Journal of Research in International Education

This article explores the practice of multicultural education within a Pacific Island university with a majority of faculty from Caucasian background and over 90 percent of students from Asian/Pacific Island ethnicities. This article is Phase II of a research project that began in 1999 with the goal to further understand the practice of multicultural pedagogy in higher education. Phase I measured the attitudes of faculty toward diversity and multiculturalism in general while this article attempts to narrow the focus to their perceptions of their actual practice of multicultural pedagogy in the classroom and in curriculum development. Through survey methodology and descriptive analysis, a picture emerges of the link between attitudes and practice. It was found that faculty ranked high on their willingness to engage and incorporate multicultural strategies in their teaching. Many often did not feel, however, that they had the skills or knowledge to do so. Many also felt that they were not well equipped to deal with a multicultural environment. While the data suggest that many are willing and open to diversity and multiculturalism, they struggle with strategies to incorporate those attitudes in their teaching. In comparing some of the data from the two phases of the research we argue that a culture of political correctness seems to mask certain ethnocentric beliefs that may then be reflected in classroom teaching and curriculum development.

This article examines the concept of accountability and the trend towards a free-market, business approach to accountability in education in Anglophone countries over the last 20 years. A case study reports on teachers' perceptions of accountability at one particular international school in order to illustrate how this neo-liberal approach to accountability can affect international schools, which operate outside a clear national framework.

`Study abroad' programs in the United States make great claims about the learning outcomes of an experience overseas. Beyond cultural orientation sessions, however, many do not address intercultural or cross-cultural issues. This study brings together two conceptual axes, experiential learning and cultural adaptation, to provide a teaching model for an introductory intercultural communication course that is specifically geared to the needs of American study abroad participants, but that can be adapted to function well in a variety of contexts in which learners from different cultures come into contact with one another.

The twelve European Schools, the first of which was founded some 50 years ago to cater principally, though not exclusively, for children of employees of (what is now) the European Union, today have a total student population of around 18,000 in the 4-18 age range, with a multilingual curriculum culminating in the European Baccalaureate. This article reviews the development of the European Schools to date, and speculates on some of the challenges facing the schools as the EU itself expands and develops.

This study examines whether participation in the International Baccalaureate diploma program enhances one of the goals of the program, the development of international understanding. Junior and senior International Baccalaureate students and Advanced Placement students of similar background in the United States were studied using a survey instrument, and by asking them to write their personal definition of `international understanding'. Analysis of student definitions revealed a significant difference between the mean number of categories of international understanding utilized by the two groups of students.