Coming to terms with ‘double knowing’: an inclusive approach to international education

Abstract

International education brings together students from a range of institutional, educational and academic traditions. In the classroom, such differences manifest themselves in the form of unfamiliar and, at times, unacceptable behaviours, which have motivated some researchers to focus on the problems that diversity presents to teaching and learning. In this paper, we would like to turn the tables, arguing that a truly international curriculum will have to acknowledge and build on the resources represented by students from different knowledge systems. In order to achieve this, we shall start with a theoretical section, which highlights the contrast between an exclusive interpretation (i.e. the conventional understanding of international students as the net receivers of Euro-American wisdom), and an inclusive approach, which focuses on the indigenous knowledge possessed by a heterogeneous student population. The analysis elaborates on this idea of ‘double knowing’ (Singh and Shrestha 2008), using qualitative data from five Danish faculties to demonstrate how lecturers turn students' alternative knowledge systems into sources of intercultural learning and awareness-raising. This leads to a discussion of the implications that such an inclusive approach has for university teachers, outlining strategies that they may adopt in order to facilitate a process of double knowing.