Learning, using and exchanging global competence in the context of international postgraduate mobility

ABSTRACT

The paper offers a theoretically grounded analysis of international postgraduate students’ perspectives on the importance and development of global citizenship knowledge and competences while they are studying, and how these are valued and enacted afterwards. It draws on a series of interviews with non-Western international postgraduates during their studies in the UK and upon return to their home countries. It uses the concepts of social and cultural cosmopolitan competences as a framework to discuss the perceived benefits of educational mobility, and the possibilities and limits of social connectedness and openness in the internationalised university environment.

KEYWORDS:

• International students
• higher education mobility
• global competence
• cosmopolitanism
• the UK

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Marta Moskal http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4483-9310

Notes

1 The use of the term ‘Western’ in the article is not intended to imply two worlds – East and West – but is used as a signifier to denote groups associated with the dominant cultures of primarily Europe, North America and Australia/New Zealand.

2 All EU countries prior to the accession of the 10 candidate countries on 1 May 2004, plus the 4 eastern European member countries of the OECD, namely Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovak Republic (OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms 2005).

Additional information

Funding

The empirical study has been supported by the British Academy grant (ref SG131149) awarded to Dr M. Moskal.