Internationalization: Vision, approach, and experience

Recently, I was asked about my vision and approach to internationalization and how my experience has shaped my views of it. The question prompted this blog post. 

Before addressing the vision, approach, and experience, it's important to define internationalization. In my view, internationalization is about attitudes, knowledge, and skills related to the ways in which people, and the organizations they work in, interact across geo-political boundaries and cultural differences. Internationalization is process-oriented. It's a journey of deliberate, strategic decision-making, and action-steps. It's also impromptu, responsive, and dynamic. Sometimes, internationalization just "happens" without strategic planning. It's typically both intentional and organic; it's always a process and never just a destination. It fosters connections, empathy, and awareness across cultures and geo-political borders. 

After writing this, I decided to check to see how Claude, my current preferred AI tool, would define internationalization. Claude certainly took a more business-like approach to the definition, emphasizing building products or content which can work across languages, regions, and cultures without requiring engineering changes. With a few prompts, Claude provided a more nuanced explanation in relationship to education, emphasizing intercultural and global aspects in how education functions and is delivered. Claude gave a shout out to Jane Knight who I have referenced in previous scholarship (click here to read a seminal piece by Prof. Knight). Claude provided examples of internationalization such as student mobility, global partnerships, and international research. It also cautions that universities can advocate for internationalization more as a revenue-stream (i.e., bringing more international students to the uni) than as an educational or philosophical approach. This last point is certainly a long-standing criticism that is well-established in the scholarly literature (there are lots of examples, but here is a recent article, by Dr. Farai Kapfudzaruwa of the University of Pretoria, which provides an excellent overview wiht perspectives from the Global South and Global North).

So, if I return to my personal deconstruction of the term, I can see some divergences from what Claude provided. Primarily, the Claude definition focuses on product/destination (e.g., student mobility) whereas I focus on process/journey (attitudes, skills, knowledge). I suspect that this is not an either/or argument. Both destination and journey are important in understanding internationalization.

A Vision 

Internationalization is both outward facing (building connections internationally) and inward focused (helping students, faculty, staff develop a mindset of global-mindedness and associated skills and knowledge). I would hope that our schools and post-secondary institutions are vibrant ecosystems which value international-mindedness, cosmopolitanism, and pluralism but do so in critical ways to consistently question: Who benefits? Who is engaged? Whose voice is missing? etc.

In my work, I draw on scholars like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (yes, of the Danger of a Single Story) who, in Americanah, takes on ideas like transnationalism, identity, and belonging.  A vision for internationalization needs to wrestle with these ideas.

I used to teach a first year undergraduate course in which I assigned a reading by Kwame Appiah, author of Ethics of Identity and Cosmopolitanism Ethics in a World of Strangers. In the course, I assigned a reading from his chapter, "Education for Global Citizenship" (2008) which includes a wonderful quote that, different cultures are respected "not because cultures matter in themselves, but because people matter, and culture matters to people" (p. 88). So, a vision for internationalization needs to consider what matters to people.

My own writing in this blog over the years has wrestled with some of these concepts: What does it mean to belong? How do we authentically work and "be" in different cultural contexts? How do we strive to foster global-mindedness in a time of polarization and a return to the "local"? What matters to people and how do I learn from these matters and from these people?

So, my vision for internationalization is to support student mobility, faculty exchanges, international research partnerships, etc. AND to really focus on the processes involved in all of these. At the core of this process is the question: How can we "be" different instead of just "do" different? 

My Approach 

"Being" or embodying internationalization seems very abstract and esoteric. What are some practical ways this can get lived out? How can we "lead" to be critical internationalists? Three suggestions might provide some starting points: 

1. First, we must always listen and align. I have a tendency to do. I need to slow down and listen to what my students, colleagues, and community members are saying (or are not saying!). We need to listen and then look for ways that we can support, critique, engage, respond, or align with what is being communicated. Sometimes we need to start with listening and end with listening. No further action is needed but learning has occurred. 

2. Second, a framework like the 4R Model which I developed and published (click here), helps prioritize and keep front-of-centre relationships, reciprocity, resources, and responsiveness. Humility and a growth/learning-oriented mindset are key to effective internationalization efforts. Reciprocity is critical.

3. Third, start at home. We often promote student, staff, and faculty mobility projects and these can be incredibly helpful in developing global-mindedness. But they can also perpetuate colonial approaches and are often not fully reflective of what it means to live, work, and play in diverse contexts. Often there is limited reciprocity in these projects as resources tend to flow in one direction. We should put greater emphasis on how we can develop intercultural skills, and a global mindset, in local contexts. So, act locally so we can think globally. One of Kwame Appiah's suggestions is to watch a foreign movie once a month with sub-titles on. Let's add to that: Eat food you haven't before, watch a sporting event that is new to you, listen to world music ... and for my faculty colleagues, simple things like incorporating literature in our syllabi which reflects global scholarship.

My Experience 

I have had a myriad of different experiences related to internationalization, from teaching diverse students in Canada to international research partnerships to supporting local community groups which have global connections. This blog has captured many of these experiences and represents the synthesis of my experience: The global and the local are not divided, they are strongly intertwined. Internationalization is not just about "there", it's also about "here" (t/here). Let's be mindful of the opportunities, critiques, and traps of internationalization but let's not give up because it's hard or because we've made mistakes. In a time where there seems to be an entrenchment of views and prioritizing the local, we need courageous people to be different.