Internationalisation and teaching in higher education

Abstract The internationalised practices of tertiary teachers as discipline experts and role models should hold them in good stead to help facilitate student preparedness for life in a rapidly globalising world. Yet the literature on the internationalised practices of teachers is relatively barren. The response of this article is to provide a conceptual framework for reflection and discussion by drawing on theory as well as research on university teaching practice to illuminate personal and professional characteristics that might reasonably be expected to underpin teachers' internationalised outlooks and classroom practices. It points out why Knight's internationalisation theory, whilst having been widely mobilised in Australian higher education, has limited utility to inform tertiary teaching-related activities. The article then provides a way forward by unpacking the notion of an 'ideal' and authentic teacher for contemporary higher education to support contemplation of the development of international and intercultural perspectives in teaching. Keywords: cosmopolitanismhigher educationinterculturalinternationalisationteaching Notes Leask Citation(2009) distinguishes between formal and informal curricula. The former is described as 'the sequenced programme of teaching and learning activities organised around defined content areas and assessed in various ways' (p. 207). Informal curricula 'includes the various extracurricular activities that take place on campus, those optional activities that are not part of the formal requirements of the degree or programme of study but which nevertheless contribute to and in many ways define the culture of the campus' (p. 207). The focus on the individual-as-teacher in this article leads it to adopt Pedersen's Citation(1988) view of culture as being concerned with 'within the person' (p. 3) experiences such as values, habits, customs and lifestyles. This lived and creative experience for individuals arises from their interactions with 'a body of artefacts, texts and objects; it embraces the specialized and professionalized discourses of the arts, the commodified output of the culture industries, the spontaneous and unorganised cultural expressions of everyday life, and, of course, the complex interactions between all of these' (Held et al., Citation1999, pp. 328–329). For views on the strengths and limitations of using essentialist cultural theory, see Sanderson (Citation2007).