Developing and Delivering a Culturally Relevant International Work-Integrated Learning Exchange for Indigenous Students

Students, faculty, and staff in postsecondary institutions around the world are engaging in conversations about decolonization and Indigenization. These conversations are also emerging in the context of work-integrated learning and experiential learning programs. This article presents the key findings of a research project investigating the impacts of an Indigenous international work-integrated learning (WIL) exchange between the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) and three partner institutions in Australia. It introduces key concepts and insights from the literature about decolonizing and Indigenizing postsecondary education and links them to WIL. It describes the specific context at the University of Victoria out of which this programming emerges and the values that guided its creation. It presents the key findings of the research to date related both to Indigenous perspectives and the application of a Cultural Intelligence (Earley & Ang, 2003) framework. Finally, it offers some reflections on the implications of the findings for decolonizing WIL moving forward.