Global Citizenship and Cross-Cultural Competency: Student and Expert Understandings of Internationalization Terminology

Abstract

Internationalization of the curriculum is of increasing interest in many universities; yet, the terminology used to describe it is highly varied and it is not clear that students understand its core concepts. This study explores students’ understandings of the terms global citizenship and cross-cultural competency, and compares them with use in the literature and by experts. A large-scale questionnaire of students from a range of disciplines is supplemented with qualitative data from pedagogic and internationalization experts. Findings indicate that student understandings of both terms were mixed, and frequently differed from the way the terms are used by experts and in the literature. The concept of cross-cultural competency was more likely to invoke a sense of agency among students than was global citizenship, contrary to how they are depicted in the literature. This suggests that there may be some pedagogic benefits to be gained from using the former term.

Keywords

internationalization of higher education internationalization of the curriculum global citizenship cross-cultural competency agency

Introduction

Increasing globalization and demands from employers for globally prepared graduates has had a significant impact on higher education (HE). As concern for student employability has grown, so too has interest in internationalization of the curriculum (IoC)—focusing on the experience of home students, primarily in the formal curriculum, in addition to universities’ long-standing efforts to attract international students (see Leask, 2015). We use the term IoC in this article, rather than the related “internationalization at home” (IaH) to indicate the focus of this study on the taught curriculum in a domestic context, rather than including wider issues such as internationalization of the campus. Importantly, IoC does not require international students to be present in the classroom—or for domestic students to undertake overseas experiences (Beelen & Jones, 2015)—which makes it of relevance in a wide range of institutional contexts.

IoC has been widely discussed in the literature, with considerable debate concerning its intended outcomes. Some authors (e.g., Beelen & Leask, 2011; Knight, 2006) argue that IoC aims to help students develop international understanding and intercultural skills or competencies. Others claim that it helps develop students’ employability and transferable skills (Beelen & Jones, 2015; Crossman & Clarke, 2010). Underpinning much of the IoC literature is the idea that students will be encouraged to take personal responsibility for engagement with international communities if they make linkages with international elements of their discipline (e.g., Jones & Killick, 2013; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2015). Diverse perceptions of the aims of IoC, combined with a lack of clarity on what many of the terms mean to different stakeholders, may explain reported differences in the literature as to whether aspirational outcomes are achieved (Hanson, 2010; Jones & Killick, 2013; Rhoads & Szelenyi, 2011).

In this article, we explore students’ understandings of two of the most frequently used terms used in IoC—global citizenship (GC) and cross-cultural competency (CCC). We compare student understandings with the use of these terms in the literature and by experts, and consider implications for internationalizing the curriculum. Unlike much previous research that has focused on business disciplines, we explore students’ views on diverse subjects.

Terminology

The IoC literature invokes a fairly consistent set of key terms, such as global citizenship, cross-cultural competency, multiculturalism, and cultural awareness. GC appears most frequently in academic literature, as well as in policy statements (e.g., Oxford Committee for Famine Relief [OXFAM], 2017; UNESCO, 2015). A brief review of 114 U.K. university strategies in 2015, as part of the preparation for this project showed, “global citizenship” mentioned in 94 of them. CCC appears less widely, and seldom in policy documents. Nevertheless, in a review of 399 journal abstracts on IoC from 2010 to 2015, the term was prominent in subject-specific literature—especially business literature, which accounted for 41% of the total papers. Before reporting our research, we will summarize the ways in which these terms have been handled in the literature.

Global Citizenship

At its core, there is general agreement on what global citizenship (GC) means:

Global citizenship refers to a sense of belonging to a broader community and common humanity. It emphasises political, economic, social and cultural interdependency and interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global. (UNESCO, 2015, p. 14)

However, probe beneath the surface of this apparent agreement, and there exists a proliferation of approaches, intended outcomes, and subtle terminological distinctions. Some authors (e.g., Dei, 2008) see social justice as one of the key principles of GC; for others, it aims to equip students for global business activities (Lilley, Barker, & Harris, 2014). Intended outcomes range from the instrumental (e.g., open borders for employment), through the transformational (e.g., developing a personally expanded worldview) to the radical (e.g., global government or removal of nationalities; Killick, 2012; Lilley et al., 2014; Shultz, 2007). This ambiguity is expressed forcibly by Oxley and Morris (2013), who note that,

In a recent seminar series, different speakers used GC as a basis for: justifying a ban in western society on face-covering veils for women; promoting and working with differences across cultural and religious divides; deconstructing western hegemony; and giving citizens new skills enabling them to resolve conflicts and contest injustices. (p. 301)

In an attempt to gain clarity, Morais and Ogden (2011) developed a three-dimensional Global Citizenship Scale encompassing social responsibility, global competence, and global civic engagement. According to this model, CCC appears to be situated as a subset of GC and one which includes knowledge and skills, but less active engagement than the broader GC concept. With similar intent, Oxley and Morris (2013) offer a wide-ranging review of different approaches to GC and explore the range of meanings attributed to citizenship, which underlie some of the ambiguity of GC. Some argue that global citizenship is an oxymoron in the absence of a “world government,” whereas others argue that it is “a deep commitment to a broader moral purpose” (p. 303). Oxley and Morris identify three distinct approaches to writing about GC, namely, those that take a dichotomous approach (e.g., strong–weak or soft–critical conceptions of GC), attributes-based models (those that emphasize desirable outcomes such as responsibility, empathy etc.), and the ideological (“GC-isms,” p. 304), either normative or empirically derived. In some (but not all) of these approaches, CCC again appears as a subset of GC.

A common understanding of GC, though not always made explicit, is that it involves agency and active responsibility in contributing to the global community (Clifford & Montgomery, 2011; Jones & Killick, 2013; Morais & Ogden, 2011; Toh, 1996). Jones and de Wit (2012) refer to the University of Sydney strategy, which defines global citizens as “[graduates] who will aspire to contribute to society in a full and meaningful way through their roles as members of local, national and global communities” (p. 41). Charles Clarke, the then Education Secretary of the U.K. government, in the Forward of ‘Putting the World into World Class Education’ (DfES, 2004, p. 1) also refers to GC in terms of “ . . . the ways in which we all, as global citizens, can influence and shape the changes in the global economy, environment and society.” The Morais and Ogden model includes examples such as making an impact for a chosen cause, and joining organizations and student clubs, and incorporates global civic engagement more widely as a strong dimension of GC. The high importance placed on active engagement and personal responsibility in academic literature and policy is clear.

There is considerable critique of GC in the literature, however. Some have suggested it may be a new form of colonialism, promoting Western ideals of globalism under the auspices of harmony (Pashby, 2011). Hamdon and Shelane (2009) describe GC as a neoliberal discourse of privileged individualism, mobility, and competition. Bates (2012) suggests that global citizenship is highly elite, rhetorically appearing to be bestowed automatically on all peoples, while downplaying the marginalization that many experience. Variations in what GC means in other cultural bases than the West have been raised by several scholars (e.g., Clifford & Montgomery, 2011; Wang, 2013).

What is most often unclear in the literature, however, is whether explicit attempts to embed GC in the curriculum lead to desired outcomes. It has been claimed that “education abroad” experiences are of central importance in developing global citizenship (Morais & Ogden, 2011); yet, such opportunities will only ever be accessible to a select, mostly affluent, group of university students. Several studies have failed to find any evidence of achievement of GC outcomes in students (Jones & Killick, 2013; Rhoads & Szelenyi, 2011). In contrast, Hanson (2010) found significant increases in self-reported global responsibility, local and global aid, and activism over a 6-year study of GC in graduates. However, this research only included health students on a specialized study abroad course, so it is not clear that it can be generalized.

Cross-Cultural Competence

Although mentioned throughout the literature on IoC, papers dealing specifically with the term, cross-cultural competence (CCC) are rarely found outside of subject-specific studies—most often business and health/medicine. Nonetheless, there is some literature regarding the definition of CCC and related terms such as intercultural competence, global competence, and cross-cultural capability. Differences between these terms are not consistent within the literature; thus, in the discussion below, we use whichever term was employed by the author cited.

Gersten (1990) originally defined CCC as an individual’s ability to function effectively in another culture, and similar definitions are widely used in the literature. Hunter, White, and Godbey (2006) use the term “global competence,” but the definition appears very similar to CCC, albeit more detailed: “having an open mind while actively seeking to understand cultural norms and expectations of others, leveraging this gained knowledge to interact, communicate and work effectively outside one’s environment” (p. 277). Bird, Mendenhall, Stevens, and Oddou (2010) attempt to identify specific dimensions of what they call “intercultural competence,” in the context of global leadership. They identify three dimensions: perception management, relationship management, and self-management. Perception management concerns the ways in which individuals approach cultural difference, and includes having a nonjudgmental attitude, being inquisitive, and tolerating ambiguity. Relationship management encompasses the ways in which an individual interacts with others and builds relationships. It includes emotional sensitivity, self-awareness, and social flexibility. Self-management is related to an individuals’ ability to handle stressful situations and manage emotions. It includes optimism, self-confidence, and emotional resilience. These elements seem to provide a strong underpinning for understanding the varied facets of CCC.

An important debate in the context of education has risen around the issue of whether CCC is intrinsic or can be learned. Leiba-O’Sullivan (1999) proposed “stable” and “dynamic” versions of CCC, with “stable” incorporating personality traits and intrinsic interest, and “dynamic” entailing learned skills and knowledge. Johnson, Lenartowicz, and Apud (2006), however, claimed that personality traits are not part of CCC at all, but merely preconditions. They define CCC as a set of skills and practices, which can be taught:

. . . an individual’s effectiveness in drawing upon a set of knowledge, skills, and personal attributes in order to work successfully with people from different national and cultural backgrounds at home or abroad. (Johnson et al., 2006, p. 530)

Caligiuri and Tarique (2012), using a sample of 420 global leaders, found that both personality traits and experience were influential in predicting a leader’s level of cross-cultural competency (including tolerance of ambiguity, cultural flexibility, and reduced ethnocentrism). This would suggest that at least some aspects of CCC can be enhanced through experiential learning opportunities.

In contrast to GC, in definitions of CCC a sense of agency is largely absent, the focus tending to be more on instrumental elements such as the ability to communicate or work across cultures. Discussions about teaching CCC have similarly focused on instrumental features: Early (2002) addressed motivational factors in developing CCC in students, noting that engagement is unlikely unless the approach appeared relevant and useful. Jones (2013) called for more efforts to show students the positive impact of internationalization on employability. Nonetheless, some definitions of CCC touch on similar ideas to GC, and there is undoubtedly some overlap between the ways the terms are used in the literature.

Only one study was identified that explicitly asked students what they thought either of these terms meant. Odağ, Wallin, and Kedzior (2016) asked first-year students at a German university to define “intercultural competence” (considered to be analogous to CCC). They found that students mostly defined it as awareness, tolerance, and understanding of other cultures, contrary to the instrumental definitions above. However, this study did not explore student understandings of other terms, and the questions were asked after undertaking targeted training, making the results difficult to generalize.

This review of the literature and terminology has identified some gaps, particularly around student understanding of key terms. Our research was designed to explore student understandings of GC and CCC across a range of subjects prior to undertaking any specialist courses. Thus, we offer a student perspective, which is more robust and generalizable than some of the earlier research on targeted groups. To provide a deeper understanding, we also explore the views of pedagogic and IoC experts, and conclude with a discussion of the implications for effective pedagogies for IoC.

Method

The aim of this research was to explore stakeholder understandings of GC and CCC to determine any patterns in responses and relationship to definitions in the literature. This research forms part of a larger project, which evaluated the impact of small-scale changes to the curriculum on students’ beliefs and attitudes toward IoC. However, this survey was undertaken before any intervention occurred. Research questions for this phase included the following:

Research Question 1: What are students’ and experts’ understandings of the terms global citizenship and cross-cultural competency?

Research Question 2: What are the similarities and differences between their reported understandings and those discussed in the literature and policy documents?

Research Question 3: What are the implications of the findings for development of IoC across a range of disciplines?

The methods for collecting students’ and experts’ perspectives are described in more detail below.

Student Views

First-year undergraduate students in selected courses were surveyed across nine subjects spanning four faculties at a major U.K. university (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Subject Background of Participants.

Subject (discipline)	Faculty
Primary education (education)	Arts and humanities
English literature	Arts and humanities
Social work	Health and human sciences
Chemistry	Science and engineering
Mathematics	Science and engineering
Biology	Science and engineering
Software development (computing)	Science and engineering
Tourism and hospitality (tourism)	Business
Marketing	Business

A purposive sampling approach (Bryman, 2008) was taken to ensure

representation of all students in a subject,

representation of a range of subjects and faculties, and

inclusion of students who had just commenced study, rather than those who might have experienced targeted IoC efforts.

Surveys were administered to students during class in the fourth week of their first term. This approach avoided problems of self-selection and low response rates often faced by online surveys (Ilieva, Baron, & Healey, 2002). Critically, it elicited the views of students who may see internationalization as irrelevant to them or their subject, and may not complete an online survey. A total of 494 valid surveys were collected. Class sizes varied but response rates were generally high (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Response Rates and Demographic Data.

	Total responses	Female (%)	Male (%)	Age (average)	Response rate (%)
Marketing	45	45	55	19.1	73.8
Tourism	35	77	23	19	71.4
Social work	24	87	13	27.9	42.1
Education	124	73	27	19.9	79.5
English	70	75	23	19.5	75.3
Biology	77	59	41	21.1	45.6
Chemistry	38	39	61	19.6	64.4
Computing	30	0	100	19.8	76.9
Mathematics	51	29	71	19.9	67.1
Total	494	57	41	20.6	65

In this article, we focus on student responses to the two open-ended questions below:

Please describe what “global citizenship” means to you.

Please describe what “cultural competence” or “cross-cultural competency” means to you.

Students were not required to provide a response to these (or any) questions, though just more than two thirds answered each question.

Responses were analyzed using the constant comparative method to draw out cross-cutting themes (Silverman, 2005), a process of reading and rereading data, looking for similarities and differences between accounts, and specific references denoting agency or responsibility. We followed an iterative process of refining codes until we were confident that the categories were clearly distinct (or hierarchically related). We took particular care with coding of students’ expressions of agency and responsibility. We identified a distinction between responses that mentioned having a particular skill or being a particular way, and responses that mentioned doing a thing or acting on something. In nearly all cases where one type was present, the other was not. These were coded as “inactive agency” and “active agency,” respectively.

Expert Views

To supplement the students’ views, we explored how expert academics understood GC and CCC, working with a small sample using a modified Delphi technique. We identified academic experts on IoC, as well as a group of National Teaching Fellows (NTFs),¹ pedagogic experts in the same subjects as the students. The Delphi technique involves an “iteration of anonymous questionnaire responses to achieve consensus by an expert panel” aimed at producing “a detailed critical examination and discussion” of a particular topic or issue (Green, 2014, p. 6). Our study involved two rounds of questions, and took a qualitative approach. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, it proved impossible to achieve complete consensus between the expert panelists; however, their responses provide a useful additional perspective.

IoC experts were selected on the basis of publication and citation records. Of the 30 experts approached, five agreed to participate; these were among the most prolific and highly cited authors in the field. NTFs were selected from the Higher Education Academy’s list of awards. We contacted NTFs from each of the subjects in our study, and four agreed to participate, representing mathematics, education, computing, and social work.

In line with the traditional Delphi technique, each participant was emailed a set of five short answer questions to complete. These were then analyzed, and a second set was circulated based on initial responses. Five of the original nine respondents completed the second set of questions, two IoC experts, and four NTFs. Although this is rather a limited sample, the findings add an extra dimension to the student surveys; we report them here with a note of caution regarding wider applicability.

Of the five questions asked, this article focuses on replies to the following: “How would you define cross-cultural competence?” and “How would you define global citizenship?” from the first round, and the follow-up question:

In the first round, responses to the terms global citizenship and cross-cultural competence were varied, but several brought up concerns with the unreliability or ambiguity of these and other terms in the literature. Do you believe the term(s) we use to present internationalization to students matter? Why, or why not, and to what degree?

Limitations

The sampling approach utilized offers a novel perspective to that seen in much of the literature, in terms of inclusion of students from a wide range of subjects before any explicit internationalization input, as well as including consideration of experts’ views via the modified Delphi approach. However, the wide-ranging student sample is drawn from a single institution and, although nationally focused, a relatively small sample of experts is involved. Although statistical generalization is not possible from this sample, generalization based on “theoretical inference” (Hammersley, 1998) is used to theorize about the possible wider applicability of the findings. The dearth of literature that goes beyond the business disciplines or includes triangulation of findings means that this research offers an original contribution.

Findings

Student Responses

A diverse range of student responses to the question on global citizenship were received. However, it is possible to draw out some shared understandings, which were widely held. Almost 50% of students referred to a global community or a one-world state, consistent with definitions in the literature (see Table 3).

Table 3.

Student Understandings of Global Citizenship.

Global citizenship	N	Percent of cases
One world/global community	136	49.1
Agency/responsibility (inactive type)	53	19.2
Cultural awareness and understanding	52	18.8
Agency/responsibility (active type)	33	11.9
No borders/free travel	30	10.9
Mobility and communication specifically for work/subject	28	10.0
Having/enacting a positive disposition to others	16	5.8
Communication	14	5.1
World relations(hips)	13	4.6
Inclusivity	12	4.3
Social/cultural equality	11	4.0
Being accepted by others	9	3.3
Helping cultures/world	8	2.9
Impact on world/cultures	6	2.2
Having dual citizenship	6	2.2
Living abroad	5	1.8
Shared learning	4	1.5
Cultural integration	3	1.2
Agency/responsibility (self only)	3	1.2
Internationalization of curriculum	3	1.0
Cultural adaptability	3	1.0
Negative view	3	1.0
Fame	2	0.6
Total	454	163.6

Despite this apparently widespread agreement, a large number of responses were paraphrases or direct restatement of the term itself, with no qualifying addition (e.g., “being a citizen of the world,” “a global community,” “being a citizen globally”). It is unclear whether the term was genuinely understood in many of these cases. There were a few more nuanced responses that exemplified global community (e.g., “the idea that, above all, we are not divided by national boundaries and have the same needs”); however, these accounted for only one quarter of the total “global community” responses. No other category was referred to by more than 20% of students, and responses did not cluster in particular subjects. Indeed, students appeared to have a wide and, sometimes, contradictory notion of what GC meant.

Fewer than a third of respondents (31.1%) referred to GC in terms of agency, either active or inactive. Moreover, there was a sense of “otherness” in some of the responses: Although many of the responses seemed to encompass a self-inclusive principle of everyone living and working together, it was unclear from the answers that many students had a sense of responsibility or agency toward achieving this. Indeed, many students explicitly referred to being accepted elsewhere by others, but did not mention accepting others themselves. Indeed, although approximately half of the students identified the common “core” definition of global citizenship (the broad notion of a global community), scarcely more than 10% had any sense of the moral and ethical responsibility element that dominates the GC literature.

Students’ responses to the question on cross-cultural competency were also diverse but featured one crucial difference. As in GC, the major response was one that was strongly implied by the term itself (“cultural awareness and understanding”), and there were a wide range of alternative interpretations offered. However, in this case, nearly 80% of respondents defined CCC in terms of agency, and more than a third referred to taking active personal agency in some way (see Table 4). There was also a fairly high degree of uniformity in wording, even across subjects, and definitions of CCC clustered around relatively few elements. Many included most or all of the same key features into one definition (e.g., “accepting other peoples’ cultures and respecting them”).

Table 4.

Student Understandings of Cross-Cultural Competency.

Cross-cultural competency	N	Percent of cases
Cultural awareness and understanding	167	56.4
Agency/responsibility (inactive type)	134	45.3
Agency/responsibility (active type)	101	34.1
Having/enacting a positive disposition to others	48	16.3
Mobility and communication specifically for work/subject	35	11.9
Cultural adaptability	20	6.7
Inclusivity	19	6.3
Internationalization of curriculum	16	5.2
Shared learning	13	4.3
One world/global community	13	4.3
Communication	12	4.2
Social/cultural equality	11	3.7
Unclear meaning/no category	8	2.9
Political correctness	7	2.4
Cultural integration	6	2.2
Competition between cultures	6	2.1
Negative view	5	1.7
World relations(hips)	5	1.7
Impact on world/cultures	4	1.3
Comparing cultures	3	1.0
Being accepted by others	3	0.9
Living abroad	2	0.7
No borders/free travel	1	0.4
Agency/responsibility (self only)	1	0.3
Having dual citizenship	1	0.2
Total	641	216.5

Several of the responses for CCC explicitly mentioned the need for IoC or referred to shared learning between cultures. Although a slightly higher proportion of these responses came from education, there were comments of this nature across all the subjects. Comparatively, very few GC responses mentioned shared learning, and none referred to GC in terms of the HE curriculum. Thus, despite diverse understandings of both terms, students were more than 3 times as likely to interpret CCC than GC as requiring a sense of personal agency or responsibility, and more likely to identify it as something that can be learned.

Expert Views

The Delphi approach revealed varied understandings of both terms between pedagogic experts (NTFs) and internationalization experts, and between experts and students. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, given their contributions to it, the internationalization experts had understandings that were closely aligned with those in the published literature. Discussing global citizenship, four of the five IoC experts explicitly talked about the need for students to develop personal responsibility and take action:

. . . to understand and be able and willing to act on global social issues . . . (D1-3)

. . . a willingness to recognise and act to ameliorate negative impacts of one’s own actions. (D1-4)

Only one of the NTFs mentioned taking action—and this was weakly expressed as a possibility:

These might include a commitment to positive action . . . (D1-9, emphasis added)

The other NTF responses were closer to those of the majority of students, suggesting a general sense of “being” global and awareness of global communities:

A global citizen is someone who strongly identifies themselves as a citizen of the world. (D1-6)

Much like the students, there was a tacit suggestion of the potential to act, but the transactional value of awareness was much more apparent.

Another key distinction between the two groups of respondents was that the IoC experts all expressed concern for using the term at all, or indeed any terms in several cases, noting instead the difficulty of identifying an agreed definition. None of the NTFs suggested that the term was problematic, or that it might overlap with others. This again mirrored the responses of the students. No students in our survey questioned the validity of a difference between GC and CCC.

Conversely, the responses to the questions on cross-cultural competency were more consistent between all experts and converged on CCC as a matter of awareness, understanding, and knowledge of other cultures, or the ability to learn these skills:

The abilities to interact with others whose cultural norms and rituals may be different from one’s own . . . (D1-4)

. . . the competence to understand culture across differences . . . (D1-3)

All but one of the replies focused on working or living with other cultures, but only three tangentially referred to matters of social justice, equality, or direct action:

. . . to learn to understand other cultures to the point where they are able to work within and across a range of different intercultural situations. (D1-5)

The ability or willingness to work/study effectively with people of other cultures. (D1-8)

The skills and attributes required to study and work effectively in a multi-cultural environment. (D1-9)

Like the students, the experts shared the view that CCC could be learned. Thus, it may prove more amenable to inclusion as part of IoC.

In the second round of our Delphi survey, we addressed some of the ambiguity identified, and asked about whether the terms used for IoC mattered. Of the five overall responses (two IoC, three NTF), four felt the choice of terms was very important. Each also noted the academic tendency toward overcomplication and a lack of focus on practical, consistent use of the terms:

. . . we have to make them concrete and understandable and applicable in practice. Many of the terms have a high level of abstraction and generalization . . . (D2-3)

I think it is important both to pick a term/brand and spend a bit of time defining it. (D2-4)

I do not know if the terms are ambiguous, but most lecturers do not know the literature and interpret the terms as they see fit. (D2-2)

The only dissenting view, of one of the IoC experts, was that we should not use any terms at all, but rather embed IoC throughout the curriculum of all subjects without mentioning it directly.

Discussion

The lack of clarity regarding the aims of IoC is unlikely to be resolved until there is greater agreement on the terminology used to describe it. If a core aim is to develop a sense of personal agency among students (as much of the literature indicates), then the choice of terminology may have a substantial pedagogic impact. Compared with the internationalization experts, students and pedagogic experts alike had little sense of global citizenship as contested, but it was widely understood in quite a passive sense—as something one has, rather than something one can learn or act on. The prevailing literature as well as the responses of the internationalization experts in our Delphi survey regard GC as necessarily active and involving individual responsibility. Our results show that students do not see it this way at the beginning of their HE studies. The nearly complete lack of agency and responsibility in understanding of GC strongly undermines its presumed transformative power in the literature, though it may help explain the studies that failed to find evidence of positive student outcomes through GC education (Jones & Killick, 2013; Rhoads & Szelenyi, 2011).

There is some indication in the data of “rhetorical ambiguity” at play here: Stables and Scott (2002), in the context of sustainable development, describe a term that is “rhetorically constructed to appeal simultaneously to apparently opposed interest groups” (p. 53), and that agreement on the importance of a term may mask substantial divergence in underlying beliefs. Perhaps, this conceptual ambiguity is inevitable, given the complexity of IoC and the diverse range of ways that it might be embedded in different subjects. However, unlike the literature outlined earlier (e.g., Clifford & Montgomery, 2011; Toh, 1996), student responses provide little indication that they perceived GC as a “transformative” agenda that will offer solutions to global problems. Evidently, it would be possible for students to develop a fuller understanding over their time at university; however, the similarity between their understandings and those of even expert teachers suggests that lecturers may not be in a strong position to inculcate this more radical understanding. Recent research on staff understanding and engagement with IoC (particularly global citizenship) notes the limited staff attention to diversity in the classroom and attributes this to a lack of intercultural experience and training (Kirk, Newstead, Gann, & Rounsaville, 2018). This same research notes a lack of staff understanding of, and confidence with, IoC in general and GC in particular, supporting our perception that this concept can prove problematic in practice.

Although the term cross-cultural competency was less widely known among students, it invoked a much more active understanding in terms of personal responsibility. In contrast to the literature that often utilized instrumental definitions (e.g., Early, 2002; Jones, 2013), these students showed considerable grasp of personal responsibility for positive international action, as well as a very high uniformity of definition across the subject areas. This finding reinforces the work of Odağ et al. (2016) on intercultural competence in suggesting that students’ views are less instrumental than those in the literature, but in addition offers some cause for optimism that these views were widely held across a general sample of students—rather than simply those developed through a specific initiative.

Despite the uniformity of student responses in this study, their understandings of CCC were not shared by the pedagogic experts in our sample. This would suggest that, although CCC might be a clearer term to present to students, effort would need to be made first in developing staff understandings of an agential and broad-reaching definition, which differs from that present in much of the current literature. This echoes Leask and Bridge’s (2013) claim that “many academic staff either are uncertain what internationalisation of the curriculum means or do not think it has anything to do with them” (p. 80). In contrast to the debate about whether CCC attributes are intrinsic or can be taught (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012; Johnson et al., 2006; Leiba-O’Sullivan, 1999), for our respondents, this term was more explicitly linked with learning than GC—cross-cultural competencies seemed to be perceived by students as skills, which they do not necessarily have but which they might reasonably be expected to acquire over their time at university.

A final nuance that might have some bearing on appropriate pedagogies for IoC was the way in which “cultural awareness” was mentioned in different contexts. This term was relatively frequent in definitions of both CCC and GC, but often remained undefined or lacked additional terms to expand on it. These isolated statements left a sense of it being transactively sufficient to merely be aware of other cultures, agency was lacking. Conversely, where cultural awareness coincided with mention of inclusivity, equality, or even instrumental aims such as freedom of working, explicit mention of personal agency was often present as well. This suggests that a sense of agency coincides with students having a notion of underlying value or purpose for having cultural awareness, but that possessing cultural awareness itself is insufficient to promote the aims of IoC. Thus, it seems essential that pedagogies for IoC should focus on contextualizing the practical value (instrumental or social) of applying cultural awareness.

These findings also have implications for other education sectors. Since 2002, citizenship has been a statutory subject in the national curriculum in secondary schools in England for 11- to 16-year-olds, and elements of citizenship education appear across many school subjects. Both global citizenship and intercultural competence are often included within the training of teachers in varied international contexts (Bourn, Hunt, & Bamber, 2017). However, our research raises interesting questions about how trainee or experienced teachers might understand these concepts and, thus, how well prepared they feel to teach pupils about them. The fact that the concepts were less often considered to be contested by nonexperts might actually make them easier to incorporate into school teaching because concerns about inclusion of controversial issues are well documented (see Cotton, 2006). Understandings of GC and CCC by school teachers and pupils would provide an interesting topic for future research.

Conclusion and Recommendations

In this article, we have argued that two key concepts discussed in the literature, and often used to underpin IoC in practice, are ambiguous both to students and to some academic staff. Our research suggests that there is considerable variation in interpretation of global citizenship and cross-cultural competency within and between different stakeholder groups. The understanding of “agency” embedded within each of these terms differs considerably between the literature and our findings. (Broadly speaking, GC was seen by our respondents as instrumental, although the literature would suggest that it is agential and transformative, and CCC was seen as agential and transformative although the literature would suggest that it is instrumental.) It is tempting to dismiss the use of either term, and instead ask students and staff to reflect on the role of their discipline and of themselves as active members of the international community. However, there are hints in our findings that use of cross-cultural competency may be more effective in engaging students actively than the related term, global citizenship. Utilizing a term that many students already associate with personal agency and responsibility could go a long way toward embedding the deeper goal of actively responsible internationalization into the curriculum.

Like a number of other critically important agendas, the complexity of internationalization in the curriculum makes its embedding extremely challenging. This research highlights an important gap in the application of vocabulary that lies at the heart of IoC. Students need clear and consistent direction through the terminology to understand the wider world and how they affect it, particularly in the light of current global developments. A step change in pedagogies for internationalization can only be achieved when there is more clarity over terms, enabling enactment of internationalization to expand from the business disciplines into the wider HE context. To achieve the transformative aims of internationalization (including promoting active responsibility for international engagement), critical reflection and nurturing of students’ sense of agency will be central. Sterling (2001) argues that education can contribute to social transformation if it is informed by a paradigm characterized by reflection, participation, empowerment, and self-organization. Perhaps, like the field of education for sustainable development (ESD), internationalization has become increasingly beset by “definition dementia” (Reid & Petocz, 2006), which limits the potential for successful communication. Gough (2002) comments, “a field incapable of establishing agreed definitions of its most basic terminology seems unlikely to make any other sort of progress” (n.p.). But perhaps what our research most clearly demonstrates is that an absolute definition of the terms may be less important than whether one term invokes the desired capacity to act in an international community.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

ORCID iD

Debby R. E. Cotton

Author Biographies

Debby R. E. Cotton is head of educational development in the Pedagogic Research Institute and Observatory (PedRIO), University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. She has a doctorate in education from Oxford University, and has published more than 70 papers on a wide range of higher education (HE) teaching and learning issues including sustainability education, research-informed teaching, internationalization of HE, and inclusivity. You can find out more about her work and publications here:

David Morrison is a research assistant in PedRIO, University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. His research and teaching interests cover a range of HE topics including developing effective interdisciplinary education, internationalization of the curriculum, e-learning and digital learning environments, evaluation of HE quality, and historiography.

Polly Magne is an educational developer and the program director for the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice at the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. With more than 20 years of experience teaching across the primary, secondary, and HE sector, she has developed expertise in curriculum and assessment design, dynamic teaching approaches, and inclusive classroom facilitation. Her research publications include themes such as inclusive assessment, effective feedback, and internationalization of HE. You can find out more at

Simon Payne is deputy vice chancellor (international and planning), University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. He has a professional and academic law career spanning more than 30 years and has held key senior leadership roles including head of the School of Law, associate dean (international), acting dean of business and dean of academic partnerships. He leads international developments at the University of Plymouth, and his research covers a range of areas including international environmental law.

Troy Heffernan is marketing discipline group leader in the Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong (UOW), Australia. He is a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy (United Kingdom) and Wollongong Academy of Tertiary Teaching and Learning Excellence (Australia). He has published extensively in the field of international education, primarily around transnational education, and has spoken on this subject around the globe for the British Council and other organizations. Prior to his position at UOW, he was professor of transnational education and director of the International Center at Plymouth University, United Kingdom. You can find out more about his work and publications here:

References

Bates

(2012). Is global citizenship possible, and can international schools provide it? Journal of Research in International Education, 11, 262-274.

Beelen

Jones

(2015). Redefining internationalization at home. In Curaj

Matei

Pricopie

Salmi

Scott

(Eds.), The European higher education area (pp 59-72). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Beelen

Leask

(2011). Internationalisation at home on the move. In Beerkens

Magnan

Söderqvist

van Liempd

H. G.

(Eds.), Handbook of internationalisation of European higher education. Stuttgart, Germany: Raabe.

Bird

Mendenhall

Stevens

M. J.

Oddou

(2010). Defining the content domain of intercultural competence for global leaders. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 25, 810-828.

Bourn

Hunt

Bamber

(2017). A review of education for sustainable development and global citizenship education in teacher education (UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report). London: UCL Institute of Education.

Bryman

(2008). Social research methods: Third edition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Caligiuri

Tarique

(2012). Dynamic cross-cultural competencies and global leadership effectiveness. Journal of World Business, 47, 612-622.

Clifford

Montgomery

(2011). Research in internationalisation of the curriculum for global citizenship: where do we stand? In: Moving towards Internationalisation of the Curriculum for Global Citizenship in Higher Education. Oxford, UK: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD).

Cotton

D. R. E.

(2006). Teaching controversial environmental issues: Neutrality and balance in the reality of the classroom. Educational Research, 48, 223-241.

10.

Crossman

J. E.

Clarke

(2010). International experience and graduate employability. Higher Education, 59, 599-613.

11.

Dei

(2008). Anti-racism education for global citizenship. In Peters

Britton

Blee

(Eds.), Global citizenship education: Philosophy, theory and pedagogy (pp. 477-490). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

12.

Department for Education and Skills (DfES). (2004). Putting the World into World Class Education (p.1). Annesley, UK: DfES Publications.

13.

Early

(2002). Redefining interactions across cultures and organizations: Moving forward with cultural intelligence. Research in Organizational Behavior, 24, 271-299.

14.

Gersten

M. C.

(1990). Intercultural competence and expatriates. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1, 361-369.

15.

Gough

(2002). Right answers or wrong problems? Towards a theory of change for environmental learning. The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, 18(1). Retrieved from http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/122/132

16.

Green

R. A.

(2014). The Delphi technique in educational research. SAGE Open, 4(2), 1-8.doi:10.1177/2158244014529773

17.

Hamdon

Shelane

(2009). Global citizenship education policy issues. Edmonton, Canada: University of Alberta International and Faculty of Education.

18.

Hammersley

(1998). Reading ethnographic research: A critical guide. London, England: Longman.

19.

Hanson

(2010). Global citizenship, global health, and the internationalization of curriculum: A study of transformative potential. Journal of Studies in International Education, 14, 70-88.

20.

Hunter

White

G. P.

Godbey

G. C.

(2006). What does it mean to be globally competent? Journal of Studies in International Education, 10, 267-285.

21.

Ilieva

Baron

Healey

(2002). Online surveys in marketing research: Pros and cons. International Journal of Market Research, 44, 361-376.

22.

Johnson

J. P.

Lenartowicz

Apud

(2006). Cross-cultural competence in international business: Toward a definition and a model. Journal of International Business Studies, 37, 525-543.

23.

Jones

de Wit

(2012). Globalization of internationalization: Thematic and regional reflections on a traditional concept. AUDEM: The International Journal of Higher Education and Democracy, 3, 35-54.

24.

Jones

Killick

(2013). Graduate attributes and the internationalized curriculum: Embedding a global outlook in disciplinary learning outcomes. Journal of Studies in International Education, 17, 165-182.

25.

Jones

(2013). Afterword: Rates of exchange: Neoliberalism and the value of higher education. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 23, 73-80.

26.

Killick

(2012). Seeing ourselves-in-the-world: Developing global citizenship through international mobility and campus community. Journal of Studies in International Education, 16, 372-389.

27.

Kirk

S. H.

Newstead

Gann

Rounsaville

(2018). Empowerment and ownership in effective internationalisation of the higher education curriculum. Higher Education, 76, 989-1005. doi:10.1007/s10734-018-0246-1

28.

Knight

(2006). Internationalization of higher education: New directions, new challenges. Paris, France: International Association of Universities.

29.

Leask

(2015). Internationalizing the curriculum. London, England: Routledge.

30.

Leask

Bridge

(2013). Comparing internationalisation of the curriculum in action across disciplines: Theoretical and practical perspectives. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 43, 79-101.

31.

Leiba-O’Sullivan

(1999). The distinctions between stable and dynamic cross-cultural competencies: Implications for expatriate trainability. Journal of International Business Studies, 30, 709-725.

32.

Lilley

Barker

Harris

(2014). Exploring the process of global citizen learning and the student mind-set. Journal of Studies in International Education, 19, 225-245.

33.

Montgomery

Clifford

(2011). Research in internationalisation of the curriculum for global citizenship: where do we stand? In Clifford

Montgomery

(Eds.), Moving towards internationalisation of the curriculum for Global Citizenship in Higher Education (pp. 121-140). [Chapter 6] Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

34.

Morais

D. B.

Ogden

A. C.

(2011). Initial development and validation of the Global Citizenship Scale. Journal of Studies in International Education, 15, 445-466.

35.

Odağ

Ö.

Wallin

H. R.

Kedzior

K. K

. (2016). Definition of intercultural competence according to undergraduate students at an international university in Germany. Journal of Studies in International Education, 20, 118-139.

36.

OXFAM. (2017). What is global citizenship? Retrieved from http://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/global-citizenship/what-is-global-citizenship

37.

Oxley

Morris

(2013). Global citizenship: A typology for distinguishing its multiple conceptions. British Journal of Educational Studies, 61, 301-325.

38.

Pashby

(2011). Cultivating global citizens: Planting new seeds or pruning the perennials? Looking for the citizen-subject in global citizenship education theory. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9, 427-442.

39.

Reid

Petocz

(2006). University lecturers’ understanding of sustainability. Higher Education, 51, 105-123.

40.

Rhoads

Szelenyi

(2011). Global citizenship and the university: Advancing social life and relations in an interdependent world. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

41.

Shultz

(2007). Educating for global citizenship: Conflicting agendas and understandings. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 53, 248-258.

42.

Silverman

(2005). Doing qualitative research (2nd ed.). London, England: Sage.

43.

Stables

Scott

(2002). The quest for holism in education for sustainable development. Environmental Education Research, 8, 53-60.

44.

Sterling

(2001). Sustainable education: Re-visioning learning and change. Totnes, UK: Green Books.

45.

Toh

(1996). Partnerships as solidarity: Crossing North–South boundaries. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 42, 178-191.

46.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2015). Global citizenship education. Paris, France: Author.

47.

Wang

(2013). Cultivating cosmopolitan citizens: On Chinese citizenship education in the era of globalization. Proceedings of Global Citizenship Curriculum in Higher Education: Evolving Policy and Practice and a Future Research Agenda, December, Bath Spa University, Hong Kong.