The impact of academic disciplines on a constructively aligned internationalised curriculum

Internationalisation has moved to the core of universities’ mission, emphasising the qualitative elements of internationalisation, which is inter alia evident in the implementation of an internationalised curriculum. The latter must be implemented following the constructive alignment model; thus, the framework for a constructively aligned internationalised curriculum is proposed in this article, combining an internationalised curriculum with Biggs’ constructive alignment model. Since academics are the owners of an internationalised curriculum and they are determined by their academic disciplines, in this paper, the impact of disciplines on a constructively aligned internationalised curriculum is evaluated, following Biglan’s typology of academic disciplines. It was found from the sample of 1367 academics from all Slovenian higher education institutions that an internationalised curriculum is constructively aligned in practice, wherein we observed relevant disciplinary differences in the level/rate of appearance of international perspectives in the individual steps of a constructively aligned internationalised curriculum, with a noticeably higher incidence in the case of soft disciplines. Besides introducing the framework for a constructively aligned internationalised curriculum and identifying relevant differences between disciplines, an important contribution to the research topic is in several other characteristics of academic professions that were identified as having an impact on the implementation of an internationalised curriculum. Examples of these were academics’ inclusion in pedagogical courses and academics’ various modes of international engagement. The authors also highlight several opportunities for improvement and further research, as well as implications for the enhancement of curriculum internationalisation in hard disciplines.