Important elements when implementing IaH:
-
IaH focusses on incorporating diverse perspectives in education
By comparing various perspectives, students learn to recognise their existence and significance and, as a result, reflect on their own worldview and their (professional) perspective. This teaches students to remain open to all perspectives within their field and society and to learn from them.
-
IaH is intended for all students
This applies to students of all educational levels, years of study, and disciplines. Moreover, it includes both the formal, assessed curriculum and the informal curriculum.
-
Integrating IaH throughout the curriculum
In practice, internationalisation (and thus IaH) is often incorporated into minors or elective modules within a study programme. These areas often offer greater flexibility and can serve as a good way to explore what is possible. However, it is important to recognise that employers in all sectors require international competences and that it is crucial for all students to gane explosure to them, regardless of elective options in minors (in Dutch). Consequently, the recommendation is to explore ways to further embed international and intercultural elements across the curriculum.
-
IaH is deliberate and strategic choice to include international and intercultural competences/learning outcomes as a foundation in your curriculum design
A key starting point here are learning outcomes: What do you want students to learn? And how can you determine whether this has been achieved? This approach shifts the focus from IaH activities to learning outcomes. For more information on learning outcomes, we refer to our upcoming publication on the theme Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC).
-
Involving the local context
By involving the local context in education, IaH can be applied in an accessible way. For example, you can leverage the intercultural or international context present in your classrooms’ diversity or in the city where students live and study. In the definition by Beelen and Jones (2015), the term “ domestic learning environments” refers to this involvement of the local context.
-
The interpretation of IaH varies by field of study or discipline
By linking IaH to the learning outcomes of the programme, IaH becomes meaningful for your student. It will depend on the context of the study programme which IaH learning outcomes are important. For example, a social worker may be more focused on how to deal with a diverse target group while a researcher in biology, for example, works in an international research group.
-
Being mindfull of the hidden curriculum
The hidden curriculum includes all unintended and unconscious signals that teachers convey to students. These can occur in both the informal and formal curriculum. For example, in the informal context, international students are often expected to take an intercultural communication course alongside their studies, while this is not required of Dutch students. In the formal curriculum, the choice of literature and teaching materials reflect which knowledge is valued (and which is not) within the institution.
Want to learn more about this topic?
- Beelen, J. (2009). The current debate and current trends in IaH. In J. Beelen, Boddington, A., Brus, B., Glogar, M., Machado, C. (Eds.). Guide of good practices Tempus Corinthiam (pp.133-145). European Commission.
- Beelen, J., & Doscher, S. (2022). Situating COIL virtual exchange within concepts of internationalization. In J. Rubin & S. Gruth (Eds.). The guide to COIL virtual exchange. Implementing, growing, and sustaining Collaborative Online International Learning (pp)32-51). Stylus Publishing.
- Bulnes, C., & De Louw, E. (2022). Towards a typology of internationalisation at home activities in academic disciplines: a study conducted at a Dutch university of applied sciences. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. Doi:10.1080/03057925.2022.2108376.