Educational Approaches to Internationalization through Intercultural Dialogue

Reflections on Theory and Practice

Ulla Lundgren, Paloma Castro, Jane Woodin, Ulla Lundgren, Paloma Castro, Jane Woodin, Ulla Lundgren, Paloma Castro, Jane Woodin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429814617
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Giving voice to researchers, policy-makers and practitioners through a range of international case studies, Educational Approaches to Internationalization through Intercultural Dialogue interrogates processes of internationalization strategy and practice, from an educational and intercultural dialogue perspective.

Addressing this important, under-discussed area of internationalization – the role of intercultural dialogue – this book provides theoretical reflections and applicable, practical case studies that focus on:

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• Support for integration programmes for international and home students

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• Mobility programmes and initiatives which use an intercultural dialogue approach

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• The place of local languages and cultures in foreign language policies

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• The possibilities within a higher education context

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• The multilingual perspective

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• Student and staff perspectives

Focusing on teaching and learning, and exploring the latest research within the context of internationalization, Educational Approaches to Internationalization through Intercultural Dialogue is a must-read for anyone interested in, or currently involved in designing and implementing internationalization strategies within a higher education institution.

Part 1

Reflections on concepts

Chapter 1

Intercultural dialogue

An educational approach

Paloma Castro, Ulla Lundgren and Jane Woodin

Introduction

Internationalisation in higher education is a subject which is receiving increasing attention; at the same time in many universities it is also an expected goal in its own right. It is often seen as a highly desirable element within HE institutions, not least because it can prove lucrative in terms of student fees, but also for the development of international research projects and raising the profile and status of a university. Not all universities in the world are in a position to build an international context, however; there may be more pressing issues such as surviving in a country in conflict, uniting the separate parts of a new state, operating within contexts of extreme poverty or simply trying to continue one’s existence as an educational establishment. It is important therefore to recognise the broad range of contexts within which internationalisation of higher education takes place, as well as the motivations behind internationalisation strategies, practices and processes. While it is unlikely that the importance of increasing revenue and standing are likely to disappear in the progressively pervasive marketized climate of higher education in very many parts of the world, these instrumental goals as sole ends in themselves have been criticised as short-termist, elitist, and against the over-arching educational aims of HE institutions (Knight, 2004; Stier, 2006; Bone, 2008). Earlier work by the authors of this chapter took the notion of intercultural dialogue as a lens for considering the internationalisation policies of three European universities (Woodin, Lundgren and Castro, 2011). This led to the development of a framework for implementing an intercultural dialogue (ICD) approach in higher education. The authors argue that in order to address the issue of internationalisation from an ICD perspective, higher education institutions need to become aware of the underlying discourses of internationalisation and adopt social and educational values and practices. HE staff, officials and management should be actively and critically involved in the process, by recognising and addressing the relationship between internationalisation and educational/ICD approaches (Castro, Woodin, Lundgren and Byram, 2016). In this sense, internationalisation would become a real process of active engagement both within and outside of university boundaries. We propose that the concept of intercultural dialogue has much to offer to HE internationalisation policies, and that, to date, this contribution has been underexplored (Woodin et al., 2011).

Higher education in a globalisation era

Globalisation has been broadly defined as the reality shaped by an increasingly integrated world economy, new information and technology, international knowledge, the role of the English language and other forces beyond the control of academic institutions (Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley, 2016). Egron-Polak and Marmolejo (2017) argue that the concept of globalisation differs in fundamental ways to the internationalisation of HE. For these authors, the concept of globalisation entails worldwide markets, productivity, competitiveness in knowledge generation, and information processing, whereas the concept of internationalisation, when related to globalisation, tends to be defined to describe relations between nations or institutions within these nations.

Even if these two concepts are shown to be different, there is evidence that globalisation is strongly influencing HE internationalisation (Altbach et al., 2016), particularly when the principal driving force has become economic: international student recruitment, preparation of graduates for the global labour market, attracting global talent for the knowledge economy, etc. (de Wit et al., 2015). As Knight (2007) notes, globalisation is a multi-faceted process which has transformed the landscape of higher education, impacting countries and institutions in different ways. For Egron-Polak and Marmolejo (2017), higher education internationalisation is increasingly driven by globalizing forces and drivers, which implies a changing context involved in adjustments and improvements. For this reason, they suggest shifting the focus from globalisation and internationalisation of HE towards globalisation of HE internationalisation. Whilst in the first focus the driving force is economic by recognising productivity and competitiveness to produce knowledge, in the second one the concept of competitiveness is not always strict in economic terms, but also in worldwide reputation and prestige. They argue that higher education has become globally competitive with a focus on metrics such as research excellence through publication in indexed journals, prestige and institutional rankings, and graduate employability, among others. Issues of a social and educational nature, such as equity in terms of access and success, social cohesion, affordability or sustainable development, remain secondary or invisible.

This landscape of metrics covering all aspects of higher education has brought new challenges and new understandings; across the globe, unbalanced distribution of human capital and funds will enable some nations to take advantage of new opportunities while others are lagging behind (Altbach et al., 2016).

Higher education institutions, by critically rethinking their policies and missions as a first step, need to address the question of the role they play in the contemporary world. This conception of universities as public in the sense of producers of knowledge (Burawoy, 2005; Calhoun, 2006; Marginson, 2011) seems to be gaining more attention in spite of the pressure for a conception driven by profit and prestige:

Once IHE¹ researchers fully recognize their performative involvement in the field of higher education, they can then begin to rethink and transform their own practices of research, teaching, and consultancy to intervene in the reality of the internationalisation of higher education (Saito, 2018, p.174).

Research has made some critical observations of internationalisation (Knight, 2003; Altbach et al., 2016), reclaiming the ‘publicness of higher education by promoting socially engaged scholarship, community-university partnerships, and civic engagement by faculty and students’ (Saito, 2018, p.171). As Bourn (2011, p.561) notes: ‘even when economic forces have dominated a university’s response to globalisation, social and cultural questions have had to be recognised’. He argues for a reconsideration of pedagogy, the content of courses, the need to address intercultural dialogue and to engage higher education institutions in a more critical and student-oriented perspective with implications for citizens and societies.

In this regard, Saito (2018, p.169) suggests a critical-oriented research area in higher education called ‘Public Engagement’ (PE), which allows:

(…) researchers to examine the critical response of universities as conterminous with the problem of how to rearticulate universities’ publicness – both as providers of public goods in the form of knowledge and as loci of critical debates in public spheres – in response to the globalization of the economy, governance, human and cultural flows, and social problems, among many other things.

Higher education has a responsibility to contribute meaningfully to the world and society. For this reason, as stated by Proctor and Rumbley (2018, p.5), it is crucial to develop a new generation of experts to move forward our understanding of internationalisation of higher education in consequential and innovative terms.

Researchers and practitioners play a significant role in shaping the practices of higher education institutions. By intervening in the reality of the internationalisation of higher education in their institution, they are providing policy makers and stakeholders with conceptual models as rationales of their own practice. At this ‘bottom level’ there is some freedom within HE curricula to develop and promote approaches in line with one’s personal values, even if these may differ from the institution’s ‘top level’ focus. We argue that it is the relationship between top-level policies/policy makers and classroom practitioners/researchers that can make a joint approach by identifying the concepts, issues, practices and processes in common, and working towards fostering a culture of mutual exchange and understanding.

Hudzik (2011, p.12) suggests that the challenges higher education faces are dual: ‘the necessity to be globally engaged while remaining usefully connected locally’. This connection between the global and the local has also been viewed by other authors as a challenge for higher education (de Wit et al., 2017). An ‘institutional imperative’ (Hudzik, 2011) would be the ideal but it needs an agreed-upon rationale for internationalisation within an institution. This leads us to the question of motivations for internationalisation and the values behind them.

Internationalisation in higher education

Given the local contexts and specificities, it is not possible to coin a universal definition of internationalisation in higher education; however, one working definition for a broad range of contexts has been proposed by Jane Knight. Her definition does not include rationales for internationalisation (for example, Knight, 1997), which can vary from one institution to another, but it relates to all aspects of education and its role in society:

Internationalisation at the national, sector, and institutional levels is defined as the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education. (Knight, 2003, p.2)

Knight explains the key concepts as follows. Process conveys an ongoing and continuing effort whereas international, intercultural and global are used as a ‘triad’ complementing each other and depict the richness in the breadth and depth of internationalisation. Purpose refers to the overall role of education, function stands for teaching, research and service to society, and delivery refers to courses and programmes.

In accordance with Knight’s perspective, a desired conceptualisation of internationalisation is also identified here as an ongoing process developed as a response to globalisation (Knight, 2003, 2004; Stier, 2006), as a commitment to shaping institutional ethos and values (Hudzik, 2011) and as an intentional process of enhancing the quality of education and research for all students and staff to make a meaningful contribution to society (Knight, 2003; de Wit, 2015). Whilst these aims may well also be the intentions of many higher education institutions, the difficulty with enhancing quality, for example, is that it implies hands-on practice and defined learning outcomes that it is possible to evaluate. Quality enhancement in the higher education arena is often bound up with metrics, league tables, and yardsticks for measuring outcomes. In contrast to statistical data-gathering, however, we see internationalisation in higher education as a path towards a goal for public good: to foster global citizens who take an active role in local and global communities working with others to make our planet more equal, fair and sustainable. Indeed, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) state the following aim in relation to higher education: ‘By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university’ (UNESCO, 2017). This aspiration is perhaps understood differently in institutions at a local level which – as discussed earlier – may find themselves with agendas relating to keeping their position in league tables and/or seeking paths to institutional survival. Internationalisation is a way towards a value-oriented approach:

Not only is internationalisation a means rather than an end, but the ends may vary from institution to institution and the particular approach to internationalisation chosen is dependent on the ends being pursued. (Hudzik, 2011, p.9)

The various ends will be considered in the next section as motivations for internationalisation.

Motivations for internationalisation

Within the prevailing global context of higher education, internationalisation has evolved into a broad range of rationales, discourses and approaches leading to different practices, which may conflict with each other. The concept of internationalisation in today’s university policies and practices, then, may represent different ideologies and lead to different practices.

Knight (1997) outlines rationales or motivations for integrating an international dimension into higher education, clustering them into four groups: social/cultural, political, economic and academic. Later (Knight, 2004) she argues that internationalisation in higher education needs to be both integrated and sustainable. She asks whether there is a ‘subtle but discernible shift’ from ‘social/cultural rationales’ in favour of economically and commercially driven agendas, which she refers to as ‘soft power’ (Knight, 2015) and questions the long-term viability of such agendas.

Stier (2006) has identified three discernible ideological discourses, which in turn lead to different practices. These are: idealism, instrumentalism and educationalism. The last of these recognises the personal and societal value of learning itself, analysing the actions and perspectives of oneself and others, contributes to a pe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• About the editors
• About the authors
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword to the series, Internationalisation in higher education
• Introduction: New challenges in the internationalisation of higher education
• PART 1: Reflections on concepts
• PART 2: Reflections on policy and curriculum
• PART 3: Reflections on practice
• PART 4: Conclusion
• Index