Internationalization of Higher Education

An Analysis through Spatial, Network, and Mobilities Theories

Marianne A. Larsen, Marianne A. Larsen

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137533449
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137533456
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

This book provides a cutting-edge analysis of the ways in which higher education institutions have become more international over the past two decades. Drawing upon a range of post-foundational spatial, network, and mobilities theories, the book shifts our thinking away from linear, binary, Western accounts of internationalization to understand the complex, multi-centered and contradictory ways in which internationalization processes have played out across a wide variety of higher education landscapes worldwide. The author explores transnational student, scholar, knowledge, program and provider mobilities; the production of mobile bodies, knowledges, and identities; the significance of place in internationalization; and the crucial role that global university rankings play in reshaping the spatial landscape of higher education.

© The Author(s) 2016

Marianne A. LarsenInternationalization of Higher Education10.1057/978-1-137-53345-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Marianne A. Larsen¹

(1)

Western University, London, Canada

Keywords

Internationalization definitionGlobalizing the selfCross-borderTransnational educationMethodological nationalismBinary logicLocal/global

Marianne A. LarsenWestern University, Ontario, Canada

End Abstract

Introduction

In January 2016, Times Higher Education (THE) ranked the University of Qatar as the world’s most international university. What enabled the University of Qatar to become the first Middle Eastern university to occupy the top position in this comprehensive international survey of universities? The University of Qatar took the number one spot because it excelled across all three of the components of the THE international outlook indicators: proportion of international students, proportion of international faculty, and international collaboration. Forty-two per cent of students at the University of Qatar are international and considerable effort has been made to recruit international faculty. Over the last 5 years, the University of Qatar researchers’ publications have increased by approximately 246 %; the university has undertaken more than 450 research projects with 319 collaborators, resulting in 3200 coauthored publications from over 1000 collaborating institutes (Wazen 2016). This then, at least according to THE, is the mark of an international university.

The existence of the THE’s international university global survey is evidence that internationalization has become a key feature of higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide today. As Foskett (2010) writes, “Internationalization reaches to the heart of the very meaning of ‘university’ and into every facet of its operation, from teaching and education to research and scholarship, to enterprise and innovation and to the culture and ethos of the institution” (p. 37). Internationalization of Higher Education: An Analysis through Spatial, Network, and Mobilities Theories is about the many ways that HEIs have become more international over the past two decades or so. Specifically, I am interested not only in how universities have become more international, but also in how a theoretical framework based on spatial, network, and mobilities theories can provoke us to shift our attention from linear, binary, deterministic, Western-centric accounts of internationalization to understand the complex, multi-centered ways in which internationalization processes have played out across higher education landscapes worldwide.

In this introductory chapter, I begin by positioning myself within the context of the research that informed the writing of this book. I problematize some contemporary definitions of internationalization of higher education (IoHE) and use of terms such as cross-border to refer to internationalizing processes. I also point out the flaws with separating out internationalization at home from internationalization abroad strategies, which is the structuring framework that much of the IoHE research relies upon. Then, I sketch out a few details about the spatial theoretical framework that I use to broaden my capacity to analyze the IoHE, before providing an overview of the chapters in the book.

Globalizing the Self

Findlay et al. (2015) suggest that “researchers engaging in studies of the space-time contexts of new mobilities need to recognize their roles in the co-construction of the societies and spaces they are studying” (p. 397). My parents were immigrants from Denmark and England to Canada in the 1950s, seeking a better life for themselves and their children to be. As a child, we traveled not only to the “home” countries to visit relatives, but on other low-budget vacations so as to open our eyes to the wonders of the world. My passion for travel continued and over the years I enjoyed opportunities to travel throughout Europe, South Asia, and South America. As an adult, I began my teaching career at a secondary school in Toronto, a cosmopolitan city with half the population born outside of Canada. My classrooms were a reflection of the cultural diversity of the world and it was no surprise to me that I became an early and keen advocate of global citizenship education. A number of years later, I went abroad to engage in graduate studies, thus beginning my journey as an international education scholar. I completed an MA and PhD in Comparative and International Education at the Institute of Education in London, UK. There I met many international students from all over the world and developed lifelong relationships with them based on our time together abroad. And now in my work as a professor at a Canadian university, I have the privilege of giving back to my own international graduate students what my own professors in the UK were able to give to me during my time there.

My scholarly research has been situated firmly within the field of comparative and international education. In my work I have examined global citizenship opportunities within higher education through experiential programs such as international service learning. More recently, my attention has turned to the effects, both negative and positive, on the Global South communities that host North American students. In many ways, Internationalization of Higher Education: An Analysis through Spatial, Network, and Mobilities Theories is a culmination of much of my thinking about and experiences with the international in my personal and professional life over the past 15 years. However, it must be stated that all of my significant formative experiences have been in the West and this positionality both shapes and limits have I have been able to see and research the social world.

Defining Internationalization

While there is considerable evidence that universities have been international for many centuries, (Al-Haque 2015; Welch 2008, 2014), it was not until the turn of the twentieth century that the term internationalization came to be used to refer to a specific set of strategies that HEIs should adopt to internationalize their institutions. In the 1980s, definitions of internationalization focused on the activities and strategies associated with the IoHE. During the 1990s, a significant ontological shift was made from conceptualizing internationalization as an outcome to defining it as a process. Jane Knight (1994) defined internationalization as the “process of integrating an international and intercultural dimension into the teaching, research, and service functions of the institution” (p. 7). In 2004, Knight widened her organizational definition beyond the institution. Internationalization at the national/sector/institutional level was defined as “the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post-secondary education” (p. 11).

More recently, a number of scholars have expanded Knight’s oft-quoted definition even further. For example, Henze (2014) has introduced the term reflexive internationalization to mean “the enlightened analysis of processes, structures, interrelatedness (dependencies) of intended action within the frame of global internationalisation and its critical reflexive analysis [as well as] various kinds of reach-out ‘influences’ of internationalisation strategies in cross-national and cross-cultural perspectives” (p. 187). And de Wit et al. (2015) broadened Knight’s definition to include, “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 [italics in original]”(p. 283).

All of these definitions emphasize the idea of internationalization as a process that involves ongoing and continuous effort. It is something to be achieved. The term denotes, as Knight (2004) admits, “an evolutionary or developmental quality” (p. 11). There are clearly normative dimensions to this linear idea of internationalization. These definitions indicate that there is a preferred or desirable end state when universities will be internationalized. Henze (2014) directs our attention to the “enlightened” nature of internationalization and de Wit et al.’s (2015) definition is explicitly normative in claiming that the raison d’etre of internationalization is to “make a meaningful contribution to society” (p. 283).

These normative definitions of internationalization operate from a number of unstated assumptions, which I will outline here. First, they begin with the suggestion that the international is something external to the HEI and needs to be incorporated into all functions of the university. The university is considered not already or sufficiently international, intercultural, or global and can only reach that state by introducing or infusing something “foreign” into their established “non-international” system. I take this point up in my more detail in the next chapter; but suffice to say here, it is problematic to assume that the international, intercultural, or global are “out there” beyond the university and needs to be “brought in,” infused or integrated into the teaching, research, and service functions of the HEI.

The second assumption is that there is something fundamentally different between the terms international, intercultural, and global. Simply put, international implies relationships between nations, and draws our attention to the nation-state. Intercultural implies not only relationships between cultures, but that there is potential for mutual transformation within those cross-cultural relations. The global is viewed as being “worldwide in scope and substance” (Knight 2004, p. 8), and beyond the nation-state. However, nation-to-nation, as well as intercultural relations, do not take place outside of the global, and the global only comes into being in and through local/regional/national/international practices. These are slippery terms and a deeper analysis of them takes place primarily within Chap. 2 of this book.

The third related assumption implicit within these definitions is that globalization is both external to higher education and a threat to local places, thus requiring a defensive response. Along these lines, internationalization is considered a counter-strategy to globalization, “premised not on economic profit-making but on universal human rights, free cultural exchange, and respect for cultural others” (Marginson and Sawir 2011, p. 16). This way of thinking about internationalization operates as a call for universities to confront and stave off the adverse effects of globalization. Internationalization is viewed as a planned, positive means to respond to globalizing forces by emphasizing the sociocultural dimensions of higher education, rather than the economic. Demonizing globalization means accepting neoliberal, economic definitions of globalization (Marginson and Sawir 2011). Friedman (1999) describes the neoliberal dimensions of globalization as “the inexorable integration of markets, nation-states, and technologies to a degree never witnessed before-in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations and nation-states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before” (pp. 7–8). It is this dimension of globalization that IoHE is assumed to respond to in the quest to create a more socially just and humane world.

Cross-Border and Transnational Education: Methodological Nationalism

Another term that is widely used in place of the internationalization of higher education is cross-border education. The OECD, UNESCO, and the World Bank use the term to refer to “the movement of people, programmes, providers, curricula, projects, research and services in tertiary (or higher) education across national jurisdictional borders” (OECD and World Bank 2002; OECD and UNESCO 2005). Terms such as cross-border and trans-border education alert us to the idea of movement across borders or boundaries, typically understood as nation-state borders. In this respect, the nation-state continues to be the main analytical category deployed in most IoHE studies, especially research related to student and academic mobility. Relying on the nation-state as the main scalar unit of analysis reflects the methodological nationalism of IoHE research. Methodological nationalism is the assumption that the nation/state/society is the natural social and political form of the modern world. Methodological nationalism operates both about and for the nation-state, to the point where the only reality we can statistically describe is the national, or at best, an international one (Dale & Robertson 2009).

Focusing on the nation-state limits our analytical capacity, especially in a period of time when globalizing processes have stretched thin educational processes and phenomena across national borders, challenging the fundamental idea of higher education as an enterprise of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Constructing a Theoretical Framework: Space, Networks, and Mobilities
• 3. Transnational Students: Long-Term/Degree Program Mobilities
• 4. Transnational Students: International Service Learning and Short-Term Study Abroad Mobilities
• 5. Transnational Academics: Mobilities, Immobilities, and Place
• 6. Transnational Pedagogies: Curricular Mobilities
• 7. Transnational Programs and Providers: Mobilities and Complex Spatial Flows
• 8. Global Rankings: Reshaping the Spatial Landscape of Higher Education
• 9. Conclusion
• Backmatter