Curriculum internationalisation and intercultural learning from the perspective of recognition: a critical pedagogic review and discussion of the literature

This chapter presents a review and discussion of various approaches to the internationalisation of education at tertiary level; problematised through a critical pedagogic lens. It focuses on two issues foregrounded within this process and the literature: firstly, the move from deficit and assimilationist thinking towards a ‟pedagogy of recognition” (Caruana and Spurling 2007, 67); secondly, views on recognition and their function towards positively repositioning international students and their learning. We argue that whilst new perceptions are emerging which acknowledge international students as ‟resourceful peers” in their own right (Jin and Cortazzi 2013; Ryan 2011; Trahar and Hyland 2011; Welikala 2013; Urban and Bierlein Palmer 2014), the practical implications for learning and teaching in culturally diverse settings represented by this ideology require further explication (Jin and Cortazzi 2013; Lillyman and Bennett 2014; Welikala 2013). We propose that the time for recognising intercultural learning has therefore come, and grapple with the question of how this might be realised in internationalised educational contexts.