Female Voices in the Third Space: Researching Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in South-North Collaborative Online International Learning

Funder

British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants SRG23\231301

Project team

Total value

£10,000

Collaborators

Coventry University Lead
Collaborator UFS/UFES

Duration of project

01/09/2023 - 31/08/2025

Project overview

This study aims to research the evolving field of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Higher Education (HE) through a Global South-North research project, focusing on female voices. COIL is defined as a collaborative online teaching and learning approach with international partners that fosters intercultural dialogue. This research project will evaluate a model of South-North COIL previously co-designed by the applicants (Figure 1) and based on an internationalisation of the curriculum framework developed by Leask and |Bridge (2013) against data generated through interviews with female stakeholders (academic staff and students) based in HE institutions in four different continents. The research aims to further the understanding of digital inclusion and equality in HE. It investigates COIL as a Third Space that promotes substantive equality and supports the integration of pluralistic perspectives and citizenship attributes in HE curricula, with a focus on women’s voices.

Project objectives

Within the notion of COIL as a Third Space for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education, it is important to bear in mind the contextual inequalities that exist in collaborations between HEIs from South and North, such as inequalities in terms of funding opportunities, issues of language, infrastructure and so forth (De Wit, 2015).  Aiming to provide a bottom-up, decolonial perspective on COIL, the main research questions of this project are: 

1. How does the COIL framework designed by Wimpenny et al (2022, p. 289) resonate with female staff and students who took part in South-North COIL projects?
2. In what ways do the research evidence gathered from this project corroborate the ‘capitals of resonance’ previously identified in COIL: social capital, digital capital, cultural and psychological capital, trust capital and structural capital?
3. To what extent does the research evidence gathered from this project validate the claim that COIL supports ‘Substantive Equality’ (accommodation of difference and promotion of the worth of all – cf. Hagenmeier, 2021) for the female participants involved in it?

This project seeks to decenter the conceptualisation of ‘Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC)’ and open up ‘otherwise’ ways of knowing, being and relating through a decolonial lens that builds on knowledge produced by women.

Impact statement

Academic Impact 

Although there is a growing literature on the field of COIL as an innovative approach to the internationalisation of the curriculum in Higher Education, to our knowledge and at the time of writing (2025) there are very few studies which:
focus specifically on the experience of  female participants in COIL;
are underpinned by decolonial theory (e.g. Andreotti et al, 2018; Guimarães et al, 2019; Stein & Andreotti, 2021). 
discuss how the concept of substantive equality is reflected in COIL in terms of relevant values and capitals.

The study is moreover supporting our refining of the values and capitals in our initial framework (Figure 2) that will be also be captured in a COIL EDI Toolkit that will be disseminated globally.

Societal impact

The project has facilitated the creation of a COIL support network of female students and academic staff based in four different continents, some of whom are implementing projects based on the framework of values and capitals developed by this study in secondary schools.

Also, participating academic female COIL leaders  commented that being invited to share their COIL experience with us was transformational in itself, it made them feel valued and gave them ‘food for thought’ on how to revisit their institutional COIL theory and praxis. 

Outputs

Figure 1

Figure 2