that was nowhere
near enough. They should have had some academic component or some serious
cultural studies and intercultural communication studies prior to the trip … But the
programme is not set up to prepare them, basically they apply, they get accepted, they
pay, they go.
dialogical environment where all (students and teachers) can respectfully and safely
make critical sense of their experiences and learn from each other. The participants
in this study did not articulate this reciprocal and participatory aspect of their peda-
gogical role.
From our findings, we conclude that there is a need for professional development
and course reviews to strengthen the higher education imperative of internationalis-
ing courses. Professional development can enable academics to become effective
facilitators of intercultural competence. Opportunities need to be provided to course
teams to learn how to create collective spaces to rethink their pedagogical intent
regarding international experiences as part of the wider course curriculum. Further,
we recommend a list of ‘minimum requirements’ to consider when designing
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
Develop explicit purposes for the international placement, with links to other
parts of the course and preparation for professional practice in order to provide
a more integrated approach to learning and teaching.
Introduce strategies to draw on critical awareness raising and collective sense-
making to help students to enhance their intercultural experience to develop
intercultural competence and global citizenship. This could include reflective
exercises before and after the international experience, to develop awareness
of students’ own cultural lenses, and to debrief and integrate learning into
other parts of the students’ education for professional practice.
Develop a systematic approach to cultural preparation including the socio-
political-cultural and historic context in which the placement and professional
practice occurs using multiple perspectives.
Discuss with students what constitutes appropriate dress and behaviour in host
country and sensitise students to differences in values and practices.
Acknowledgements
We want to acknowledge and are grateful for funding by the Scholarship in Teaching grant
of the Charles Sturt University. The authors thank all our participants who gave their time so
freely. We also thank our colleagues Dr Gates, Dr McEwen and Dr Swirski for their thought-
ful feedback to earlier drafts.
Notes on contributors
Franziska Trede is associate professor and deputy director of The Education For Practice
Institute where she leads the research programme. She researches about cultural competence,
social inclusion, professional identity development and professionalism in higher education.
454 F. Trede et al.
Wendy Bowles is associate professor of social work and sub dean professional placement in
the school of humanities and social sciences. She researches about ethical practice, rural and
global settings and fieldwork education.
Donna Bridges is lecturer of sociology in the school of humanities and social sciences at
CSU. She researches about sociological issues that encompass gender, feminisms, women in
non-traditional occupations and educating for professional practice.
References
AASW. 2007. AASW Australian Social Work Education and Accreditation Standards.
Canberra: AASW. http://www.aasw.asn.au/document/item/100.
Altbach, P. G., and J. Knight. 2007. “Internationalization of Higher Education: Motivations
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
McLaughlin, J. S., and D. K. Johnson. 2006. “Assessing the Field Course Experiential
Learning Model: Transforming Collegiate Short-Term Study Abroad Experiences into
Rich Learning Environments.” Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad
XIII: 65–85.
McRae, N., and K. Ramji. 2011. “Enhancing Cultural Intelligence through Cooperative and
Work-Integrated Education.” In International Handbook for Cooperative and Work-
Integrated Education, edited by R. K. Coll and K. E. Zegwaaard, 2nd ed., 347–353.
Lowell, MA: WACE World Association for Cooperative Education.
Meek, V. L. 2005. Country Paper on Australia: Cross-Border Higher Education in Australia.
In Implications of WTO/GATS on Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific,
UNESCO Forum Occasional Paper Series Paper, No. 9, 45–8. Paris: United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Accessed 20 May, 2012.
http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/8878.
Downloaded by [Mount Allison University 0Libraries] at 07:12 06 October 2014
Miles, M., and A. Huberman. 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Minichiello, V., R. Aroni, and T. Hays. 2008. In-depth Interviewing. 3rd ed. French’s Forest:
Pearson Education Australia.
Mohan, T., H. McGregor, S. Saunders, and R. Archee. 2004. “Intercultural Communication
Competence in Business and the Professions.” In Communicating as Professionals, edited
by T. Mohan, H. McGregor, S. Saunders, and R. Archee, 77–105. Southbank Victoria:
Thomson.
Morais, D. B., and A. C. Ogen. 2011. “Initial Development and Validation of the Global
Citizenship Scale.” Journal of Studies in International Education 15: 445–466.
OECD. August, 2004. Policy Brief Internationalisation of Higher Education. Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development. Accessed May 17, 2012. http://www.oec-
d.org/education/educationeconomyandsociety/33734276.pdf.
Perry, L. B., and L. Southwell. 2011. “Developing Intercultural Understanding and Skills:
Models and Approaches.” Intercultural Education 22 (6): 453–466.
Le Roux, J. 2002. “Effective Educators are Culturally Competent Communicators.”
Intercultural Education 13 (1): 37–48.
Sercu, L. 2006. “The Foreign Language and Intercultural Competence Teacher: The
Acquisition of a New Professional Identity.” Intercultural Education 17 (1): 55–72.
Trede, F., and B. Hill. 2012. “Intercultural communication.” In Communicating in the health
sciences, edited by J. Higgs, R. Ajjawi, L. McAllister, F. Trede, and S. Loftus, 3rd ed.,
Chapter 20, 195–205. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Vincent-Lancrin, S. 2009. “Cross-border Higher Education: Trends and Perspectives.” In
Higher Education to 2030, Volume 2, Globalisation, 63–88. Paris: OECD Publishing.
doi: 10.1787/9789264075375-4-en.
Wals, A. E. J., and N. Sriskandarajah. 2010. “Mediated Cross-Cultural Learning through
Exchange in Higher Agricultural Education.” Journal of Agricultural Education and
Extension 16 (1): 5–22.
Webber, R. 2005. “Integrating Work-Based and Academic Learning International and Cross
Cultural Settings.” Journal of Education and Work 18 (4): 473–487.
Yashima, T. 2010. “The Effects of International Volunteer Work Experience on Intercultural
Competence of Japanese Youth.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 34 (3):
268–282.