Document Type

Dissertation

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Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Publication Details

Dissertation submitted to Technologicl University Dublin in partial fulfilment of M.A. in Higher Education, 2015.

Abstract

Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC) is an idea whose time has come. The intention behind this educational agenda is to help prepare graduates for professional life in a transnational world characterised by diverse mobilities and cultural hybridity. The process of internationalizing a curriculum is context-dependent: IoC looks different in different disciplines, institutions and countries. A rapidly globalising world intimately affects the practice of architecture where the transnational flows of people, information and capital intersect in our cities presenting complex challenges to professional architectural practice. Yet the teaching of architecture is seen as anachronistic: national systems of accreditation and professional registration limit schools of architecture in meeting the challenge to provide curricula that will prepare students with the skills, knowledge and awareness necessary for professional life in culturally diverse contexts This small-scale qualitative research explored how to internationalise an architectural curriculum with the aim of providing guidelines to support the implementation of internationalisation in the Dublin School Architecture. Instrumental-type case study research was used to gain insight into different approaches to teaching an internationalised curriculum and help refine theory. Exploratory interviews were held with teaching academics across disciplinary cultures in Germany, the Netherlands and England. Research data was analysed through a process of coding and content analysis to extract the core themes as the basis for the emerging theory. A working hypothesis proposes that the process of IoC can be activated through pedagogic collaborations across national settings, across cultural settings and between the educational agendas of IoC and Graduate Attribute policy. These three approaches are interdependent: each acts as an attractor influencing learning and teaching across a networked Architectural Design Studio curriculum. The emerging theory is expressed as a set of guidelines and a schematic that demonstrates application of the hypothesis to the design studio curriculum It is concluded that the imaginative and systemic inclusion of these approaches in each semester, each module, each stage of the disciplinary programme has the potential to internationalise the architectural curriculum: testing the hypothesis further through action research is the subject for further research.

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