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international and intercultural knowledge skills and attitudes into the curriculum (Leask,
2001). Their focus was on all students and they became a catalyst for a shift in emphasis in
internationalisation of the curriculum. Universities began developing their own statements of
generic graduate attributes, including such things as communication skills, the ability to work
in groups, solve problems etc that would be developed alongside disciplinary-based
knowledge. While there is some variation in the exact nature and scope of these statements,
most included a graduate attribute that refers to preparing students for life in an increasingly
globalised, interconnected world, global citizenship and/or international professions and
careers. Increasing diversity in the classroom, resulting from both international student
recruitment and the increasingly multicultural nature of the local student population, is
viewed as a valuable resource for developing these graduate attributes. Preparing and
supporting students to work in multicultural groups in class is increasingly associated with
internationalisation of the curriculum.
However, in the first decade of the new century, amidst increasing concern in the UK as well
as Australia about the extent to which international and domestic students really learned
from and with each other, and the realisation that generic skills are always taught and
assessed within the context of the program of study, greater attention was paid to engaging
academic staff in the meaning of internationalisation within their disciplines. Discipline
communities are to some degree constricted in thought and action by the paradigms within
which they work. Thus critical decisions about what to include in the curriculum, how to teach
and assess learning are often decided with little if any consideration being given to
alternative models and ways of developing and disseminating knowledge, practising a
profession or viewing the world. An important part of the process of internationalisation of the
curriculum is to think beyond dominant paradigms, to explore emerging paradigms and
imagine new possibilities and new ways of thinking and doing (Leask 2013). This is an
intellectually challenging task. It requires examination of the assumptions underlying
dominant paradigms, consideration of the changing conditions, challenging the ‘taken-for-
granted’ and an openness to alternative ways of viewing the world beyond the obvious and
the dominant.
In the United States, internationalisation of the curriculum is identified as an essential
component of Comprehensive Internationalization (Hudzik 2010). Furthermore, while study
abroad and exchange and internationalisation of the campus remain key focuses of activity
for internationalisation of the curriculum, there is also growing interest in and awareness of
the need to develop new strategies to develop all students’ international perspectives. The
influence of scholars such as Mestenhauser (1998; 2007) in raising awareness of the need
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