Can Self-Responsible Education be Transposed into other Cultural Frames?

Abstract

In the face of globalization, the question arises if educational and didactic strategies based on selfresponsibility and self-motivation can be easily transposed to other countries, in order to prevent international crises at an early stage by means of communication of opposing standpoints. This chapter reflects experiences made at the Moscow-based Lomonosov University during a period of guest-lecturing in 2019, and analyses the response encountered from local students. Within three courses, namely on “Climate Change and Climate Models”, “European Cooperation” and a “Dissertation Seminar on Globalization”, response of students to requirements of self-directed learning, study, and analysis was predominantly poor and weak. The hypothesis is provided that student activity rates are generally couched in a society’s overall inclination to take civic responsibility versus perceiving the self as a victim of outside, hostile forces. As a background to such comparison, the developmental “Global Studies” (GS) curriculum at Graz University, Austria is taken as an example for a transdisciplinary approach and quality monitoring based on QA criteria. Such criteria are developed in the present article.