Exploring the Process of Global Citizen Learning and the Student Mind-Set

Abstract

Increasingly, university and employer discourse identify a need for graduates to have an intellectual and global “mind-set” beyond disciplinary competencies and national boundaries. Universities aiming to educate global citizens show limited outcomes. Global citizen research has investigated the mobility experience, yet limited attention has been paid to the theoretical process of student change to inform how domestic students could engage in comparable learning experiences. The purpose of this study was to expand knowledge on the process of global citizen learning and the student mind-set. Two phases of research gathered in-depth information from international higher education key informants and mobility students. The research resulted in a conceptual model for global citizen learning and an “identikit” of recognizable markers for a global citizen disposition. The model identifies facilitators and manifestations of “student change” and identifies reflexivity, relationality, criticality, and the social imaginary as capacities of global mind-set. These findings suggest that educating all students as global citizens could be more closely aligned to the internationalization of education and employability agendas.