Do Different Cultural Contexts Influence How Academic Integrity Is Defined and Put into Practice?

In accordance with the majority of associated literature, academic integrity is widely considered to be a multifarious concept (Bretag, 2016; Eaton, 2023; Jamieson & Howard, 2019; Macfarlane et al., 2014). A part of the reason for this variation is the fact that academic integrity should be considered a culture-specific construct and not a universal one. However, the cultural aspect is not directly addressed in the two most widely used definitions of academic integrity from ICAI and ENAI. As a result, when it comes to developing and maintaining student and staff awareness and application of academic integrity, the cultural diversity of those using it is not acknowledged, in university contexts either in the Global North or the Global South. As a way to expand existing definitions provided by the two expert networks and address the lack of acknowledgement of cultural diversity in global HE, it is proposed that Eaton’s Comprehensive Academic Integrity Framework (CAI) can be applied. The CAI draws attention to the cultural elements of academic integrity missing from the existing definitions, acknowledging the existence of local educational cultures and traditions. The intended result is an academic integrity that is intentionally more inclusive. This chapter is not a case for replacing the established definitions; rather it is a proposal that the definitions should factor in elements brought to attention by the CAI, extending the reach of academic integrity in ways that are congruent with the multiple educational contexts and traditions that seek to apply it.