Academic staff in Higher Education institutions in the UK are “predominantly white… UK born” (De Vita and Case, 2003). This need not mean that they are not open to adapting their teaching and learning practices to new approaches, but that they may not have been challenged to adapt their style of working to date. However, they are now increasingly teaching students from Africa and the Middle and Far East (Biggs, 2003). They are therefore working with students not only for whom English is a second language, but also from very different cultural backgrounds and in particular different norms around teaching and learning. Further, there are more teaching staff now working in the UK who were not educated there and so are also used to “academic traditions that differ from those prevalent in the local context” (Trahar, 2007). Recognizing and demonstrating the complexity of this multicultural environment for all involved was a key aim of the study. It set out to explore perceptions and practice in internationalising the curriculum from a discipline, practitioner and student perspective. However, discussion around the issues can be difficult (Back, 2004) and despite the opportunities this ‘international landscape’ offers, can be subordinated discourses (Koehne, 2006 as quoted in Trahar, 2007) unless deliberately made a topic for reflection. The study, funded via the UK Higher Education Academy Internationalisation initiative, was led by two of its 24 subject centres, ESCalate (Education) and LLAS (Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies) in cooperation with other centres. It sought to advance the debate by initiating constructive exchanges between staff and students, both UK and international. This it sought to do using a social constructivist/ narrative approach where participants were able to articulate their understanding of reality in the social setting of the groups, constructing and potentially reconstructing their acuity as each of the ongoing discussions took place. In addition, the case studies allowed for a more narrative approach to also be adopted. To enable the study to be most effective, five subject centres/subject centre clusters were approached to host meetings of staff (UK and international) and students (also UK and international) in their institutions. These included representatives from a selection of the 24 discipline areas covered by the Subject Network UK wide. Each group explored the concept of an internationalised curriculum, and international experience (teaching and/ or learning) from a discipline, UK and international perspective. This was accomplished through working with a set of generic questions developed by the ESCalate / LLAS team. These were presented and discussed in structured focus groups. These groups were nevertheless also flexible enough to allow genuine dialogue between participants on specific discipline related issues they themselves wanted to raise. This led to particularly rich data which were collected via both video and audio taping with a view to presenting it on Videopapers for dissemination. Videopapers are especially useful as a means of helping demonstrate to those not present what happened in a group / environment. They may be used more commonly by staff to help develop and assess student work, but for this study, were chosen to most effectively share the results and findings. Consequently, the study is well placed at its conclusion to offer clear insights into internationalisation and its impact on teaching and learning across the disciplines as well as thoughts on implications and suggestions for the future.

Methodology:a social constructivist/ narrative approach where participants were able to articulate their understanding of reality in the social setting of the groups, constructing and potentially reconstructing their acuity as each of the ongoing discussions took place. In addition, the case studies allowed for a more narrative approach to also be adopted. Methods: Targeted cross discipline Focus groups of both UK and international staff together plus student groups separated into UK and international cohorts. In addition, a small number of case studies. Video and audio taped with a view to offering findings on Videopapers.

A clearer recognition of the complexity of this multicultural environment for all involved was a key aim of the study and in the findings we expect to demonstrate more clearly what the international landscape looks like from the various viewpoints: discipline, practitioner and student.The study will therefore offer new insights into internationalisation overall, including its impact on teaching and learning across the disciplines. Finally, from analysis of the findings it will make suggestions for the future of UK teaching and learning in the international landscape.