Who Participates in the Internationalized Curriculum? An Exploration of Access at One Community College

• In Event: Approaches to Equity-Driven Internationalization Scholarship in Higher Education

Abstract

Purpose and Perspective
Recent calls to improve access to international education have highlighted the role that internationalization of the at-home curriculum can play in providing global learning opportunities to students who are unable to travel internationally (e.g., Custer & Tuominen, 2017). Prior research suggests that students benefit from these at-home experiences, particularly in areas related to intercultural competence (e.g., Prieto-Flores et al., 2016; Soria & Troisi, 2014). However, little - if anything - is known about the students who choose to enroll in internationalized courses. An equity-driven perspective calls us to question whether these at-home opportunities expand access to international education to students who otherwise would not participate or, alternatively, if they merely reproduce already-existing hierarchies of privilege (Bourdieu, 1984). The purpose of this study is to critically examine which students participate in internationalized coursework through an exploration of demographic characteristics.

Method
This study draws from data representing a community college in the U.S. Southeast. A focus on the community college is especially important in addressing this study’s purpose because community colleges have been shown to provide a context wherein students who otherwise would not access international education are able to participate (e.g., Raby, 2019). Thus, if internationalized curricula serve to expand access to international education, we would expect to find evidence of this expansion especially at the community college. A preliminary analysis explored descriptive differences in demographic characteristics (specifically, racial/ethnic identity, sex, first generation-in-college status, Pell eligibility status, and age) between students who enrolled in at least one internationalized course (N=5,018) and students who did not (N=4,040). While the results presented here are descriptive in nature, more robust statistical analyses will be available prior to this panel discussion. Specifically, a negative binomial model will examine not only whether a student accessed internationalized coursework but also how many internationalized courses the student accessed (Coxe et al., 2009).

Results and Significance
Descriptive results indicate that students in some demographic groups were more likely to enroll in internationalized coursework compared to others. Older students, Pell-eligible students, and first generation-in-college students especially accessed at-home global opportunities more frequently. For example, approximately 60% of students who enrolled in at least one globalized course (vs. 48% who did not) were Pell-eligible. In contrast, prior research on study abroad finds that students from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds and older students are less likely to participate (e.g., Surridge, 2000; Whatley & Clayton, 2020). At the same time, results were not as promising for other demographic groups, especially regarding racial/ethnic identity. For example, around 19% of students who took at least one internationalized course identified as Black (vs. 26% who did not). This finding echoes previous study abroad research, which finds that Black students are less likely to participate (e.g., Salisbury et al., 2011). Although preliminary, these findings hint at the importance of this research. This line of inquiry will provide insight into the extent to which internationalization-at-home efforts address inequalities in who accesses international education.

Author

• Melissa Whatley, School for International Training