internationalising the curriculum: assessing faculty, departments, and schools on their efforts

Abstract

In 2005 the American Council on Education asked the American Political Science Association (APSA) to work towards internationalising undergraduate education. Since almost a decade has passed since these initial efforts, it is crucial to examine how far the discipline has come in internationalising the curriculum. This article will discuss and evaluate how to assess and understand what faculty, departments, and schools have done in pursuing the internationalisation of the undergraduate curriculum through the use of an online survey. It will examine the process of creating the survey instrument and the issues around doing so. The results of the survey, while not the focus here, will inform this discussion in the article. Competing definitions of internationalisation, differences in conceptualisation from American and other, mostly European, perspectives, and questions about how to internationalise at the course, department, or programme level were issues that the survey revealed needed more discussion. Moreover, the article seeks to discuss how to move forward in the assessment of internationalisation efforts.