Incorporating international and/or intercultural perspectives
What is it?
A subject can incorporate more IoC by adding international or intercultural perspectives into the content, regardless of whether the content itself is international in focus. This can help students understand the greater context for their discipline and can provide opportunities for critical analysis and more nuanced understandings of important concepts.
How we would ask students to engage with an intercultural example would depend on the learning objectives of that particular class. We might ask students to find similarities across contexts, to consider a topic from multiple perspectives, to apply their understanding of a concept to a range of contexts, or to reflect on their own understandings after having been exposed to various other ways of knowing.
It is important that intercultural perspectives not be presented as tokenistic examples of “difference”; it can help to include multiple various examples to prompt students’ awareness of nuance and complexity.
How do I do it?
There are multiple ways to add international and/or intercultural perspectives into existing curricula:
- Invite guest lectures with international experience.
- Analyse international case studies.
- Use international publications and resources in teaching activities.
- Incorporate learning tasks that require students to discuss, analyse, or evaluate information from a range of international sources.
- Role play interactions with or possible scenarios based on perspectives from diverse stakeholders.
- Employ problem-based methodologies to construct community-based or industry-based investigations in a particular country.
What does it look like?
Here is a selection of examples; for a more comprehensive list see 'Examples in Practice' page.
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Information security and privacy
This subject explores different notions of privacy across cultures, provides diverse perspective and challenges student understanding of what is perceived as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.
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Field trip to Science Gallery Melbourne
This field trip is designed to elicit a deeper understanding of professional practice through a shared experience in a creative cultural environment and intellectual context.
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Our Planet, Our Health
The structure of this subject provides an opportunity for interaction between diverse student groups and guest speakers from a wide range of fields and backgrounds provide diverse intercultural perspectives.
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Food safety & quality
Students explore global perspectives on food safety and quality through a series of guest speaker videos and a collaborative project on an internationally recognised food safety management system.