Internationalisation of higher education: A critical analysis of the intercultural dimension of a visiting scholar programme
Huan Zheng, Fatima Pirbhai‐Illich, Fran Martin, Liqin Wu
2020
British Educational Research Journal
This article reports the findings of a study on the intercultural dimension of internationalisation at two universities, located in China and Canada, as evidenced through their visiting scholar (VS) programme. Andreotti and her research team identified three articulations of internationalisation in higher education that are located in a modern/colonial imaginary. They propose a fourth articulation, relational trans-localism, that is located outside the modern/colonial imaginary. As participants
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... in the VS programme, we used critical ethnography and critical discourse analysis to investigate the influences of the modern/colonial articulations on the intercultural dimension of the program, and our attempts to develop practices outside the modern/colonial imaginary. Our findings show that although the programme was profoundly affected by neoliberal and liberal discourses, we achieved some success in creating spaces of relational trans-localism. We conclude by identifying the factors that were enabling of these alternative spaces. CFLC spend 3 months in the CFE, two to three times a year. A total of 16 scholars took part in the programme between 2013 and 2016, the period of time that forms the basis of this study, which aims to investigate the impact of the programme on the visiting scholars and their faculties. A particular focus was the nature of the intercultural interactions experienced by participants in the programme. The first section sets out the context for our study. The second section provides a review of the relevant literature, framed by three articulations of internationalisation currently evident in higher education (HE) (Andreotti et al., 2016) that are located in a modern/colonial imaginary, and a fourth articulation which they propose would be located outside the modern/colonial imaginary. The third section details our study. The methodology section then describes how we applied the above articulations, while the findings reveal their influence on the intercultural dimension of the VS programme, and our attempts to develop practices outside the modern/colonial imaginary. We conclude by demonstrating how, in our capacity as participants in the VS programme and co-researchers of this study, we built on the work of Andreotti and her reserch team by providing examples of what it might mean in practice to create spaces for enacting the third (anti-oppressive) and fourth (relational trans-local) articulations. Context
doi:10.1002/berj.3637
fatcat:ulew5f3k2bf3fnccqswllbqucm