This study presents a phenomenographic didactic approach used to reveal the understanding 18 university teachers, within higher education, in the Swedish nursing program had of internationalisation. In Sweden, intentions of internationalisation has, in a general way, been discussed frequently, in different educational contexts in higher education. The government has increased the emphasis on the international dimension of higher education and declared universities to take responsibility in developing education in line with the international development. Deep dialogue interactive interviews has been conducted in autumn, 2002. In this paper some main common and general characteristics are presented from the very detailed descriptions given by the teachers. The characteristics are discerned, understood and discussed from a curriculum perspective. An important background for understanding the results is that the teachers represent a very selected group on the basis of their interest in and engagement for internationalising nurse education and for increasing intercultural teaching and learning. The results are described in terms of teachers' understanding of internationalisation in teaching and learning in relation to a didactical awareness (of the phenomenon) and, in a wider sense, problematised in relation to the phenomenographic research tradition. The results revealed; that there was no developed collective idea shared among the teachers about the phenomenon of internationalisation within the educational context; there was no developed didactic theoretic awareness of how to teach and learn about the phenomenon; teachers took for granted that internationalisation rested on an humanistic and democratic ideology; the educational content teachers connected to internationalisation were above everything else based on their own personal experiences. In the guide lines for higher education in Sweden it is said that the education shall be based on scientific knowledge (in a broad sense) and approved of experience. The meaning of approved of is that the experience is collectively shared as representing valid common sense knowledge. In the nurse education, as pictured through the results, there is no clear scientific knowledge and no approved of experience forming the basis for internationalisation.. This is most certainly not specific to nurse education, but probably quite common to the whole field of higher education. It actualises the question of how the basis for internationalisation could be improved for it to build on both scientific knowledge and approved of experience and this is the theme for the last comments in relation to the results presented in this paper. The results have been presented in a certain order from what the teacher said about the intention and aim of internationalisation, forms of teaching and studying, relation to content of teaching, to personal experiences as educational content. This is a line from the general aim to specific content which also represents a line from what is common and shared to what is varying. In one sense this difference in agreement and variation is to be expected when going from the general to the specific. Still the picture given through the results is problematic from an educational and curriculum perspective because it is not a picture of how the more general aim is expressed in the specifics, and then by necessity with variation. It is rather a picture of that the general aim is connected to different specific contents in a rather accidental way. Key words: Higher education, internationalisation, experiences, understanding, teaching, learning, cultural differences, personal growth.