International Mindedness (IM), Intercultural Literacy (IL), and Global Competence

In today’s fast globalizing world, more and more countries are becoming internationally connected. This has accelerated and increased the migration of people all over the world. Their reasons could be for education and/or employment. In this day and age, it has become clear that a new form of education has become necessary to keep up with the times, and equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge to traverse these international environments.

In this sense, international education has come a long way in equipping students with the necessary 21st century skills needed in today’s global, and intercultural era. Therefore, I would like to focus particularly on three: International Mindedness (IM), Intercultural Literacy (IL), and Global Competence (GC).

International Mindedness

According to the Sriprakash, Singh and Jing (2014, as cited in IBO, 2008a, p.5) international mindedness aims to develop global citizens who, “recognise their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help to create a better and more peaceful world.”

This is particularly interesting to me being an international educator in China, as the institution I work for has a similar motto to that of Beijing Private, as mentioned in Sriprakash, et al. (2014, p.67), “Cherish the motherland heart; Aspire to be a global citizen”. Our motto, loosely, is “Chinese roots with an international outlook”, which is quite similar. This contrasting approach creates confusion and mixed feelings by the students, as to which approach to take towards their education. This is echoed by one teacher, who says “I think it takes away from international mindedness because what we’re doing by teaching international mindedness is fighting that natural tendency to embrace your nationalism and defend it and say oh America is the best” (Sriprakash, et al.,2014, p.67).

However, it is important to remember that patriotism and internationalism is legalised in China. Therefore, schools are permitted to endorse both the role of patriotism and internationalism in education. Which is where intercultural literacy comes into play. It creates intercultural understanding and cross-cultural cooperation.

Intercultural Literacy

According to Heyward (2002, p. 10) he defined intercultural literacy as “the understandings, competencies, attitudes, language proficiencies, participation, and identities necessary for successful cross-cultural engagements.”

A key point that is discussed in Heyward’s (2002) ‘lessons for international schools’ is that “intercultural literacy required a crisis of engagement, an authentic cross-cultural experience.”(Heyward, 2002, p. 26). However, this cannot take place in the average type-C international school in China, as an overwhelming majority of their students are Chinese, and people that come from the neighboring areas of the school. Therefore, students only gain pieces of this intercultural literacy in their interactions with their foreign teachers. This is not sufficient to give them the understanding, and attitudes necessary for when they travel to another country to visit/study/work and have successful cross-cultural interactions. Luckily, Heyward (2002) offers a solution, in the form of pairing such students with cultural mediators, someone who is “literate in both the home and host cultures...who can enable the learner to begin to develop his or her own repertoire of understandings, competencies, attitudes, and identities; to become interculturally literate.” (Heyward, 2002, p. 28).

This leads us into the final key aspect ‘Global Competence’, and the importance of students' competence in understanding different perspectives.

Global Competence

According to Mansilla and Jackson (2011, p. 13) global competence is “the capacity and disposition to understand and act on issues of global significance.

It has never been more important for students to learn to work together and to act on issues that affect an entire planet. There have been numerous catastrophic events that are affecting the world at the moment, such as, famine, climate, and recently a world-wide pandemic. These types of global issues cannot be solved by one country, it is going to take multiple countries working cohesively together, to get to an answer. Therefore, it is only natural that global competences are looked at when creating a new international curriculum. In today’s world students need to come together, effectively communicate with people from different cultures, identify, assess and create solutions to global problems. Mansilla and Jackson (2011, p.1) named three forces shaping lives on the planet: “the flattened global economy and changing demands of work; unprecedented global migration and the changing nature of neighborhoods, identities, and citizenship; and climate instability and the growing need for global environmental stewardship.” These issues provide new educational demands that international education and curricula need to address and provide the new age student with in order for them to have the necessary skills and knowledge to solve these global challenges.

These issues affect all people and have deep implications for current and future generations. However, they also connect local and global citizens, and through international cooperation we can find value in being diverse, working together and figuring out solutions to these issues, using different perspectives.

References

Analysis of International Mindedness, Intercultural Literacy, and Global Competence. (2021). [Illustration]. Canva. https://www.canva.com/design/DAEwbV9IxZs/share/preview?token=KTifcfKEaRj3PtcfjDv94w&role=EDITOR&utm_content=DAEwbV9IxZs&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton

Children holding hands on the earth. (2019). [Illustration]. Magic Years Education. https://www.magicyears.nl/international-mindedness/

Drake, B. (2004). International Education and IB Programmes. Journal of Research in International Education, 3(2), 189–205. https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240904044387

Hands joining together. (2017). [Illustration]. http://www.pz.harvard.edu/50th/global-competencies

Heyward, M. (2002). From international to intercultural: Redefining the international school for a globalized world. Journal of Research in International Education, 1(1), 9–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240902001001266

IBO. (2008b). IB Learner Profile Booklet. Cardiff: IBO.

Mansilla. V.B., & Jackson, A. (2011). Educating for Global Competence: Preparing our Youth to Engage the World. Asia Society. https://asiasociety.org/files/book-globalcompetence.pdf

People’s faces all around the earth. (2021). [Illustration]. Project Zero. http://www.pz.harvard.edu/50th/global-competencies

Sriprakash, A., Singh, M., & Jing, Q. (2014). A comparative study of international mindedness in the IB Diploma Programme in Australia, China and India. IBO. https://www.ibo.org/globalassets/publications/ib-research/dp/international-mindedness-final-report.pdf

van Oord, L. (2007). To westernize the nations? An analysis of the International Baccalaureate’s philosophy of education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 37(3), 375–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057640701546680