Search

Decolonisation is a socio-political movement which challenges Eurocentrism and post-colonial notions of power. This has numerous implications for higher education institutions (HEIs), where the content and delivery of curricula may be seen as products of colonial legacy. The decolonisation agenda has increasing support from students, the academy, and regulatory bodies, which together are invoking HEIs to act. This paper reports on research undertaken within a UK HEI, which benchmarked the extent to which programmes followed characteristics of (de)colonised curricula. A survey, based on existing open access resources, was completed by 99 staff and 290 students across four schools. Findings suggest differences in how curricula are perceived by staff and students, and between white and minority ethnic student groups. Given growing global interest in decolonisation and associated social justice themes, this research has important applications for other HEIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from research that investigated students and academic staff working in partnership to co-create curricula. Using case study methodology, the study investigated three examples within higher education in the UK, Ireland and the USA, where academic staff and students co-designed curricula. Findings focus on the approach to co-created curricula described by academic staff within each setting, followed by presentation of cross-case themes and outcomes from the three examples. The discussion focuses on drawing out key messages from the study results including the importance of students’ views being taken seriously and a range of early design decisions that are taken by academic staff and which are useful to those considering co-creating curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Student engagement is an expectation of UK quality enhancement processes. It is not without its challenges in a marketised higher education sector where students are increasingly treated as consumers of an educational product. Nowhere is this more the case than in curriculum development. This encompasses engagement in learning and teaching, in identity and in governance. As such, it demands a lot of both students and tutors. This paper reports a case study of student participation in curriculum development. Analysis of data from students who were involved in the process, complemented by information from students who did not engage, suggests that meaningful engagement requires a revision of the culture and processes of university curriculum decision making. Moreover, it concludes that engagement needs to be a consistent part of the student experience and not just an activity that occurs in a particular quality enhancement activity such as curriculum design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research was conducted with fashion media students exploring the place of formal curriculum in structuring interaction in collaborative group work, and in furnishing possibilities for mediative intervention as curriculum internationalisation. Using observations, interviews, questionnaires and a Frierean intervention, it drew on critical internationalist cultural studies perspectives to help students form a contextualised and critically positioned understanding of intercultural competences as a means to attain reflexive control over interaction patterns for inclusivity. Students identified both intellectual stimulation and intercultural communicative development from engaging in the joint project of identifying and negotiating the very different responsibilities and possibilities accompanying their various positions relatively to locally dominant norms within subject area – including the responsibility to learn critically to question those norms themselves. Intercultural competences for a critical, globally oriented citizenship were found to be best approached not, as is typical, as abstract universals, but as concretely contextualised, discipline specific and position dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Graduates are increasingly expected to work in international contexts, therefore skills in intercultural interaction are crucial. Previous research suggests that overseas students anticipate positive intercultural interaction but are often disappointed, as some home students are unwilling to work in intercultural groups without explicit encouragement. In this study, we investigated interactions in three group work settings with home (UK) and international students in order to explore differing patterns of participation. The findings suggest that in culturally mixed groups, the UK students (particularly males) dominated discussions, with limited input from overseas students. In a group consisting solely of international students, the interactions were much more equal. However, an analysis of influence on group decisions (in terms of proportion of suggestions accepted by the group), suggested that the influence of male home students was lower than their participation would imply. The research suggests that there is a need to plan and manage group work carefully, especially where there are diverse groups of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the numbers of international students attending UK universities increases, so the need grows to address the internationalisation agenda in a variety of ways. Much of what has been written in this area has been focused at the level of institutional and national policy and strategy. We argue here that this focus has tended to obscure the issue at the teaching and learning level, which is where students and teachers actually experience internationalisation, and because of its central importance, teaching and learning must be addressed explicitly alongside policy and strategic perspectives; otherwise there is a danger of a gap forming between policy and implementation. We describe several ways in which an aspect of internationalisation, i.e. supporting students' learning, is addressed through curriculum design which takes into account the international student population of many courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successive governments in the UK have increasingly stressed the need for a more enterprising society. Much of the emphasis has been placed upon educationalists to introduce more elements of enterprise into the school curriculum at all levels, and new and innovative ways to initiate the subject matter is increasingly being sought. This article describes a summer school that is part of this initiative. It stresses the difference between Traditional and Enterprise modes of learning and contests that compared with traditional methods of teaching and learning, enterprise education requires a different pedagogical approach and aims to qualitatively change the educational experience. It is suggested that traditional teaching is better suited to the needs of the 'old' economy with the enterprising approach being more conducive to the needs of the new flexible market economy. While providing an explanation, description and analysis of the workings and operations of an entrepreneurial life skills summer school, the article also provides a systematic and rigorous exploration not only of the summer school itself but also of the policy and regional development context. It describes how the methodology and approach adopted is rooted in the framework and context that shaped and informed the venture as well as contributing to the article itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]