Participative pedagogies, group work and the international classroom: an account of students' and tutors' experiences

Abstract

The focus of the paper is to consider the ways in which the cultural complexity inherent in multinational student groups is thrown into relief when participative methods are used. Participative approaches are a means of encouraging students to learn from each other's ideas and experience and, from a critical perspective, as supporting democratic values. The authors draw on their reflections of working with multinational student groups and on former students' projects in which they examined their own and fellow students' learning experiences. Theoretical frameworks which illustrate contrasting perspectives are considered for their potential contribution to our understanding of the sociopolitical processes involved in the participative, multinational classroom, and to supporting students and tutors in working with such complexities.

Keywords:

• multinational classroom
• participative pedagogies
• critical perspectives
• group work
• management students

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Corrigendum

Notes

1. We acknowledge support of our postgraduates in this paper – particularly Yuyu Chen, Lucy Shi Fang, Jossett Frances, Ben Kerrane and Qiang Li.