Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility

Developing Criteria for Global Learning

This resource is adapted from Arcadia University's Global Connections curricular experience, an element of Arcadia's integrative and global undergraduate curriculum. In addition to a Global Experience and Reflection (such as study abroad or local service projects), students at Arcadia must take two courses that carry a Global Connections designation as a part of their general education requirements. These interdisciplinary courses focus on the following essential elements of global learning.

Global Content Criteria for Global Connections Courses:

• Global Issues: Address issues of interconnectedness, interdependence and inequity among peoples, cultures, and/or nation-states of the world.
• Global Exchanges: Focus on cultural norms and processes as well as entities like commodities and physical elements that flow across national boundaries.
• Global Justice: Explore issues of social justice, social welfare, and economic rights within and across national boundaries.
• Global Perspective: Provide a comparative, transnational perspective.
• Global Integration: Approach the study of the United States as a part of the world.

Global Learning Goals to Address:

• Grasping Global Scope: Students will acquire a heightened sense of global interdependencies and understand the need to address complex global issues across national and disciplinary boundaries.
• Interpreting Cultures: Students will interpret aspects of other cultures in relation to their own with greater sophistication and accuracy.
• Thinking Critically: Students will be able to pose critical questions about power relations as they investigate the dynamics of global and local transactions as applied to a social problem important to them.
• Identifying Global Responsibilities: Students will identify obligations of people situated both inside and outside their own national borders.
• Connecting U.S. and Global Issues: Students will gain a deeper knowledge of the historical, political, scientific, cultural and socioeconomic interconnections between the U.S. and the world.

Examples of Global Connections Courses at Arcadia University:

• Anthropology 361: Social Change, Globalization and Culture
• Business Administration 232: International Environmental and Legal Issues for Business
• Education 214: Introduction to Inclusive Education
• Economics 350: International Economics
• Spanish 285: The Hispanic World through Film
• Political Science 243: Introduction to Peace & Conflict Resolution
• English 229: Voices of America
• Art History 328: Seminar in Contemporary Art
• International Studies 120: Global Public Health