Karen M. Lauridsen, Aarhus University, DK – IntlUni Project Coordinator
1.1 The Internationalisation of higher education in Europe
IntlUni is relevant to the internationalisation of higher education, and the last 25 years have seen a profound change in the European higher education landscape – not least due to the development of the European Higher Education Area and to the introduction of the European Commission’s programmes that support student and staff mobility. However, as internationalisation is characterised by diversity and complexity, it is worth clarifying what we mean by international and internationalisation respectively, and Knight’s generic definition of internationalisation will serve the purpose of defining the context of this project:
Internationalization at the national/sector/institutional level is the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of higher education at the institutional and national levels. (…) International carries the sense of relationships between and among nations, cultures and countries. However, internationalization is also about relating to the diversity of cultures that exist within countries, communities, institutions, and classrooms, so intercultural seems the best term for addressing aspects of cultural diversity. Finally, global is included to provide the sense of worldwide scope.
Knight, J. (2008:21f) Higher Education in Turmoil. The Changing World of Internationalization. Sense Publishers.
Internationalisation may in fact be considered a process that develops continuously and comprises the actors involved as well as the core activities of research and education at a given HEI.
Fig. 1 Internationalisation of higher education. Based on Knight (2012) Concepts, Rationale, and Interpretive Frameworks in the Internationalization of Higher Education in Deardorff et al. The Sage Handbook of International Higher Education. Sage.
As illustrated in fig. 1, the internationalisation of higher education may be seen not only as a result of and a reaction to globalisation in general, but also as an agent that influences the globalisation process. We will take Knight’s definition of internationalisation above as our point of departure, focusing on Internationalisation at Home (IaH) as defined by Leask; she defines IaH or the internationalisation of the curriculum as
(T)he incorporation of an intercultural and international dimension into the content of the curriculum as well as the teaching and learning processes and support services of a programme of study. An internationalised curriculum will engage students with internationally informed research and cultural and linguistic diversity. It will purposefully develop their international and intercultural perspectives as global professionals and citizens.
Leask (2009:209) Using formal and informal curricula to improve interactions between home and international students. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13.2.
While internationalisation may be measured in quantitative terms such as the number of incoming and outgoing exchange students of a given HEI (also referred to as horizontal mobility or credit mobility) or international full degree students (also referred to as vertical mobility or degree mobility), the IntlUni project focuses on more qualitative aspects in the curriculum and the teaching and learning processes. There are several reasons for this: First of all, internationalisation of higher education encompasses much more than the mobility of students and staff, cf. the definitions above, one obvious reason being the fact that only 10-20 per cent of students actually study abroad, and 80-90 per cent of students stay in their home country. It is therefore important that there is an international and intercultural dimension in the design and content of curricula and in the teaching and learning processes of all higher education so that all students are able to acquire the international skills required in a globalised world, irrespective of whether or not they themselves are internationally mobile (cf. also the Communication from The Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, European higher education in the world; COM (2013) 499).
The internationalisation of higher education therefore concerns all students and all lecturers and has a set of linguistic and cultural aspects in what we will term the Multilingual and Multicultural Learning Space. Multilingual because students and lecturers – despite their similarities – will have a range of different first languages even though the medium of instruction is one of the major languages of Europe (often English). Multicultural because students and lecturers will have different ethnic cultures that meet in the local culture of the HEI in question; the HEI – in turn – will be characterised by an academic culture at the same time as there will be cultural similarities and differences among the academic disciplines, cf. also sections 1.2 and 1.3 below.
Fig. 2 The quality of the curriculum and of the teaching and learning processes. Based on Knight (2012) Concepts, Rationale, and Interpretive Frameworks in the Internationalization of Higher Education in Deardorff et al. The Sage Handbook of International Higher Education. Sage.
IntlUni work packages deal with the institutional level, first and foremost in relation to the programmes offered to both home and non-home students and to the actors – students and lecturers. Our primary concern is thus one aspect of the Internationalisation at Home, that is, primarily what goes on in the classroom – the Multilingual and Multicultural Learning Space (MMLS) – when students and lectures represent diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, but have to operate within given academic and disciplinary cultures of the HEI in question and through the means of one shared language (the language of instruction). Our focus of attention is thus all students and all lecturers, not only those who are mobile.
1.2 Multilingualism and the language of instruction
The language of instruction is crucial here. In the countries of the less widely used and taught languages in Europe, and in addition to the programmes taught in the language(s) of the country or region in question, the language of instruction is very often English (English Medium Instruction or EMI; cf. Wächter & Maiworm 2008). However, in all countries – and not least the countries of the major European languages – the language(s) of instruction in programmes attracting international students, are (also) the official language(s) of the country or region in question, and while many or most of the lecturers may have this as their own first languages, internationalisation (and, indeed, globalisation) has also resulted in more and more lecturers teaching through a language other than their own first language, and in a culture different from their own.
In addition to the language of instruction, whether or not that is the student’s or lecturer’s first language, it is important to consider the importance of individual multilingualism in order for students to be able to navigate and communicate within the linguistic diversity of our multilingual global society. Though English seems to be ubiquitous, the majority of the world population does not speak English, and students and lecturers alike will need to master the local language to a certain level wherever they may be (cf. also the Communication from the Commission referred to above, COM (2013) 499).
The linguistic context and policies of the HEIs is dealt with as part of IntlUni WP2.
1.3 Internationalisation at home – cultural similarities and differences
As this project concerns what actually goes on in the classroom (learning space), we focus on aspects that may all be defined within the concept of internationalisation at home (cf. definition in section 1.1. above). We are here referring to campus-based strategies that include a.o. the intercultural and international dimension in the curriculum and in the teaching/learning processes in order to ensure the integration of international and home students and academic staff into what Singh & Doherty (2004) have referred to as a global contact zone. This, however, does create challenges, and in IntlUni WP 3, we have identified the linguistic and cultural challenges that need to be overcome in order to ensure the quality of the teaching and learning in the Multilingual and Multicultural Learning Space.
1.4 IntlUni work packages (WPs 2 & 3)
The aim of WP 2 was originally to identify different types of setting for the international HEI with a view to establishing a typology of such settings, taking into consideration aspects such as the language of instruction and the volume of incoming and outgoing students and of international academic staff. While such aspects are definitely characteristics of an international HEI – that is, a HEI in the process of internationalisation as defined above – these characteristics do not lend themselves to the development of a typology per se. The diversity and complexity of these processes makes it much more reasonable to define the characteristics that contribute to the internationalisation of a given HEI. Moreover, because HEIs use different definitions of home and international students and staff, it is also next to impossible to collect and compare data across institutions and, indeed, countries. However, the general tendencies that may be gleaned from the survey among IntlUni partner institutions, seem to tally with the very diverse picture of the situation across Europe as regards the internationalisation of higher education in general. Taking a hermeneutic perspective, the results of the survey reported on in the synthesis report for WP2 therefore seem to be indicative of the general situation across European higher education.
The aim of WP 3 is to identify the linguistic, cultural and educational (pedagogical/didactic) challenges in internationalisation. As the pedagogical and didactic challenges will typically reflect different aspects of an academic or disciplinary culture, it seems more reasonable to work with, in the first instance, a distinction between linguistic and cultural challenges, and subdivide the cultural challenges into ethnic, local, disciplinary and academic cultures (cp. the synthesis report for WP3).
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