Developing the Global Student

Developing the Global Student addresses the question of how students of higher education can emerge from their university life better equipped to dwell more effectively, ethically, and comfortably amidst the turmoils of a globalizing world. It does this from a number of theoretical perspectives, illustrating the nature of the personal and educational challenges facing the individual student and the teaching professional. The book explores the massive social changes wrought by the technologies and mobilities of globalization, particularly how present and future generations will relate to, work with and dwell alongside the global other. It outlines a range of social, psychological and intercultural perspectives on human tendencies to seek out comfort among communities of similitude, and illustrates how the experience of life in a global era requires us to transcend the limits of our own biographies and approach university education as a matter of knowledge deconstruction and identity reconstruction, rather than reproduction. This book brings these considerations directly into the daily business of higher education by drawing out the implications for practice at a number of levels. It examines: the implications of a globally interconnected world and individual biographies for the design of the curriculum; a holistic view of learning in the context of the need to develop the global self; what the impact on non-academic practice will be if universities as institutions are to enable these changes; ways in which the broader student community can transform to offer an experience which is more supportive of the development of global selves. Linking theoretical perspectives to present a model of learning as change, this book will be of great interest to those working in higher education, and particularly to anyone involved in policy design and the delivery of the student experience.