Community Based Global Learning

International education, service-learning, and community-based global learning programs are robust with potential. They can positively impact communities, grow civil society networks, and have transformative effects for students who become more globally aware and more engaged in global civil society – at home and abroad. Yet such programs are also packed with peril. Clear evidence indicates that poor forms of such programming have negative impacts on vulnerable persons, including medical patients and children, while cementing stereotypes and reinforcing patterns of privilege and exclusion. These dangers can be mitigated, however, through collaborative planning, design, and evaluation that advances mutually beneficial community partnerships, critically reflective practice, thoughtful facilitation, and creative use of resources. Drawing on research and insights from several academic disciplines and community partner perspectives, along with the authors’ decades of applied, community-based development and education experience, they present a model of community-based global learning that clearly espouses an equitable balance between learning methodology and a community development philosophy.Emphasizing the key drivers of community-driven learning and service, cultural humility and exchange, seeking global citizenship, continuous and diverse forms of critically reflective practice, and ongoing attention to power and privilege, this book constitutes a guide to course or program design that takes into account the unpredictable and dynamic character of domestic and international community-based global learning experiences, the varying characteristics of destination communities, and a framework through which to integrate any discipline or collaborative project. Readers will appreciate the numerous toolboxes and reflective exercises to help them think through the creation of independent programming or courses that support targeted learning and community-driven development. The book ultimately moves beyond course and program design to explore how to integrate these objectives and values in the wider curriculum and throughout formal and informal community-based learning partnerships.

Co-published with There is growing awareness that global learning is not confined to university, credit-bearing off campus international programs, and that institutions of higher learning have, up until now, conceived of global education too narrowly. Global learning through study abroad and off-campus domestic study fits into a larger context of students’ educational experiences. You can find global learning as part of other high-impact practices; domestic off-campus programs, undergraduate research, and service- or community-based learning all can be global learning opportunities. On-campus global learning can occur in the disciplines and in the core curriculum as well. Language and culture, anthropology, sociology, and other departments, multicultural centers, and diversity and inclusivity offices, to name a few, also teach students to be global learners. Global learning pertains to the many staff and faculty educators who intentionally encourage students to engage with and successfully navigate difference. Thus, there is a growing need for bridging across disciplinary and administrative silos, silos that are culturally bound within academia. The gaps between these silos matter as students seek to integrate off- and on-campus learning. Higher education needs a new, holistic assessment of global learning. This book investigates not just student learning, but also faculty experiences, program structures, and pathways that impact global learning, and expands the context of global learning to show its antecedents and impacts as a part of the larger higher education experience. Chapters look at recent developments such as short-term, off-campus, international study and certificate/medallion programs, as well as blended learning environments and undergraduate research, all in the context of multi-institutional comparisons. Global learning is also situated in a larger university context. Visit the Mind the Gap Companion Page, hosted by the Center of Engaged Learning.

Higher education needs a new, holistic assessment of global learning. The studies in this edited volume investigate not just student learning, but also faculty experiences, program structures, and pathways that impact global learning. Showcasing recent, multi-institutional research related to global learning, this book expands the context of global learning to show its antecedents and impacts as a part of the larger higher education experience. Chapters look at recent developments such as short-term, off-campus, international study and certificate/medallion programs, as well as blended learning environments and undergraduate research, all in the context of multi-institutional comparisons. Global learning is also situated in a larger university context. Thus, there is a growing need for bridging across disciplinary and administrative silos, silos that are culturally bound within academia. The gaps between these silos matter as students seek to integrate off- and on-campus learning, and it is up to the academy to mind those gaps.

Co-published with While there is wide consensus in higher education that global learning is essential for all students’ success, there are few models of how to achieve this goal. The authors of this book, all of whom are from one of the nation’s largest and most diverse research universities, provide such a model and, in doing so, offer readers a broad definition of global learning that both encompasses a wide variety of modes and experiences—in-person, online, and in co-curricular activities at home and abroad—and engages all students on campus. They provide a replicable set of strategies that embed global learning throughout the curriculum and facilitate high quality, high-impact global learning for all students.The approach this book describes is based upon three principles: that global learning is a process to be experienced, not a thing to be produced; that it requires all students’ participation—particularly the underrepresented—and cannot succeed if reserved for a select few; and that global learning involves more than mastery of a particular body of knowledge. The authors conceptualize global learning as the process of diverse people collaboratively analyzing and addressing complex problems that transcend borders of all kinds. They demonstrate how institutions can enable all students to determine relationships among diverse perspectives on problems and develop equitable, sustainable solutions for the world’s interconnected human and natural communities. What’s more, they describe how a leadership process—collective impact—can enable all stakeholders across departments and disciplines to align and integrate universal global learning throughout the institution and achieve the aims of inclusive excellence.Providing examples of practice, this book:• Offers a model to make global learning universal;• Provides a definition of global learning that incorporates diversity, collaboration, and problem solving as essential components; • Describes effective leadership for implementation consistent with the attributes of global learning;• Illustrates integrative, high-impact global learning strategies within the access pipeline, students’ coursework, and co-curricular activities; • Offers practical strategies for global learning professional development, student learning assessment, and program evaluation;• Promotes inclusive excellence through universal global learning.

This book, edited by experienced scholars in the field, brings together a diverse array of educators to showcase lessons, activities, and instructional strategies that advance inquiry-oriented global learning. Directly aligned to the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standard, this work highlights ways in which global learning can seamlessly be interwoven into the disciplines of history, economics, geography, civics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Recently adopted by the National Council for the Social Studies, the nation’s largest professional organization of history and social studies teachers, the C3 Framework prioritizes inquiry-oriented learning experiences across the social studies disciplines in order to advance critical thinking, problem solving, and participatory skills for engaged citizenship.

This book lays the groundwork for the future of global citizenship, and it discusses where we are now, where to go from here, and how all of this fits into a lifelong learning context. It incorporates case studies, meta-narratives, and empirical studies to support cosmopolitanism through a lifelong learning lens and is a must read for educators, activists, non-governmental organizations, civil society, and community organizations. The framing for this book is with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 in mind: ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all, with the intent that all learners will acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to promote “sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” (UN Sustainable Development Goal, target 4.7). It is through this lens that this book showcases the work of researchers, practitioners, civil society, and thought leaders in global citizenship for lifelong learning. While this tension between nationalism and cosmopolitanism exists, the wheels of globalization still turn and shape our local, national, and global connections. Through this exploration, this book lifts up examples of global citizenship education done well, across the age spectrum, and in a variety of contexts. The binding factor is the core values, ethics, and moral structure of a world in collaboration toward its larger human and ecological thriving. It unpacks complex topics such as ethical and cultural relativism, accountability and responsibility in a global world, decolonial education and unmaking ideas of “development”, and ethical models for community-based global learning and engagement. What voices are missing in the discussion of global learning and global citizenship education?

This is a visionary, consciousness-raising book that asks us to rethink the purposes and design of study away and study abroad experiences in the context of a broadened set of global threats, including climate disruption, soaring inequality, ecosystem breakdown, the dying off of distinct languages and cultural communities, and the threat of a nuclear catastrophe.As we ask students to truly comprehend this world from the privileged perspective of the global North, Rich Slimbach asks us to consider two fundamental questions: What and how should we learn? And having learned, for what should we use what we know?A panoply of pedagogies and methods of inquiry – from study away/abroad and service-based learning to diversity programming, environmental education, and community-based research – aim to develop students who both understand the challenges faced by global communities and act in ways that advance their social and environmental health. What temperaments, social habits, and intellectual abilities will they need to help heal their corner of creation? And what pedagogical perspectives, principles, and procedures can best support them in this creative challenge? Rich Slimbach argues that transforming student consciousness and life choices requires a global learning curriculum that integrates multi disciplinary inquiry into the structural causes of problems that riddle the common good, along with mechanisms that bid students to cross borders, to pay attention, and to listen to those unlike themselves. At its heart, this book proposes a truly transformative approach to community-engaged global learning.