This introductory chapter1 describes the state of the art in the area of internationalization of higher education (IHE) and English-medium instruction (EMI) by setting out the key concepts, research methods and areas of controversy to be addressed in the various chapters of the volume. The first section of the chapter looks broadly at internationalization as a field, outlining the areas of study, and the findings of large-scale surveys as well as identifying the most popular areas of research. The second thematic section looks at how internationalization intersects with English-medium instruction, paying particular attention to language policy, the role of English as a lingua franca (ELF), and the teaching and learning of disciplinary content. The section concludes with some recommendations for research and teaching in EMI.
Overall, we argue that the spread of EMI has outpaced research and that if the unfettered political-economic drive towards internationalization is to be successful and fair, researchers need to question whether its English language policies actually help the process of internationalization by producing sustainable economic and social development. Secondly, there needs to be a less ideological and more evidence-based research focus on the teaching and learning processes of EMI. Thirdly, English as a lingua franca is by now a given for international education, while other languages and cultures are undervalued in the concept of internationalized HE. We hold that explicit recognition of local languages and cultures at policy level, engagement with them in the curriculum and the classroom, and the involvement of academics in this process, would be an effective counterweight to the threat to cultural identity posed by internationalization exclusively through English.
1.1 Internationalization of Higher Education
Internationalization concerns all the dimensions of higher education, from its ideal, social and economic purposes, its management and policies, to the everyday tasks and functions of lecturers and students in the classroom. Research into the concept and process is carried out on both large and small scales and in quantitative or qualitative fashion. There are many mismatches between policy and practice in the field: while stakeholders maintain that the aim of internationalization is to prepare students for a globalized world and to improve the quality of education, large-scale research surveys find that priority activities are considered to be the recruitment of international students and the creation of opportunities for mobility (see also Aizawa and McKinley, Chap. 2; Kaur, Chap. 6); these activities point to the importance of procuring income rather than, for example, installing quality assurance mechanisms to ensure quality education. Other examples of disconnect emerge in this volume from research into discourse in the media about internationalization through English-taught programmes and the experience of students involved at grassroots level (see Wang, Chap. 5; Gabriëls and Wilkinson, Chap. 3). An emerging trend in internationalization research is the increasing importance given both to internationalization of the curriculum (Sanderson 2011; Clifford, V. et al. 2013; Leask 2015) and to pedagogical matters in general, both in terms of teacher training (see Worthman, Chap. 7) and from the point of view of students’ learning experiences (see Costa and Mariotti, Chap. 10), also outside the formal curriculum (see Haines, Kroese and Guo, Chap. 8).
1.1.1 Internationalization and Englishization
As Hilary Kahn recently put it, “the term internationalization… [is] not consistently conceptualized or practised, even though different individuals might assume they are using these terms in the same way as others” (2019: 7). In her view, research on internationalization is not always “embraced by academia as genuine scholarship”. The term was used in politics in the nineteenth century before it began to be used in connection with higher education. In the Oxford English Dictionary, it is first attested in 1860 with reference to the “legal internationalization” of the Scottish crown with France, and in 1875 with reference to facilitating a scheme of “internationalization” of the Suez Canal; the OED defines the word simply as “an action or process of making something international in character, composition or scope”. In higher education, it is a buzzword that has gained currency since the 1980s and now represents one of the strategic goals of universities around the world, promoted particularly by university leadership or specially dedicated administrative units, and less obviously perhaps, by academics.
Two well-known definitions of internationalization applied to higher education can be usefully cited: the first explains it as “the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions (primarily teaching/learning, research, service) or delivery of higher education” (Knight 2004). This definition purports to be politically neutral and focuses on the objectives and functions of education. An update on this definition, coined by the team responsible for the Report on Internationalization of Higher Education, requested by the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education, introduces the idea of intentionality into the process, and specifies two goals. The 2015 definition reads:
De Wit et al.’s definition makes three additions to the original—that internationalization is intentional, dedicated to educational improvement and affects society in a meaningful way. It is perhaps in terms of these last two aspects—improvement and social outcome—that recent developments in EMI have called university internationalization into question. Does EMI improve internationalization in such a way that its social consequences are really the ones that were intended?the intentional process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary education, in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff, and to make a meaningful contribution to society. (De Wit et al. 2015)
While the origins and Renaissance developments of scholarly and educational enterprises may have been international—see for example the historical studies of De Ridder-Symoens (1992) and Pedersen (2000)—it is sometimes forgotten that universities of more recent foundation, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, had more national orientations (De Wit 2011: 6). The twenty-first century will face similar choices between, on the one hand, the need to educate graduates with an international worldview, preparing them for interconnected societies and systems with fluid borders, and, on the other, the need to take national cultural priorities into account.
One such source of tension that EMI has brought to the fore is the effect of global English on the status of national languages (see Gabriëls and Wilkinson, Chap. 3) and a more general process of Englishization, understood as the increasing presence, importance and status of English at all levels in the educational domain (Lanvers and Hultgren 2018: 1). EMI is also one of the conduits for the commodification of higher education, leading to unequal access (e.g. in China , see Wang, Chap. 5) and an acritical attitude to the quality of the educational experience.
1.1.2 Areas of Research and Publication in IHE
As a research area, the internationalization of higher education crosses all social and disciplinary boundaries. Research by practitioners and academics covers sub-areas as diverse as university management, strategy and leadership, international relations for the development of partnerships between institutions, mobility (both real and virtual) of students and staff for study or societal projects, measurements of impact, individual and group research collaborations, and pedagogy in terms of contents and classroom practice (Heneghan and Hrisotov 2020: 36). The variety of possible methodologies is reflected in the current volume, which includes quantitative research based on questionnaires (see Gabriëls and Wilkinson, Chap. 3 and Costa and Mariotti, Chap. 10), official documents (see Murphy and Solomon, Chap. 4), content analysis of online question and answer forums and newspaper reports (see Wang, Chap. 5), and qua...