Global Learning: Education Without Boundaries

Focus of our research

Our research in this theme is focused on comprehensive internationalisation and how higher education prepares students as ‘global graduates’, and what this means.

We are researching internationalisation at home (IaH) practices whilst acknowledging the overlap of IaH and wider internationalisation of the curriculum strategies, at the interface of decolonisation of the curriculum.

We are focusing on universities’ relatedness to society highlighted by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing climate crisis and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

We are researching 'Third Space' learning and culture building in which local/national/international culturally diverse communities can come together, drawing on their knowledge, experiences and creativity, to strengthen and to form respectful, engaging, hybrid learning spaces.

We are studying issues of intersectionality with regards to ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, or disability, which serve to impact educational experiences. In our focus on decolonisation in educational practices, we are conducting structural, cultural, and individual analyses into the ways in which coloniality in classrooms, curricula and campuses are experienced, considering matters of privilege and marginalisation.

Our interest goes beyond the influence of the classroom to consider a diversity of learning spaces (online, face to face, blended, formal, informal and non-formal) which interweave to impact on educational opportunities and outcomes, which can serve to connect international learning communities, as well as to connect the university to its locale.

Underpinning our research is a focus on pedagogy as a tool for curriculum and perspective transformation, including learner-led, inquiry-led, discovery based, constructivist, constructionist, connectivist and relational pedagogies. We recognise the importance of interculturality in deconstructing epistemologies and curriculum design, content and pedagogy, including interrogating different practices within and across cultures.

Our scholarly contribution aims to influence policy and practical implications for educational reform.

If you wish to find out more about this theme, please get in contact with Professor Katherine Wimpenny.