Professor Terri Seddon

1. Professor Terri Seddon About CROSSLIFE: Cross-cultural collaboration in lifelong learning and work

2. Beginnings of CROSSLIFE • Grew out of an established research field in which researchers examined the relationship between education and work based in national working life and education traditions in a critical, historical, and gender-sensitive way. • This research field is challenged by globalisation, which is transforming the everyday practices and research frameworks of education and work - focus is now on globally interconnected lifelong learning and work. • These changing circumstances prompted established researchers in the field of education and work to find ways of preparing researchers and professionals to understand and engage with the transformations in globally interconnected lifelong learning and work (EMVET; CROSSVOCE; CROSSLIFE)

3. First aim of CROSSLIFE • To develop a joint program between nationally-based universities to support Masters and Doctoral students develop cross-national knowledge, skills and networks to enhance their understanding and capacity to work in globally interconnected lifelong learning and work. • Curriculum: 5-step pathway in cross-national learning that investigates transformations in lifelong learning and work • Pedagogy: 3 workshops (2007-8) in different national contexts providing opportunities for formal, informal and experiential learning • Outcomes: knowledge about transformations in lifelong learning and work, skills in research, capacities for cross-cultural communication and collaboration, and cross-national research-professional networks

4. Second aim of CROSSLIFE • To build a partnership between universities active in research in lifelong learning and work to create the CROSSLIFE program and establish a cross-national network of supervisors able to support cross-national knowledge-sharing and supervisory relationships with students • Creating an academic network that revitalises the classic idea of an ‘academic apprenticeship’ for globally interconnected times. • Building student-supervisor relationships that can support cross-national learning and research. • Establishing an organisational and decision-making framework which can steer cross-national program development, supervision and learning and research outcomes.

5. The 6 university partnership Since November: • Governance - Coordinator specified, legal framework established, clear delegation of authority by university partners. Creates a capacity to realise the exercise of authority. • Mandate - Shared goals negotiated, boundaries established. • Resources - Resource constraints recognised within this funded project. • Activities - Activities designed to realise shared goals and meet accountabilities imposed by funding agency. Ethical principles being formalised. • Impacts - Documentation of outcomes arising from partnership. Increased awareness of benefits and costs of project.

6. Third aim of CROSSLIFE To build on the developmental and implementation stage, so that CROSSLIFE is eligible as an Erasmus Mundus MA programme. • Using CROSSLIFE activities to support learning that provides an understanding of knowledge, skills and dispositions that are cross-culturally sensitive. • Using CROSSLIFE activities to encourage cross-national research and research training that is sensitive to the transforming politics lifelong learning and work. • Using CROSSLIFE activities to project a model of academic apprenticeship that addresses what and how people need to learn in order to do academic work in globally connected times • Using CROSSLIFE activities to refine the operation of a cross-national university partnership

7. Crosslife agenda Crosslife builds knowledge about transformations in lifelong learning and work. Our work together examines: • Globalisation and increased global-interconnectedness • Effects in work • Effects in learning

8. Crosslife theme: Travelling ideas ‘Travelling ideas’ is the instrument we use to investigate lifelong learning and work What travels and what does not travel?Ideas travel globally today through policy documents, the web, media, regulatory arrangements, global language practices, global-English, globally mobile bodies (eg. professionals, tourists, policy elites, refugees, migrants). What do travelling ideas-things tell us about globalisation? We can understand globalisation by examining how ideas-things travel and their effects in local spaces. What does travelling ideas mean for academic work? In academic work we reflect on ideas-things, and the way we represent and interpret those ideas-things as texts. This reflection on the writing (representation) and reading (interpretation) of texts problematises research traditions, which are embedded in national contexts and cultural understandings.

9. Workshop content Workshop 1: London - Introduced travelling ideas • Examined the way ideas-things are travelling globally and their effects in national school and training systems and organisations. • Ideas travelled via documents (eg. Copenhagen Declaration) and bodies (policy elites, professional migrants who bring their culture to education practices, migrant learners who confront and must negotiate official national schooling cultures) Workshop 2: Tampere - Examines impact of travelling ideas in working life • Examines the way travelling ideas-things are changing occupations and workplaces. • What is changing? (eg. job categories, skill levels, entry requirements, employee morale, collective agency). What is not changing? (employment contract, division of labour, skill & remuneration) What does this mean for practical politics? Workshop 3: Malta - Reflects on challenges for learning & teaching • Examines the way travelling ideas-things are changing ways of learning and teaching. • What do these changes mean for the work of learning, teaching, researching, collaborating? What skills & capacities support productive cross-cultural communication and collaboration?

10. Workshop process Workshop 1: London • Introduction to Crosslife • Developed ways of working together • Implemented a safe environment for cross-national collaboration Workshop 2: Tampere • Introduced methodology for cross-national collaborative research • Applied methodology to different cases • Evaluated and refined methodology as a research resource Workshop 3: Malta • Identified challenges in cross-national pedagogy • Reviewed and refined 5 step-pathway as a pedagogical resource • Recommended key features of a revitalised academic apprenticeship for globally interconnected times

11. Copenhagen London Malta Melbourne Tampere Zurich EU interface Tampere Home-university interface Program Aims, Governance, Planning Team Materials development Workshop design & implementation Book 1 Book 2 Book 3 ICT environment London Tampere Malta Evaluation Research CROSSLIFE activities

12. Evaluation of CROSSLIFE Evaluation of the whole CROSSLIFE project requires us to report on: • Activities and outcomes generated through CROSSLIFE project • The knowledge and skills needed and developed to: • Support cross-cultural communication • Learn, teach and research effectively in cross-national contexts • Build cross-national academic apprenticeship and supervisory relationships • Do the organisational work necessary to support and steer a cross-university partnership through cross-national program development, to support research and research training relationships • The challenges of cross-national collaboration and how they might be addressed.

13. Workshop 1: Travelling ideas Ideas travel -- As: • global policies; • globally distributed books, websites, media images and stories, brands, rules and regulatory requirements (eg. Quality), norms; • global language patterns and practices; • globally mobile bodies (people) refugees, migrants, tourists, policy elites; and • global agencies (multi/cross/trans-national organisations, occupations, networks, movements) In this workshop think about the following questions: • What ideas travel? • Where do they come from? • Who or what mobilises them? • In what form and through what mediums do they travel? • How do these mediums affect the ideas and the way they travel? • What ideas do not travel? Why?