DEVELOPING GLOBAL AWARENESS IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS THROUGH GENERAL EDUCATION CORE CURRICULUM PROGRAM

The Purpose of this paper is twofold: First, it provides an ontologically-oriented hermeneutics reading of the concepts of global awareness; second, the study examines the extent to which the integration of global awareness concepts into the university curriculum through social sciences core curriculum courses (mainly: world civilizations, world geography, and economics) develops students’ cross cultural understanding, global learning and appreciation of the different intellectual and ideological Other. The design of the study is grounded on constructivist approaches to learning where students explore global issues and problems from multiple perspectives and demonstrate how smart they are and not whether they are smart. With a constructivist design in mind, a quantitative case study approach has been conducted involving a 15-item-survey distributed to 70 students enrolled in the freshman and sophomore social sciences courses of the case institution (Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University) located in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Social Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) has been used to statistically analyze quantitative data collected from the survey. In addition, content analysis of the thee social sciences courses is conducted using Nvivo to identify the extent to which the identified courses emphasize the integration of course activities, assignments and projects that have the potential to advance students’ cross cultural understanding. The findings suggest that engaging students in exploring topics related to world civilizations , world geography and world economy within a constructivist learning environment develop students’ global awareness and understanding of the different Other.