Community College Faculty Internationalizing Curriculum with a Global Perspective for Competition in the Global Economy: A Qualitative Case Study

Community colleges are facing challenges educating and preparing students to compete in a rapidly changing and interconnected global economy. Despite the challenges of global education and literacy, there are strategies which offer a new way of reasoning, teaching, and learning in the 21st century. This qualitative case study was designed to add information to the scholarly literature about community college faculty internationalizing curriculum with a global perspective for competition in the global economy. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand the challenges community college faculty face identifying strategies for transforming curriculum with a global perspective. The framework for this study is constructivism. The research question developed for this study: what pedagogical strategies do community college faculty apply in transforming curriculum with a global perspective? The researcher employed purposeful sampling resulting in a sample of nine adjunct and full-time faculty at one community college in Los Angeles, California. The data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews and course syllabi documents. The inductive analysis model was used to analyze the data collected from the interviews and the data collected from the course syllabi documents in which the participants shared through the course of the interviews. The key findings of the study were that not all faculty are internationalizing curriculum with a global perspective and that not all faculty understand the concepts of globalization and internationalization. The remaining findings revealed that faculty need professional development and time to transform existing curriculum, courses, teaching practices, and learning outcomes with a global perspective