Internationalization and Global Citizenship

This paper shares insights into how university faculty understand and integrate internationalization and global citizenship ideas into their pedagogical practices. The study worked with a broad base of faculty to come to an understanding of what it means for scholarship to embrace internationalization in teaching and then to explore ways of sharing that knowledge through pedagogical practices in the classroom. The results demonstrate faculty commitments to global citizenship, willingness to share teaching strategies, and ethical concerns about internationalization. Through this project the researchers hope to inform capacity to understand, develop, and deliver teaching strategies that enhance values associated with global citizenship. Background to the Study For the past two decades, educational institutions across Canada have become increasingly involved in working toward internationalization. The strategic plan at the University of Regina, for example, addresses internationalization as a direction for growth. According to Knight (2008), internationalization is a “process of integrating an international, intercultural, and global dimension into the purpose, functions (teaching, research, and service), and delivery of higher education at the institutional and national levels ” (p. xi). Although the implications for internationalization are many, our study, Knowledge-Sharing for Improved Pedagogical Practices in Global Citizenship, asks what internationalization means for the scholarship of teaching and learning, particularly as it impacts the development of global citizenship. The research asked the following questions: 1) How do faculty define pedagogies and teaching practices about global citizenship? and 2) How do faculty support and implement teaching for global citizenship and what kind of strategies do they use? This paper outlines the study methods and themes that emerged from the research, and presents several pedagogical practices used by faculty to enhance internationalization and global citizenship