Engaging “Students as Partners” in Global Learning: Some Possibilities and Provocations

Abstract

Many educational institutions aim to engage students in “global learning” at home and abroad through the process of “internationalization of the curriculum” (IoC). Yet research indicates that students experience and understand IoC in diverse, often unintended ways, and instances of students’ diverse perspectives informing IoC development are rare. Framed by the concept of “students as partners” (SaP), an Australian Learning and Teaching Fellowship brought together students and academics from diverse disciplinary, cultural, and national backgrounds to co-develop rich global learning experiences in the formal and informal curriculum. Surveys and narrative interviews showed that adopting a partnership approach enabled all participating staff and students to engage in global learning. Characteristically, those who engaged in critical transformative learning framed their partnerships in terms of reciprocity, recognized their cultural ignorance productively, and engaged in global learning as ontoepistemological explorations. Furthermore, this study demonstrates how the authentic engagement of SaP challenges naturalized institutional practices concerning access and equity, outcomes and process, and power and privilege. I frame these challenges as provocations; that is, as invitations to critically analyze and creatively respond to such historically entrenched practices through staff–student partnerships in global learning, “as if” they were already our way of life.