Ghosts of the Curricula

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Using the curricula of our study programmes – Cross-Disciplinary Strategies (University of Applied Arts Vienna) and Transformation Studies (Johannes Kepler University Linz) as well as the curricula from the institutions of the workshop participants – as visual and material starting points, this contribution explores how internationalisation and intercultural learning are shaped by the hidden curriculum: the unwritten rules, implicit norms, expectations and power relations that operate in between formal curricular structures. Drawing on our experience of facilitating heterogeneous student cohorts across disciplines, institutions and epistemic cultures, we argue that many of the competencies associated with global citizenship – such as reflexivity, translation across differences, agency, and collaborative capacity – are not primarily learned through formal learning outcomes, but through carefully facilitated practices in the “in-between” of the various curricula. These practices are rarely made explicit, yet they decisively shape how students experience inclusion, exclusion, participation and recognition. The workshop invites participants to externalise and reflect on their own hidden curricula through a material and metaphorical exercise entitled “Ghosts of the Curricula.” Participants are asked to create a visual and/or material representation (a “ghost”, monster, metaphor or figure) of their curriculum as they experience it in practice: What does it demand? What does it enable? What does it silence? What moves invisibly through it? These Ghosts/artefacts function as boundary objects that enable participants from different institutional and cultural contexts to enter dialogue beyond disciplinary language. The collective reflection focuses on how hidden curricula relate to internationalisation strategies, intercultural learning, equity, diversity and inclusion, and how facilitation can make these dynamics visible and negotiable. By combining conceptual reflection with participatory practice, the session contributes a transferable method for analysing and discussing the hidden curriculum of internationalisation in many art education settings, offering both critical insight and concrete pedagogical strategies.

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The Curriculum in Context

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