Teaching diversity, cultural competency, and globalization to American public affairs students: Integrating comparative approaches to public administration and policy

Diversity, cultural competency, and global awareness are three broad and mutually reinforcing conceptual themes in the literature of American public affairs education that are rarely implicitly interconnected. A primary challenge has concerned how to teach these themes, either separately or in unison, when designing courses and curricula to satisfy professional standards. This article first explores how broad conceptual themes can be practically transformed into course learning objectives on which assignments may be based. Second, this article explores how comparative public administration and policy may be utilized as a venue for drawing analytical connections across the three themes to promote higher levels of critical thinking. Although comparative approaches have historically been grounded in research-focused studies, pedagogical development of the field holds significant promise in training public administrators to better understand the intricacies of different cultures, nations, governments, and policies as a facet of learning and job performance. This article illustrates several assignment examples of how comparative analysis may be integrated as a pedagogical strategy in teaching American public affairs students the complexities of public service in the diverse and multicultural world of the 21st century.