Intercultural Competence: Higher Education Internationalisation at the Crossroads of Neoliberal, Cultural and Religious Social Imaginaries

As the world is becoming more globalised, intercultural competence development within higher education is at a crossroads between the competing aims of neoliberal and cultural social imaginaries. On the one end, the global market demands graduates that are interculturally competent. Higher education...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mitchell, Lize-Mari (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: MDPI 2023
In: Religions
Year: 2023, Volume: 14, Issue: 6
Further subjects:B Neoliberal
B Higher Education
B Intercultural competence
B Social Imaginaries
B internationalisation
B cultural pluralism
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:As the world is becoming more globalised, intercultural competence development within higher education is at a crossroads between the competing aims of neoliberal and cultural social imaginaries. On the one end, the global market demands graduates that are interculturally competent. Higher education is attempting to meet this demand with internationalisation endeavours, specifically virtual exchange programmes. There exists a widely held assumption that these programmes will lead to intercultural competence development. However, this article questions this assumption due to the neoliberal hegemony within which higher education functions, which emphasises market rationales. This is placed in contrast to intercultural competence development within a humanistic educational setting, which emphasises cultural pluralism. A strong link is drawn between the importance of intercultural competence and the ability of graduates to navigate diverse cultural social imaginaries. This paper argues that the neoliberal social imaginary poses a risk of trivialising the humanistic meaning of intercultural competence development in higher education to mere neoliberal cosmopolitan capital for the human consumer.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel14060801