Signs of a good partnership
- Mutual exchange;
- Active participation and decision making by students;
- An openness to learning from, as well as about, life in a distant place;
- A commitment to exploring both similarities and differences in the lives of people in different communities around the world;
- An examination of one’s own assumptions, attitudes, and values – and a safe space which this can happen;
- An exploration of different forms of wealth;
- A commitment to learning about the wider global issues that impact different communities across the globe;
- A willingness to think critically about one’s own culture;
- A readiness to explore sensitive and controversial issues in the classroom, in a safe, respectful environment.
Signs of problems ahead
- A focus on the symptoms of poverty with no exploration of its causes;
- A focus on financial aid instead of rights and justice;
- A failure to engage with issues of power and (in)equality;
- An assumption that simply exposing children and young people to different cultures and ways of life will challenge stereotypes and prejudice;
- An emphasis on showing students ‘how lucky they are’;
- A focus on differences without acknowledging important similarities, leading to ‘us and them’ thinking;
- A belief that respect for other cultures means learning about them uncritically;
- A belief that a northern partner has more to give to a partnership than to receive from it, in terms of either resources or learning;
- A reluctance to explore sensitive and controversial issues in the classroom.