Locating Cultural Learning: Secondary School Students' Learning in an International Service Program

• In Event: 61.068 - MTCC Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: 61.068-10 - International Education

Abstract

The curriculum of the state of Victoria, Australia, identifies Intercultural Capability as an expected, demonstrable capability of all students graduating from secondary school. Public and private secondary schools across Victoria (and Australia more broadly) are increasingly offering curricular and co-curricular international travel programs that frequently involve a service component, as one way of addressing this capability. This paper reports findings from a small-scale qualitative research project that investigated the learning dimensions of a group of high school students from Melbourne, Australia, who engaged in a service project in a remote region of Nepal in April, 2017. This paper reports on the students’ learning of, and insights, to Nepalese culture and community against the curricular-prescribed outcomes of intercultural capability.

Author

• Sarah Rutherford, Monash University