Simel, Sanja

The Hungarian Educational Research Journal

DEA University of Debrecen Electronic Archive

76 Book Review   Hungarian Educational Research Journal 2015, Vol. 5(2) 76–79 © The Author(s) 2015 http://herj.lib.unideb.hu Debrecen University Press  DOI: 10.14413/herj.2015.02.09. Internationalisation of Higher Education and Global Mobility. Edited by Bernhard Stritweiser. Oxford, United Kingdom: Symposium Books. 2014. pp. 320. Reviewed by Sanja Simel1 This publication, a collection of papers that provide an unparalleled insight into different aspects of globalization in higher education, is edited by Berhard Streitweiser, an International Research Fellow of Northwestern University's Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching. The book is written in English and has 320 pages. 27 leading experts in international higher education gave their contribution to this publication to share their reflections on continuous and rapid developments in the global higher education landscape, caused by globalization and internationalization in higher education. It is divided into three parts. The first part, „Global issues in internalization and mobility“ provides a big picture of the main trends that are affecting student and staff mobility today. The second part, „Regional studies: Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Africa, Asia, and Latin America“ deals with region-specific studies that address aspects of internalization and mobility in those parts of the world. The third and last part of the book called „Education abroad: students and practitioners“, provides several papers from the students' and practitioners' perspective about specific cases in education abroad. In the first part of the book, in which the internalization of higher education and global mobility is discussed, authors Chouda & De Wit explain the future of global student mobility from a comparative perspective (of three key destination countries: USA, UK, Australia) and from a critical perspective, critically analyzing the role of mobility in the larger framework of internationalization. They address topics such as types of mobile students (strivers, strugglers, explorers and highfliers), the language factor, reputation, costs and cross-border delivery, etc. The next author, Deardorff, questions the reasons of engagement in mobility, and then further discusses this issue. In her chapter, she explores key issues surrounding global mobility including access, assessment, and balance. She emphasizes that traditional ways of engaging in mobility are no longer adequate in today's world and that mobility programs need to refocus their attention on why they exist. In the                                                           1 University of Josip Juraj Strossmayer in Osijek (Croatia), Email address: ssimel@ffos.fr HERJ - Hungarian Educational Research Journal 2015, Vol. 5(1) 77 next chapter, Knight discusses the rationales, scope, and scale of the three generations of cross border higher education (1st: people mobility, 2nd: program and provider mobility and 3rd: education hubs2). She also raises important issues, challenges, and discusses unintended consequences related to cross border higher education (e.g. student access, quality assurance of cross border education, recognition of qualifications, capacity-building, brain drain/gain/train, double degrees, cultural diversity or homogenization). She emphasizes that it is important to acknowledge the huge potential of cross border education but not at the expense of academic quality and integrity. The next chapter by Barret, Crossley & Fon continues with the topic of internalization in higher education from the perspective of North-South cross-cultural collaboration and research capacity building. They explored the potential of research partnership as a contribution to diversifying epistemologies and pedagogies with specific reference to a capacity-building collaboration for developing research methods teaching programs for postgraduate researchers. Further, Dassin, Enders & Kottman in their chapter discuss social inclusiveness, development and student mobility in international higher education using the case of Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program3. They emphasize that this Program illustrates how greater social inclusiveness in international education can be achieved through provision of educational services and support systems to students from marginalized communities. The second part of the book starts with Wäcters' chapter „Recent Trends in Student Mobility in Europe“. This exploration of developments in student mobility inside, into and out of 32 European countries is based on the recent study „Mapping Mobility in European Higher Education“ by the Academic Cooperation Association. The author deals with methodological issues of international data collection and data definition, and provides the current picture and development of both credit and degree mobility in Europe as a whole, as well as in individual European countries. The author emphasizes that Europe as a whole is a very „mobility-active“ world region (especially UK, Germany and France), but at the same time there are dramatic differences between individual countries. In the following chapter, Norgaard explores the ideals and realities of the Erasmus Programme, arguing that the educational vision of Sofia Corradi4, an Italian educator who was instrumental in getting the Erasmus project off the ground in the 1980s, has one significant flaw: it is too optimistic about our ability to learn from travelling. He suggests that the cultural philosopher J. G. Herder may provide a better philosophical grounding                                                           2 „An education hub is a concerted and planned effort by a country (or zone, city) to build a critical mass of education/knowledge actors and strengthen its effort to exert more influence in the new marketplace of education“ (Knight, 2014, p. 50). 3 The Program recruited and selected Fellows „from marginalized groups with limited access to higher education, whether at home or abroad „(…), created „enabling conditions so that the Fellows, many of whom had significant gaps in their previous education, could gain access to and succeed academically in highly competitive academic programs at leading universities in different world regions.“ (Dassin, Enders & Kottman, 2014, p. 76). 4 Her educational vision includes liberal education, culture, peace and social justice. HERJ - Hungarian Educational Research Journal 2015, Vol. 5(1) 78 for Corradi's educational vision. He also emphasizes that it is time to realize that a student mobility culture is not enough, because firstly, we have to learn how to travel. In the next chapter Powell explores migration and mobility as foundations of the global research university in two cases of national/international universities in Luxembourg and Qatar. According to Powell, they intensified their investments in education and science, attracting scientists and students from all over the globe, knowing that without sustaining considerable cross-border migration and relying on the global mobility of faculty, staff and students, these international universities would have to close their doors. The next example of mobility in higher education is located in Islamic higher education in countries of Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, explained by Welch. He analyzed international mobility patterns, particularly of students, and concluded that Southeast Asia represents a dynamic and diverse arena of Islamic Higher education: their current efforts include furthering cooperation to enhance the exchange of experiences, studies, programs and visits in the fields of education, science, culture and technology (ScienceDev, according to Welch, 2014). With all this, the author concludes that it may be possible that such countries and their centers of Islamic learning could become magnets for scholars and students, and contribute significantly to the advancement of knowledge worldwide. The next chapter, written by Freidman & Millwe-Idriss, offers insight into the institutional factors that promote and constrict the flow of scholars across national borders. Authors suggest that a study of academic mobility must be broadened beyond the individual choice perspective and current method of mapping individual movement, if we are to truly understand the range of factors that shape and condition its occurrence. Further on, in the next chapter Amazan discusses Ethiopian diaspora mobility and the barriers they encounter in contributing to that mobility, including after having returned. The author also focuses on the potential impact the Ethiopian skilled diaspora could have on educational development, but concludes that ineffective policies to strengthen the government’s relationship with Ethiopian professionals in the diaspora remain a barrier to engagement. In the next chapter, we move from Ethiopia to China, in which the author Henze discusses perspectives of internationalization in Chinese higher education. The author provides an overview of developments in Chinese state-controlled internationalization in higher education and the regional and institutional variations in strategy and policy outcomes. He emphasizes that the changes in higher education caused by internationalization are embedded in a social and cultural matrix, which is responsible for a constant production of conflict and contradictions beyond the control of social actors. The authors of the following chapter, Hickling-Hudson & Arnove provide an extraordinary case in Cuba in terms of promoting international student and scholarly mobility. They emphasize the fact that many students from different countries found the education they received in Cuba to be relevant to their societies’ existential struggles. In addition, they explain how a philosophy of solidarity, a hallmark of the Cuban revolution, together with the material strength of the education system, provides a foundation for Cuban internationalism. HERJ - Hungarian Educational Research Journal 2015, Vol. 5(1) 79 The third, and last part of the book starts with the chapter “Empty Meeting Grounds: situating intercultural learning in US education abroad” written by Ogden, Streitweiser & Crawford. They examine how the meeting grounds have changed in response to globalization and internationalization of higher education, and then present positionality, reciprocity, and intentionality as the three new frontiers through which intercultural learning in education abroad could be better situated. In the following chapter, Streitweiser, together with Van Winkle, presents a research on students’ conception of citizenship identity, based on qualitative analysis of 1308 responses to open-ended items on a survey administered to Erasmus participants from 34 European countries at 14 institutions throughout Germany for a semester or a year. From the collected data, they argue that the Erasmus experience can help form conceptions of citizenship identity among its participants and lead to the development of a specific type of European identity – an “Erasmus Citizenship”. In the next chapter, “The Other Side of Mobility: the impact of incoming students on home students”, the author Beelen explores the role and value of incoming student mobility for Internationalization at Home. He presents two projects from the United Kingdom and Australia, and three from the Netherlands. The author argues that incoming student mobility will not have an impact on the receiving institution as a whole, and that traditional (physical) incoming mobility has limited value for Internationalization at Home. The last chapter of the book, “Key Factors of Participation in Study Abroad: perspectives of study abroad professionals” by Loberg & Rust, identified ways to overcome barriers by exploring the key factors that lead to participation in study abroad - faculty support and curriculum/academic integration. They consider these two key factors to be a potential new area of focus. This compendium of papers is a valuable contribution to present theoretical and empirical findings in intercultural, comparative and higher education, and can benefit everyone included in those fields, particularly to institutions, practitioners and researchers at the university level, who encourage and promote mobility and internationalization. It can also provide them with help in opening the door to the world in times of today’s globalization. 

Internationalisation of Higher Education and Global Mobility

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Internationalisation of Higher Education and Global Mobility

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