The Role of the Hidden Curriculum: Institutional Messages of Inclusivity

Significant attention is rightly given in literature concerning institutional curricular change to the design and delivery of the formal curriculum. Particularly influential in this area has been Biggs’ work on constructive alignment (Biggs, 1999, and subsequent editions) and the learning taxonomies which higher education has sought to utilise in the alignment process (Biggs & Collins, 1982; Bloom, 1956). However, the role of the hidden curriculum (Giroux & Purpel, 1983), much discussed in the context of school education for many years, has barely featured in the discourse around learning and teaching in higher education. In this reflective analysis, I consider the question, ‘To what extent do the learning communities we create and the hidden curriculum which frames them foster or fight the development of capabilities needed by our global students?’ and propose the hidden curriculum to be an area we can no longer neglect

Critical intercultural practice: learning in and for a multicultural globalizing world

© Journal of International Students. Universities fail to offer equitable learning experiences for their diverse students. At the same time, the value of diverse student identities and perspectives remains largely unrealized. In a globalising higher education context, these issues are exacerbated while the post-national university is increasingly complicit in advancing the neoliberal project and neglecting its potential to enable its diverse students to enhance social justice locally and globally. Although much current practice in outcomes-based higher education contributes to each of these processes, its underpinning theories of learning and its design features are compatible with more expansive and inclusive aspirations. Drawing upon critical and culturally relevant pedagogies, this article presents principles for the development of “critical intercultural practice” to empower all students in and for a multicultural globalizing world

Beyond competencies and silos: Embedding graduate capabilities for a multicultural globalizing world across the mainstream curriculum

© The Author(s) 2020. This article presents a critical analysis of key elements within the conference question as the basis for proposals for an inclusive and systematic approach to the development of mainstream disciplinary higher education curricula designed to meet the needs of students and societies in a multicultural globalizing world. The critical analysis considers key objectives, understandings and limitations of GII ‘competencies’, how we conceptualize ‘students’ within a globalizing higher education, how ‘effective’ strategies might be framed, and how internationalization abroad and at home might be re-envisioned in the era of the post-national university. The article illustrates how this critical analysis points to the need to embed internationalization efforts, and their success indicators, within the mainstream curriculum across the disciplines

“Now he sings”. The My Musical Memories Reminiscence Programme: Personalised Interactive Reminiscence Sessions for People Living With Dementia

This paper explores the impact of the My Musical Memories Reminiscence Programme (MMMRP), an innovative intervention that adopts a music-based reminiscence approach. MMMRP builds on the format of the popular Singing for the Brain sessions with the aim of increasing opportunities for interaction and reminiscence among people living with dementia. Data were collected pre- and post-intervention and three months later using structured observation, interviews and focus groups. Results suggest that that programme had a positive impact on participants by promoting engagement, reminiscence and social interaction. For some individuals the impacts continued beyond their participation in the programme. A range of key facilitators for successful implementation of this approach were identified including the Session Leader role, the involvement of informal carers and the input of volunteers

Intercultural ethics: questions of methods in language and intercultural communication

This paper explores how questions of ethics and questions of method are intertwined and unavoidable in any serious study of language and intercultural communication. It argues that the focus on difference and solution orientations to intercultural conflict has been a fundamental driver for theory, data collection and methods in the field. These approaches, the paper argues, have created a considerable consciousness raising industry, with methods, trainings and ‘critical incidents’, which ultimately focus intellectual energy in areas which may be productive in terms of courses and publications but which have a problematic basis in their ethical terrain. Dieser Artikel untersucht wie ethische und methodische Fragen nicht nur ineinander greifen, sondern in keiner ernstzunehmenden Studie ueber Sprache und interkulturelle Kommunikation ausgelassen werden duerfen. Es wird hier argumentiert, dass der Schwerpunkt auf Verschiedenheit und Problemorientierung im interkulturellen Konflikt einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf theoretische Entwicklungen, Datenerhebung und Methoden in diesem Bereich hatte. Dieser Artikel legt auch dar, wie diese Ansaetze eine betraechtliche ‘Bewusstseinsbildungs – Branche' erzeugt haben, mit Methoden, Trainings, und ‘kritischen Interaktionssituationen’, welche letztendlich allen intellektuellen Arbeitseifer auf Bereiche konzentriert hat, die zwar ertragreich sind in Bezug auf Kurse und Publikationen, jedoch eine problematische Grundlage im ethischen Bereich aufweisen

Cultural relativism and the discourse of intercultural communication: aporias of praxis in the intercultural public sphere

The premise of much intercultural communication pedagogy and research is to educate people from different cultures towards open and transformative positions of mutual understanding and respect. This discourse in the instance of its articulation realises and sustains Intercultural Communication epistemologically – as an academic field of social enquiry, and judgementally – as one which locates itself on a moral terrain. By adopting an ethical stance towards difference, the discourse of intercultural communication finds itself caught in a series of aporias, or performative contradictions, where interculturalists are projected simultaneously into positions of cultural relativism on the one hand and ideological totalism on the other. Such aporias arise because the theoretical premises upon which the discourse relies are problematic. We trace these thematics to a politics of presence operating within the discourse of intercultural communication and links this to questions of judgement and truth in the intercultural public sphere. We propose that the politics of presence be set aside in favour of an intercultural praxis which is oriented to responsibility rather than to truth

Association between canine leishmaniosis and Ehrlichia canis co-infection: a prospective case-control study

Abstract Background In the Mediterranean basin, Leishmania infantum is a major cause of disease in dogs, which are frequently co-infected with other vector-borne pathogens (VBP). However, the associations between dogs with clinical leishmaniosis (ClinL) and VBP co-infections have not been studied. We assessed the risk of VBP infections in dogs with ClinL and healthy controls. Methods We conducted a prospective case-control study of dogs with ClinL (positive qPCR and ELISA antibody for L. infantum on peripheral blood) and clinically healthy, ideally breed-, sex- and age-matched, control dogs (negative qPCR and ELISA antibody for L. infantum on peripheral blood) from Paphos, Cyprus. We obtained demographic data and all dogs underwent PCR on EDTA-blood extracted DNA for haemoplasma species, Ehrlichia/Anaplasma spp., Babesia spp., and Hepatozoon spp., with DNA sequencing to identify infecting species. We used logistic regression analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) to evaluate the risk of VBP infections between ClinL cases and controls. Results From the 50 enrolled dogs with ClinL, DNA was detected in 24 (48%) for Hepatozoon spp., 14 (28%) for Mycoplasma haemocanis, 6 (12%) for Ehrlichia canis and 2 (4%) for Anaplasma platys. In the 92 enrolled control dogs, DNA was detected in 41 (45%) for Hepatozoon spp., 18 (20%) for M. haemocanis, 1 (1%) for E. canis and 3 (3%) for A. platys. No Babesia spp. or “Candidatus Mycoplasma haematoparvum” DNA was detected in any dog. No statistical differences were found between the ClinL and controls regarding age, sex, breed, lifestyle and use of ectoparasitic prevention. A significant association between ClinL and E. canis infection (OR = 12.4, 95% CI: 1.5–106.0, P = 0.022) was found compared to controls by multivariate logistic regression. This association was confirmed using SEM, which further identified that younger dogs were more likely to be infected with each of Hepatozoon spp. and M. haemocanis, and dogs with Hepatozoon spp. were more likely to be co-infected with M. haemocanis. Conclusions Dogs with ClinL are at a higher risk of co-infection with E. canis than clinically healthy dogs. We recommend that dogs diagnosed with ClinL should be tested for E. canis co-infection using PCR