Lesley Gourlay and Mike Winter

Internationalisation policy and curriculum practice: critique and challenges

As can be seen via discourse analysis of HE internationalisation policy documentation, the mainstream focus of HE policy has arguably been to focus on recruitment and resultant diversity of the student body as the key site of ‘internationalisation’. In this orientation, internationalisation is implicitly framed as unproblematic, apolitical and free of complexities in terms of sociolinguistic contexts and student and academic staff subject positions. Alternatively, more recent orientations have reframed the role and responsibility of the institution, emphasising instead a values-based conception of internationalisation and leading to a recognition of struggle and complexity in the process of internationalisaiton. This reframing recognises linguistic and cultural diversity in the student body as a significant educational resource and also the need for direct curricular intervention and academic development, in order to structure and support internationalisation across the curriculum in terms of pedagogic process, substantive focus and ethos. This presentation will focus on the rationale and development of the latter type of approach at the IOE, focusing on the current IOE Internationalisation Policy and the development of a research and practice-based curriculum-focused website aimed at academic staff.