Does higher education foster critical and creative learners? An exploration of two universities in South Korea and the USA

This paper describes two studies that explore students' beliefs about critical and creative learning at two universities, and considers the implications of those beliefs in comparison to the universities' stated education goals. One is a mixed method study of students at a top university in Korea, and the second is a comparative study between the Korean university and a United States (US) university. The first study found that both high-achievers and the general population at a top Korean university perceived their critical and creative abilities as lower than their receptive learning abilities, and that higher achievers were neither more critical nor creative than lower achievers. The second study finds that the Korean university students, compared to US students, were more likely to rate their receptive learning ability as higher than their critical and creative learning abilities. Comparisons across year of higher education (HE) suggest that Korean students' perceptions did not significantly change with respect to year in school, while US students' perceptions of critical learning abilities significantly increased across school years. Results are discussed with respect to the impact of culture, epistemological beliefs, and HE instruction on critical and creative learning.     

Rethinking the hermit kingdom: US social studies teachers’ cross-cultural professional development in South Korea

This study explores the experiences of 34 US social studies teachers who participated in a cross-cultural professional development in South Korea, and the impact of the programme on the participant teachers’ perceptions and practices of global education. Drawing upon a postcolonial lens, this mixed-method study takes a critical look at (a) how social studies teachers who mostly had limited previous knowledge of and experiences with the host country experienced cross-cultural learning and (b) how the teachers’ experiences were applied to their perceptions on global education and actual curricular and pedagogical changes in the classroom. The findings of this study provide solid empirical evidence on the possibilities and limitations of such international professional development, particularly in non-Western contexts, and discuss the implications on global teacher education.     

Youth in a global world: attitudes towards globalization and global citizenship among university students in Hong Kong

Despite the wealth of theoretical literature on globalization and global citizenship, empirical studies on the topic are lacking, especially in the context of pedagogical needs in relation to global citizenship education. In order to address this gap, a study was conducted in Hong Kong to investigate the attitudes of university students towards various dimensions of globalization and global citizenship. The initial results indicate that Hong Kong university students are generally quite aware of globalization's impact on the economy and personal consumption choices and that while there is considerable apathy towards international affairs, there is also a great interest in cross-cultural service learning opportunities that is not being met by the available programmes. Moreover, this study finds almost no association between age, gender, and religion and any of the measured dependent variables on attitudes towards globalization and global citizenship, the only exception being the factor of past intercultural experiences, where a significant difference in measured attitudes was found between respondents who had and respondents who had not participated in such experiences before. Explanations of the findings and the implications of findings for policy and future research are discussed.     

Aspiration for global cultural capital in the stratified realm of global higher education: why do Korean students go to US graduate schools?

This study aims to understand Korean students’ motivations for studying in US graduate schools. For this purpose, I conducted in‐depth interviews with 50 Korean graduate students who were enrolled in a research‐centered US university at the time of the interview. In these interviews, I sought to understand how their motivations are connected not only with their family, school, and occupational backgrounds, but also with the stratification of global higher education. Theoretically, this paper attempts to combine the concept of global positional competition with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital in the field of global education. By critically examining a push–pull model of transnational higher education choice‐making, this study situates Korean students’ aspirations in the contexts of global power and the hierarchy of knowledge‐degree production and consumption. After analyzing the students’ qualitative interviews, I classify their motivations for earning US degrees within four categories: enhancing their class positions and enlarging their job opportunities; pursuing learning in the global center of learning; escaping the undemocratic system and culture in Korean universities; and fulfilling desires to become cosmopolitan elites armed with English communication skills and connections within the global professional network. Based on this analysis, I argue that Korean students pursue advanced degrees in the United States in order to succeed in the global positional competition within Korea as well as in the global job marketplace. As they pursue advanced US degrees, Korean students internalize US hegemony as it reproduces the global hierarchy of higher education, but at the same time Korean students see US higher education as a means of liberation that resolves some of the inner contradictions of Korean higher education, including gender discrimination, a degree caste system, and an authoritarian learning culture. Therefore, this study links Korean students’ aspiration for global cultural capital to complex and irregular structures and relations of class, gender, nationality, and higher education that extend across local, national, and global dimensions simultaneously.     

Students positioned as global citizens in Australian and New Zealand universities: A discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

Higher education plays a critical role in producing society’s leaders by preparing graduates with the knowledge, capabilities and disposition to appreciate diversity and address social injustice. Many higher education institutions within and beyond Australia have aimed to internationalise their curricula to ensure students achieve capabilities that enable them to contribute to an evolving global knowledge economy. However, the inclusion of global citizenship as a graduate attribute embedded in internationalised curricula, and the processes to achieving this, are highly contested. Guided by a discourse analysis approach, this study explored how Australian and New Zealand universities position students as global citizens in public web pages. Publicly available policy and other text documents on university websites relating to internationalisation and/or global citizenship were collected and screened. Those that met inclusion criteria were analysed to identify discourses and to further understand how higher education institutions describe their plan to advance and achieve global citizenship agendas. Two key themes were generated: expressions of internationalisation policy and global citizenship as an obscured educational intention. These findings are further elaborated, providing an outline of the possible implications for higher education policy and practice relating to the internationalisation of curriculum for global citizenship and its potential impact on educators and students.     

Students' perceptions toward the use of the digital library in weekly web-based distance learning assignments portion of a hybrid programme

This study attempted to investigate students’ perceptions toward the use of the digital library in weekly web‐based distance learning assignments portion of a hybrid instructional programme. Attention was given to three variables—age, gender, and prior experience with the Internet. A Likert‐type instrument consisting of 10 items was designed to collect information about students’ perceptions toward the use of digital library. The subjects of this study were 154 students enrolled in an undergraduate hybrid programme in management at a medium‐sized university in the Midwest, USA. Collected data were analysed using ANOVA. The overall results suggest that students had positive perceptions toward the use of the digital library. Age was found to be an insignificant factor. However, gender and prior experience with the Internet were found to be significant factors. Males had significantly higher positive perceptions toward using the digital library. Students who had more prior experience with the Internet had significantly higher positive perceptions toward using the digital library. Implications for practice are discussed and recommendations are made for future research.     

Intergroup friendships between South Korean hosts and North Korean refugees: Implications for educational practices

While young South Koreans’ (SKs’) views on North Korean (NK) refugees, North Korea and Korean reunification have become increasingly negative or callous, less is understood about viable interventions to address their aggravating attitudes. Through the lens of Allport’s intergroup contact theory, the current study explored how SK college students’ friendships with NK refugees influence their perspectives on (a) attitudes towards NK refugees; (b) interest in North Korea; and (c) views about Korean reunification. We used a concurrent triangulation mixed-methods design that integrates quantitative data via a survey and qualitative data via in-depth interviews. Survey data drawn from 276 SK college students revealed that those with NK refugee friends showed more favourable attitudes towards the NK refugee population, greater interest in North Korea-related issues and NK society, and more positive perspectives on Korean reunification. A cross-analysis of in-depth interviews with 11 SK college students who developed friendships with NK refugees yielded five primary domains: (a) initial occasion on which they met the NK refugee friend(s); (b) feelings and thoughts about friendships with NK refugee(s); (c) friendship-induced changes in perceptions of the NK refugee population; (d) friendship-induced changes in perceptions of North Korea; and (e) friendship-induced changes in perceptions of Korean reunification. Based on the intergroup friendship’s promising effects that our findings suggest, we discussed the benefits of employing educational practices that could promote intergroup contacts and understandings of North Korea and the refugee population.     

Educators’ Perceptions of Student Digital Citizenship Practices

Abstract

Digital citizenship, defined as exhibiting appropriate and responsible behavior with digital technology use, is an essential component of technology education. The purpose of this study was to examine K-12 educators’ perceptions of their students' digital citizenship knowledge and practices as they relate to cyberbullying, digital footprint, digital privacy, digital netiquette, and digital identity. One hundred and seven educators responded to a survey on digital citizenship practices. Based on the educators' perceptions, student understanding and practice of digital citizenship were rated as not well for most of the items on the survey. While educators' perceptions of their students' digital citizenship practices did not vary among school levels or based on their roles as teachers or technology coaches, educators who taught digital citizenship had higher perceptions of their students' digital citizenship practices.     

The role of social networks in the transitional experiences of international African doctoral students at one university in South Africa

ABSTRACT

International doctoral students’ sojourn encompasses three transitional processes: to the new country, to the university and to a new academic identity as a researcher in a specific discipline. This article examines the role of social networks in facilitating these transitions for international doctoral students at one South African university. It is based on qualitative interviews conducted with 23 international PhD students representing eight different disciplines and various countries in Africa. The findings suggest that students are involved in a number of social networks, which all, apart from the academic network, exclude local students. This close-knit co-national network, while providing international PhD students with a well documented survival mechanism, may hinder their international experiences and limit the acquisition of the inter-cultural skills necessary for global citizenship in the twenty-first century. The findings also indicated that family networks back home played a role in instilling worries and doubts among students related to xenophobic attacks against foreigners.     

Moving Stories: Evaluation of a BSW Oral History Project with Older Adults with Diverse Immigration Histories

The purpose of this study was to evaluate an experiential learning project with BSW students to see if their perceptions of older adults have changed. The project consisted of an oral history project and presentation that matched BSW students with older adults from diverse ethnic backgrounds to gather their immigration narratives. The study used a single group pretest posttest design with 17 BSW students enrolled in an integrative field seminar class. Using a series of inferential analyses, BSW students’ attitudes towards older adults, future career plans, confidence with working with older adults from diverse backgrounds, and geriatric competencies were examined. Overall, a significant increase in BSW students who had varying levels of participation in project perceptions of geriatric social work competencies between pretest and posttest were found. Students who both conducted and presented the oral histories of older adults also were significantly more likely to report future plans to work with older adults compared to students who did not. Exposing BSW students to aging and diversity content has important implications towards fostering student interest in pursuing social work practice with older adults and preparing them for culturally competent social work.     

How Social Class Differences Affect Students' Experience of University

The present paper outlines the experiences reported by students from different social class backgrounds who have recently graduated from university. Students from manual skilled and partly skilled backgrounds were classed as disadvantaged, while students from professional or intermediate backgrounds were classed as advantaged. Data were collected from the same cohort of students on seven occasions across their university career. Students completed questions about their family background, paid employment, financial concerns, participation in recreational activities, perceptions of academic quality and perceptions of social support. Results showed that students from disadvantaged backgrounds were less likely to have parents that attended university, more likely to have been in paid employment, less likely to have participated in non‐academic activities and spent fewer evenings per week socializing compared with students from advantaged backgrounds. Also, there was some evidence of less positive perceptions of social support among disadvantaged students. However, there were no social class differences in ratings of teaching quality and all students reported high levels of financial concern. These findings are discussed in relation to proposed changes to the way higher education is funded in Britain and the implications these changes will have on recruiting students from disadvantaged backgrounds.     

Participatory capital: Bourdieu and citizenship education in diverse school communities

A priority toward creating ‘active’ citizens has been a feature of curricula reforms in many income-rich nations in recent years. However, the normative, one-size-fits-all conceptions of citizenship often presented within such curricula obscure the significant differences in how some young people experience and express citizenship. This paper reports on research that explored the citizenship perceptions and practices of New Zealand social studies teachers and students from four diverse geographic and socio-economic school communities. Attention was drawn to the scale of their citizenship orientations and participation (local/global). Drawing on Bourdieu’s conceptual triad and his species of capital in particular, the author posits that the differences observed between school communities can be usefully explained by a concept of participatory capital. The paper concludes with some reflections on the implications for young people who fail to access the ‘symbolic’ global participatory capital associated with much contemporary citizenship education.     

Global cultural capital and global positional competition: international graduate students’ transnational occupational trajectories

International graduate students’ occupational trajectories have rarely been studied, although many studies exist on their learning experiences in foreign universities. Based on 80 qualitative interviews, this article aims to understand how, where, and why these students obtain jobs in academe and corporations. I focus particularly on Korean professionals who received graduate degrees from US universities and who later obtained jobs in Korea or the United States. The theoretical component of this work is based on two important concepts – global cultural capital and global positional competition – both of which are seen to be based on a global hierarchy of academic degrees and professional knowledge. This study empirically tests and elaborates Phillip Brown’s three rules of inclusion and exclusion in global positional competition. By looking at international students’ transnational occupational trajectories, this study aims to understand how global education, transnational job opportunities, and social inclusion and exclusion interact in diverse ways.     

An Exploratory Study of Situated Conceptions of Learning and Learning Environments

This paper describes a study designed to test whether situated conceptions of learning can be measured using questionnaires, and the relations between these aspects of students’ awareness, their awareness of other environmental variables, and their learning outcomes. A situated conception of learning is one that is evoked and adopted by students in response to their perceptions of their learning tasks in a particular context. It may reflect the aims they have for their studies, once they have started that study and experienced that study environment. The results from this small-scale, limited-context study showed that when students perceived the learning environment as being more supportive of learning, they were more likely to describe a situated conception of learning that was more closely aligned with those promoted by the University. They also had higher scores on the deep approach to learning scale, lower scores on the surface approach scale, and expected to leave university with a higher degree classification. These associations, which suggest that situated conceptions, like prior experience of learning, may be a crucial indicator of learning approach and outcomes of learning, are sufficiently large to warrant more rigorous investigations.     

Role stressors,engagement and work behaviours: a study of higher education professional staff

The study used data provided by 349 professional staff employees from 17 different US higher education institutions to assess aspects of their working conditions that could influence their own work engagement and the work-related behaviours of their colleagues. Relationships among three role stressors (role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload), work engagement, organisational citizenship behaviours, and in-role behaviours were examined using correlation, regression and relative weight analyses. The higher participants’ perceptions of role ambiguity, conflict and overload, the lower were the levels of their own work engagement and organizational citizenship and in-role behaviours of their colleagues. Work engagement partially mediated the relationships between role ambiguity, conflict and overload and both organizational citizenship and in-role behaviours. The analysis indicated that role ambiguity had the strongest relationship with work engagement, organisational citizenship and in-role behaviours, followed by role conflict and then by role overload. Practical implications are discussed and managerial interventions suggested.     

Globalisation,city development and citizenship education in China's Shanghai

Globalisation has extended the competition between nation-states to that between metropolises of the same or different nations. Many studies have shown how nation-states respond to the challenge of globalisation by reconfiguring their citizenship education curriculum into a multileveled framework comprising personal, social, local, national and global dimensions. However, how metropolises reshape their citizenship education to meet the demands of their nation-state's national solidarity in order to respond to the external challenges of globalisation, and the global–national–local relationships arising from the reconfiguration are under-researched. With reference to Shanghai, the study aims to explore the perceptions of students and teachers about the dynamics and complexities in the juggling of global, national, local, and personal–social dimensions of multiple identity in a multileveled polity. Data are drawn from a questionnaire survey and interviews with students and teachers including principals. The study shows that students and teachers considered these four dimensions important, and that complex relationships between these dimensions exist. The article argues that in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world these dimensions intersect with, and are complementary to, one another. In a multileveled polity, different actors including global forces, nation-state, local government and individuals interact in an intertwined manner in the processes of remaking cities for modernisation and globalisation.     

论公民教育在高校德育教学中的基础性

为了加强高校德育效果,公民教育的基础地位需要强化。原因在于：第一,从教学目的看,将要全面进入社会生活的大学生首先要成为合格的公民,这是高校德育必须达到的底限目标;第二,“自下而上”的对话式教学理念是公民教育的长处,它可以化解学生对传统说教方式的抵触情绪;第三,公民教育对独立思考能力的强调适应大学生的心智状态,以智育手段提高德育效果有助于大学生有效养成健康的公民心态。     

Disruptive silence: deepening experiential learning in the absence of technology

Technology plays an integral role in the lives of the majority of the US population. As technology becomes integrated into young people’s lives, questions arise regarding its effects on learning. This exploratory study draws on interviews with students who attend university in the United States to determine how separating students from technology deepens experiential learning. Participants were interviewed following a study abroad course to New Zealand, during which they were disconnected from technologies such as cell phones, the Internet and social media. In the interviews, students discussed their feelings of being disconnected and describe how disconnecting impacted their overall experience. Participants agreed that disconnecting from technology had positive effects on experiential learning and the global experience. Major themes that emerged include students’ enhanced immersion and engagement, the value of disconnection in providing opportunities for personal growth and the difficulty of initial separation from technology as a result of conditioning.     

Students’ peer relationships and their contribution to university adjustment: the need to belong in the university community

Whilst new friendships and an active social life are commonly discussed features of ‘being a student’, there is limited empirical research that has quantitatively studied the contribution that social factors play in students’ university experience. Research that has been conducted shows that belonging and social integration are important factors in successful transition to university, and subsequent retention. This article presents research into students’ social relationships at university, their attachment to the university, and how these elements link to university adjustment. Undergraduates (N = 135) completed questionnaires measuring their attachment to university peers, attachment to the university, experiences of problematic peer relationships and quality of adjustment to university life. Students who reported strong attachment to their peers also demonstrated higher levels of adjustment to university life and attachment to their university. Students who reported difficulties in their relationships with other students had lower levels of peer attachment and university adjustment. Attachment to university peers was the strongest predictor of university adjustment, followed by attachment to the university. The research highlights the role of social relationships in institutional belonging, and the importance of nurturing peer relationships and institutional affiliation to create a positive student experience.