Terms describing the changes in higher education as a consequence of globalisation continue to proliferate and to be contested. The words used as descriptors of ‘cross-border’ activities are, however, less significant - what is more important is to be clear about the assumptions and motivations mediating educators’ efforts. I therefore use a more nuanced definition of ‘internationalisation’ to inform the research reported on in this paper, one that is “associated principally with an ethos of mutuality and practices geared at strengthening cooperation” (Kreber, 2009; 2-3). Higher education is significantly under researched in terms of the extent to which a culturally diverse student population influences academics’ teaching and assessment practices. Moreover, there can be an implication in the discourse that students and academics have a lesser role in the changing landscape of higher education, yet it is they who constitute the values, cultures and traditions of higher education that are rarely articulated and exposed to critical scrutiny. The articulation of individual values, cultures and traditions can enable reflection on how they inform conceptualisations of learning and teaching and lead to critical questioning of pedagogical practices. Innovative research conversations with academics can facilitate this process and offer insights into how they may be deconstructing and reconstructing their identities in increasingly diverse environments. The paper will report on a project whose aim is to investigate the extent to which a culturally diverse student population influences the current teaching and assessment practices of a group of academic staff in two UK universities. The core theoretical framework informing the project is that of a critical postmodern approach to adult learning. This framework acknowledges and celebrates the tension between the similarities and differences of individuals and cultures and of learners and teachers rather than assuming a universalist approach to learning privileging a dominant approach to teaching. Three research questions guide the project: How do academics describe their experience of teaching students from diverse cultural backgrounds? What pedagogical approaches do academics use with culturally diverse groups and who or what shapes these? What are academics’ perceptions of the attitudes of local, UK students towards those from different cultural backgrounds?

The research is located within a narrative inquiry paradigm and I am using narrative interviews and a reflecting team to gather data. In addition, in the paper, I propose to share my autoethnographic explorations into being an academic in a diverse landscape and to demonstrate how, by interrogating my own ‘culture’, I am constantly in process of becoming more aware of my fluid and shifting identities. Such critically reflexive accounts of academics’ experiences of working with cultural diversity, exploring the extent to which the rhetoric is aligned with engagement, are rare in higher education (see Brunner, 2006, Sanderson, 2007, Trahar, 2007, 2008, 2009, Turner & Robson, 2008).

It is expected that the research will determine the extent of awareness of theoretical principles; whether academics see any need to adjust their practices to be more inclusive and cognisant of different educational traditions and conceptualisations of learning and teaching and contribute to the growing debate on academic identities.