Intercultural Studies in Higher Education

Policy and Practice

Ana Maria de Albuquerque Moreira, Jean-Jacques Paul, Nigel Bagnall, Ana Maria de Albuquerque Moreira, Jean-Jacques Paul, Nigel Bagnall

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030157579
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030157586
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Comparative Education

This book explores the study of policies and practices in Higher Education by comparing systems, institutions, programs, innovations, results and cultures. In a rapidly changing global and international marketplace, the growth of higher education has occurred within distinct cultural contexts, meaning that change is reflected within local, regional, national and global perspectives. Using a single data methodology across countries and continents, the editors and contributors explore higher education reforms between global and local dimensions, the expansion of access and democratisation, and relevant aspects in the organisation and management of higher education. In doing so, this book arrives at an understanding of higher education at a truly intercultural level, which can lead to a deeper and more holistic understanding of policies and practices in higher education. This innovative book will be of interest and value to students and scholars of higher education across the world as well as the study of interculturality.

© The Author(s) 2019

A. M. de Albuquerque Moreira et al. (eds.)Intercultural Studies in Higher EducationIntercultural Studies in Educationhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15758-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. The Contribution of Comparative Studies and Cross-Cultural Approach to Understanding Higher Education in the Contemporary World

Ana Maria de Albuquerque Moreira¹ , Jean-Jacques Paul² and Nigel Bagnall³

(1)

Faculty of Education, University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil

(2)

Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté and IREDU, Dijon, France

(3)

Faculty of Education, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Ana Maria de Albuquerque Moreira (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Jean-Jacques Paul

Nigel Bagnall

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

This chapter analyzes aspects of higher education in the contemporary world. It is particularly concerned with aspects of globalization and internationalization. The focus of the chapter highlights various approaches that reveal such aspects in different contexts. The chapter provides an overview of the field of higher education policies and recent reforms in a range of different countries and continents while developing an understanding of the importance of comparative studies in terms of policies and practices related to higher education in a range of different scenarios. Throughout the presentation of the chapters, there is a synthesis of the themes that emerge in the current debates covered in this book.

Higher Education Policies and Recent Reforms

Martin Trow’s seminal text of 1972, in which he considered the transformation of the university sector, based its evolutionary position on a single factor, the institutional evolution implied by an increase in the number of pupils enrolling. Considering the international environment of the time, it is only necessary to evoke the consequences of the Vietnam War and the attitude of the American youth. Nothing has so far been written relating to the economic and social developments that are fast approaching the world of the future.

Today, there are innumerable analyses that put into perspective the transformations universities across the world are undergoing. The intensity of speed of transformations the world is currently undergoing would once have seemed unimaginable. The ease of material and immaterial exchanges, through the development of both physical and digital means of communication, and the strengthening of international economic competition, has seen the appearance of new national actors, in particular BRICS, as well as such economic factors as GAFA. This competition, increasingly focusing on research and innovation, creates a context that heightens the demands of higher education and often leads to a significant change in its modes of action and internal organization. These global developments go well beyond the impact on universities’ internationalization policy. They influence the whole functioning of the university sector globally.

Probably, one of the most influential forces on higher education has been the way the world of work has changed in recent years, with the emergence of a knowledge society. The term knowledge society has been coined to indicate not only the expansion of participation in higher education or of knowledge-intensive or high-technology sectors of the economy, but rather a situation in which the characteristics of work organizations across the board change under the influence of an increasing importance of knowledge (Drucker 1959). It can be considered, according to Foray (2000), that the knowledge economy is at the confluence of two main evolutions: the growing importance of human capital activities and the development of information and communication technologies. As argued by Castells (2000) a global economy is something different than a world economy, as taught by Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein. It is an economy with the capacity to work as a unit in real time on a planetary scale (Giddens 1990). It is only in the late twentieth century that the world economy was able to become truly global, based on the new infrastructure provided by information and communication technologies.

Obviously, higher education is affected by this radical evolution as well as actors. Some also question the role of the university as an agent of globalization (Sehoole and Knight 2013; Jane Knight 2008).

Transformations are numerous and affect, apart from aspects related to globalization, at least four domains (Salmi 2002, 2017):

• Changing training and needs (lifelong learning of working adults and new modes of teaching and learning).
• New forms of competition (through distance teaching between local universities, or from universities abroad, networks of universities, and corporate universities for profit-providers).
• New forms of accountability (such as quality assurance agencies and global rankings) and changes in structures and modes of operation.
• New disciplines meaning new departments or reorganization of old departments, use of innovative technology, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and open-education resources.

These transformations are the result of tensions between the global and the local, between the autonomous identity of the institution and the requirements of external authority (Marginson 2011a; Beck 2012). Even if the power of the national States diminishes, because of budgetary support they are still able to mobilize (Kwieck 2001), traditions and peculiarities of national systems produce path dependencies that sustain cross-national variation (Bleiklie 2005). It is obvious however, that some universities remain reluctant to change (Salmi 2002).

Nevertheless, the international dimension is undoubtedly one of the factors that has most influenced the evolution of higher education in the last 20 years. This may be evidenced and illustrated by the esteemed position held by international rankings. Such rankings are now in the minds of governments, university managers, and students and their families (Hazelkorn 2015; Wihlborg and Robson 2018). The promotion of models of higher education, whether by international agencies (WB, OECD, and UNESCO) or in the framework of agreements between governments, like through the Bologna Process, does not, however, lead to a standardization of structures. In the context of European Higher Education Areas (EHEAs), different countries implement policies selectively and at different levels, depending on their national higher education context (Klemenčič 2018).

Internationalization, like the ideological vision promoting more “internationality,” has become the motto of many transformations, based on the crossing of borders, in particular by students (Teichler 2017), into and toward developed countries. Such a situation is also evolving between developing countries, as evidenced in Africa (Tamrat 2018), Latin America (Nitz 2017), and Asia (Chan 2012).

The internationalization of universities may be a competitive strategy operating between universities (Beck 2012), however, its reality needs to be approached with caution because the results of internationalization can sometimes fall below expectation (Noorda 2014), carrying with it misconceptions (De Wit 2017). It can also lead to an increased differentiation between universities, between top universities and low, underfunded ones (Marginson 2016). Additionally, such differentiation may become an agent against political, ideological, and religious struggles in the modern world (Altbach and De Wit 2017).

The increasing instrumentalization of universities in national strategies of international economic competition should not overshadow the humanist dimension of higher education—developing the full potential of students (Salmi 2002). Social engagement is the most notable activity in Latin American universities (Mora et al. 2018) and some European universities too (Goddard et al. 2016).

For a long time, comparisons between the evolution of higher education policies and their associated models has only been considered in developed countries, because of the age of their systems and their influence globally, the comprehensive overview by Kaiser et al. (1994) provides a good example. Gradually, universities in developing countries have become objects of analysis, through their institutional responses to changing contexts (Chapman and Austin 2002), or a specific attention to the BRICS (Schwarzman et al. 2015) or to China and India when the changes of universities are at stake (Mihut et al. 2017). African universities are receiving also increasing...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. The Contribution of Comparative Studies and Cross-Cultural Approach to Understanding Higher Education in the Contemporary World
• Part I. Higher Education Themes within the Context of Globalization and Internationalization
• Part II. Access to Higher Education and the Characteristics of Students
• Part III. Diverse Perspectives on Higher Education Policies and Practices
• Back Matter