The world beyond our borders: What might our students need to know about it?

Michael Cole University of California, San DiegoI have been asked by APA to discuss the relevanceof the rest of the world to American psychologystudents. This assignment grows out of a new waveof concern about America's place in the world.Economic and political events of the 1970s haveincreased the conviction in many circles that Amer-ican college students are not obtaining a realisticpicture of their place in the world from their collegeeducation.There is no doubt that there is widespreadignorance among our citizenry of world events thatare vital to their interests (Barrows, Klein, & Clark,1981). The question is, what do we do about it?More particularly, what should we be doing in ourclassrooms to ensure that our students enter theadult world with an increased appreciation for theworld beyond our borders?This is not an easy question for Americanpsychologists to answer. Nor are we all likely toanswer in the same way. The real question, it seemsto me, is, Why bother? What, in particular, shouldwe be teaching as psychologists?I will address this problem in three parts. First,I will survey three areas of interest to psychologistsin which some knowledge about international mattersis already represented in our curricula. Next, I willrecount the effect on my work of my coming intoserious contact with psychology and life in othercountries. Finally, I will describe a few of thetechniques that I use to pass on some of my ownexperience to my students.