Internationalisation of Educational Administration and Leadership Curriculum

Voices and Experiences from the 'Peripheries'

Eugenie A. Samier, Eman A. Elkaleh, Waheed Hammad, Eugenie A. Samier, Eman S. Elkaleh, Waheed Hammad

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781839098666
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Amministrazione nella didattica

In light of a new wave of globalisation, cultural mobility, and criticism of Anglo-American domination, how must educational administrators and leaders respond to the challenges of internationalising their curricula and accommodating diversity?
This edited collection offers conceptual frameworks, models, theoretical approaches, and strategies that can inform and guide the development of a genuinely international curriculum. Offering an in-depth look at cases in countries such as Sweden, the US and UK, Turkey, Oman, Cameroon, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Australia, the authors investigate how factors such as institutional culture, faculty recruitment and development, learning styles, accreditation and standards, political orientation, policy, and availability of financial resources may either facilitate or inhibit the internationalisation of the curriculum. The collection also includes broader international issues of diverse humanisms, postcolonial issues, and corruption, fraud and abuse in internationalisation that has occurred that need to be addressed in educational administration and leadership curricula to improve internationalisation.
Acknowledging the need for a much broader set of cultural traditions within which educational administrators and leaders are equipped to function, this book provides a critical insight into how they might navigate the challenges of creating a truly international curriculum.

Chapter 1

Editors' Critical Introduction: Conceptions of Internationalisation Challenging Dominant Knowledge Traditions

Eugenie A. Samier, Eman ElKaleh and Waheed Hammad

Abstract

This chapter provides a critical and comprehensive review of the internationalisation literature. It starts with a brief discussion of the main factors and features that need to be considered when internationalising the educational administration and leadership field. This is followed by a critique of the internationalisation of education and the many challenges that hinder the achievement of proper internationalisation. The third section provides an overview of the internationalisation models and practices in different disciplines such as psychology, sociology and political science, which is followed by a discussion on the internationalisation of education organisations in different countries with some examples from Arab and non-Western countries. The final section presents a critical review of literature on internationalising the curriculum and how culture competency and knowledge acquisition are key factors in achieving effective internationalisation. The chapter concludes with an overview of the book collection and the main ideas and concepts discussed in each chapter.

Keywords: Educational administration and leadership; internationalisation; postcolonial critiques; international curriculum; non-Western educational administration; non-Western educational leadership

Introduction

This project has been borne out of many years' experience of the three editors in teaching in non-Western or non–Anglo-American contexts where the dominant international literature is not adequate or appropriate in other countries, affecting supervision and research projects as well as teaching foreign graduate students whose preparation does not adequately prepare them for research and practice in their home countries, or students who plan to work abroad or have a diverse work environment. In order for the field to serve a truly global and international community, its theories, models and perspectives need to be able to not only serve Western countries and their various national systems but also serve the local needs in other countries.

The purpose of this volume also corresponds to a number of United Nations (UN) sustainability development goals proposed in the UN 2030 agenda to ensure sustainable development in the economic, societal and environmental aspects such as providing quality of education to all and promoting life-long learning opportunities, facilitating economic growth and productive employment for all, fostering innovation, creativity and resilience, and promoting peace, inclusiveness and social justice within and across societies (Costanza, McGlade, Lovins, & Kubiszewski, 2014). Part of this UN initiative is to reorient higher education internationally towards ‘public service, relevance and social responsibility’ that can be reflected in vision, mission and goals statements as well as the policy regimes in individual organisations (Global University Network for Innovation, 2017, p. 35). One means of doing so is to create an internationalised curriculum in a number of fields, a principle we are exploring in this volume in the educational administration and leadership field. One of the persistent voices in creating a more inclusive curriculum to produce global citizenship, social justice, decolonisation and to inform the development of governance and leadership identities, values and practices is the Indigenous literature from many communities and parts of the world (see McKinley & Smith, 2019). Finally, the volume responds to the worldwide criticism of doctoral education for being rigid, having a low quality of academic training and research and lacking the relevance, interdisciplinarity and international orientation required for economic growth and nation-building in an increasingly complex, unpredictable and interconnected global market (Yudkevich, Altbach, & de Wit, 2020).

Arar, Oplatka, Turan, and Barakat (2017) see the aims of the field as threefold: understanding how educational leadership is constructed in its national and cultural contexts; how it tries to close gaps between national and global values carried through this role; and how it can address sociopolitical challenges in local or regional contexts in contrast with global values. Through their comparison of Egypt, Turkey and Israel, each with different histories, socio-economic and political systems, and cultures, they focus on four questions that need to be addressed in such an approach in relation to how the field can accommodate the needs of these countries' populations. To some extent, this volume also pursues these questions: What factors enhanced educational leadership among the constituent groups in countries, including gender, ethnic and cultural groups? What factors worked as impediments to professional development of educational leaders? What policies at organisational and governmental levels have been used to promote equality of opportunity? And what future research could contribute to understanding how to foster better leadership within these contexts?

There are a number of important features in internationalising the educational administration and leadership curriculum, particularly in non-Western parts of the world that will be investigated in various chapters:

(1)For the field and its professional practitioners to effectively serve their communities and countries, they need not only an understanding of education internationally, but also locally – within the context of the constitutions, laws, policies, social institutional configurations and conditions that prevail. They need the knowledge that allows them to think globally while acting locally.

(2)Many non-Western countries have been colonised in the past in the Middle East and other regions, for example, through European imperialism in the early modern period during which colonial education was used in part to establish and maintain political control and promote Western culture. They are experiencing a neo-colonisation or neo-imperialism through globalised education, which usually means the importing of knowledge, skills and role constructions from the West, in this field mostly Anglo-American. The consequences of this are covered in many forms of postcolonialism that affect ideas, style of thinking, values, styles of social relations and interactions, assumptions (often as hidden curriculum) about politics, economics, decision-making, etc., from many parts of the world, including East Asia (Takayama, Spriprakash, & Connell, 2016; Yang, 2018).

(3)Part of internationalisation is the recognition of universities in many non-Western parts of the world that are overlooked, devalued, marginalised or actively ignored, such as the many Muslim universities that have been established in several African states (Lo & Haron, 2016), whose contributions to higher education development are relevant and valuable.

(4)The philosophical foundations for education vary considerably internationally reflecting different knowledge, cultural and religious or belief systems such as Islamic philosophies, East Asian systems of thought like Confucianism, aboriginal systems, explored by the Humanistic Management Network in a number of their publications (Amann & Stachowicz-Stanusch, 2013; Dierksmeier, Amann, von Kimakowitz, Spitzeck, & Pirson, 2011) that could serve as a model for internationalising educational administration.

(5)Countries also have different types of populations, social institution arrangements, cultural norms, political and economic values and goals, and internal political or cultural tensions and conflicts.

(6)Countries are also affected by regional conditions and politics, infrastructure and levels of resources, by invasion, humanitarian crises in what is sometimes referred to as ‘turbulent times’ such as Shapiro (2013) or in more dire and extreme forms as ‘conflict zones’ by the UN.

(7)Influence from foundational fields and disciplines that affect educational administration and leadership that have internationalised considerably in the last two decades such as sociology, psychology, political science and management studies (discussed in more detail below).

(8)The process of internationalising can also involve stages of development, described by Jones and Killick (2013) at one UK university using an institutional level approach to consist of a first phase of a framework of three attributes of graduates consisting of a global outlook, employability and digital literacy, followed by a second phase of internationalised curriculum and learning outcomes.

There are a number of underlying rationales for an internationalisation of the field, some philosophical and theoretical and others pragmatic, although these categories are interrelated especially when considering societal continuity and social justice achieved through education that recognise cultural diversity and the need for inclusion (Lopez, 2016). It is important to note, though, that conceptions of these vary internationally, including across Western countries even though scholarship often overgeneralises the ‘Western’ or ‘non-Western’ world. For example, there are practical consequences to differences in conceptions of social justice, examined by Rowney and Taras (2008) in universities involving fairness in relation to procedures, punishments and academic awards as well as teaching and learning styles emphasised and use of curricular materials through a comprehensive meta-analysis.

This collection focusses on developing a more internationalised educational administration and leadership curriculum through principles and practices that reflect the cultural and social institutional context in a broad range of countries. Included are systems of knowledge and values that inform them for both graduate curricula and internationalised programmes in Anglo-American contexts where there are foreign students and faculty building a more diverse framework in the field. Constructing a new curriculum involves the inclusion of conceptual frameworks, models, theoretical approaches and strategies that can inform and guide the development of genuine internationalisation that reflects the different perspectives and traditions of knowledge worldwide and may require cultural competence training, as advocated by authors in the field (e.g., Bustamante, Nelson, & Onwuegbuzie, 2009). These can affect all aspects of the field like institutional culture, national and minority cultures, values and research design and methods orientations, faculty recruitment and development, learning styles and pedagogical approaches, accreditation and standards for quality assurance, and political orientation, policy and availability of financial resources, that may facilitate or inhibit the internationalisation of the curriculum.

This is a timely project for two reasons. First, it addresses an important topic that has gained increased emphasis in recent times. The internationalisation of higher education has been adopted by many academic systems and institutions as an organisational response to the global impacts created by globalisation such as social justice that adequately take into account societal differences (e.g., Hopson, Hotepm, Schneider, & Turenne, 2010) and the negative impacts in non-Western countries on national culture, heritage and identity (Ateyat & Gasaymeh, 2015). There are also many unintended consequences that have arised for all universities, noted by Knight (2013), to include greater commercialisation, the rise of diploma and accreditation mills, skewed and Western-oriented ranking systems and a ‘great brain race’. As they engage in the process of internationalising their systems, faculty are challenged to think about how best to internationalise their curricular content and pedagogical practices. Second, within these global transformations, the field of educational administration and leadership has also witnessed significant developments in the foundational disciplines it uses. Most notable is a growing recognition of the need to diversify knowledge bases in the field and the importance of taking contextual factors into account. It is our hope, therefore, that this book will assist scholars and practitioners to achieve this goal.

Critiques and Shortcomings of Education Internationalisation

On a philosophical and theoretical level, most of the discussion in education a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Editors
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• List of Contributors
• Chapter 1 Editors’ Critical Introduction: Conceptions of Internationalisation Challenging Dominant Knowledge Traditions
• Section 1 Theoretical Foundations and Critiques
• Section 2 Country Cases
• Index