A key issue in higher education research is that its nature is shaped by the contexts within which it is produced, in response to agendas that reflect more policy coordination demands than disciplinary concerns. The research
Uma questão crucial na pesquisa sobre o ensino superior é que sua natureza é moldada pelos contextos em que é produzida em resposta a agendas que refletem mais demandas de coordenação de políticas do que interesses disciplinares. As problemáticas de pesquisa são construídas principalmente a partir do referencial teórico das disciplinas, as quais, por sua vez, diluem-se no contexto do modo de pesquisa aplicada. A internacionalização, qualidade e acesso, por exemplo, tendem a ser exploradas a partir de uma perspectiva gerencial e de implementação. Reunimos as críticas aos “ismos” metodológicos para destacar como esses moldam nossas conceituações e compreensão das transformações no ensino superior. Desse ponto de vista, as narrativas conceituais sobre internacionalização do ensino superior, impulsionadas pelo Brexit, são identificadas no estudo
Higher education policy research has been marked by its focus on policy implementation and managerial issues of the sector (
This is visible in the issue of internationalisation, which in this paper is indicative of the challenges prompted by this pragmatic stance. The extent to which this perspective influences the research on internationalisation of higher education is questioned here, by bringing forward what is left to be understood or is beyond political, economic, and cultural drivers of education policies. The research question we want to address is whether or not the explanations of internationalisation of higher education policies, strategies and activities fall into the traps of methodological “isms”.
In the literature,
The paper analyses the discourses shaping internationalisation of higher education to identify the effects of the methodological “isms” on higher education research. It assumes the conceptual narratives of internationalisation to understand the implications of this influence. Conceptual narratives are used by social scientists and researchers to approach their subjects (
We start by underlining the implications of the critique of methodological “isms” for higher education research. Next, we will argue that the rescaling (
Drawing on the narrative approach (
A key issue in higher education research is that the urge to respond to policy coordination demands is framing not only higher education itself, research institutions, and disciplinary fields, but also its very nature. The nature of higher education research is, more often than not, focusing on a problem-solving perspective that brings to the field the political drivers to the detriment of disciplinary concerns (
This heuristic approach has major implications for policy analysis and its methodological assumptions and procedures. Policy analysis has been focusing on the effects to the detriment of the policy processes of education policies. Firstly, globalisation is reshaping the role of education to respond to national priorities in a context of increasing (inter)national competition, reframing the rationales of the political mandates for education. Secondly, the rescaling of education governance requires reviewing the states’ functions and role in shaping and enacting education policies. Thirdly, the relationships between education and the forms that capitalist accumulation are assuming are also impinging on the effects education has on social cohesion. Fourthly, globalisation, while diluting the relevance of national boundaries, brings forward the heterogeneity of the modern national spatial features. These assumptions act as an epistemological basis that demands a critical stance towards the theories and methods that have been used in policy analysis in education research.
The disregarding of the relevance of these assumptions in understanding the policy processes are pointed out by
From Dale’s perspective (2015), the core of policy analysis is to be found in the rescaling of the role of the state, so that policy changes could be interpreted as contingent to the education systems and their conditions. For instance, evidence-based policy decision-making does not allow for grasping
Along the same lines, research on international cooperation and competition in the field of higher education has been legitimating and justifying common interests and the advantages of their benefits. The rescaling of education governance requires reviewing the states’ functions and their role in shaping and enacting education policies. Dale argues that the changes in the governance of education have important consequences for the relationships between governance, regulation, and sovereignty. In fact, while recognising that the core problems of the national states, the economy and civil society remain the same, the nature of the national state has evolved and significantly changed in the rescaling processes (
The methodological implications of rescaling education governance in shaping the state’s functions are related to “indirect effects of the congeries of changes - in a range of spheres and at a number of levels (…)” (
In the case of internationalisation, the methodological implications of ceding elements of sovereignty and rescaling education governance is that its processes in higher education are to be understood under the framework of the changing relationships between the state, education, and the coordination of education. Methodologically, it is key to underline that the state “moved from being
As a strategy, internationalisation in higher education is being built, legitimised, and justified by policy processes working under a pragmatic form. Strategies are embedded in a range of discursive processes and instruments materialised in the social contexts (
In fact, conceptual narratives of internationalisation are embedded in the scientific field of international relations devoted to the study of international politics. However, as underlined by
Within the field of international relations, internationalisation, on the one hand, convenes power relations between nation-states to explain the political management of international relations, and, on the other hand, the narrative is used to legitimise the process itself as translated into institutional strategies. Whether its explanatory potential is subsumed to its legitimising function is what will be discussed in the next sections.
Referring to international relations as a conceptual narrative, Schmidt also brings a concern parallel to that of the critique of higher education
(…) the crux of the issue should be how the field has, or has not, responded intellectually to external factors rather than how these factors can account for the dynamics inside the filed. And more attention should be placed on the internal context of the field such as its setting in the university system, sources of funding and professional norms (
The narratives of internationalization aim to explain the structures and processes involved in policies and in national, and institutional, strategies. However, our argument is that the conceptualisation of internationalisation of higher education represents a case of higher education
The challenge is to assume the need to build an explanation for internationalisation of higher education on the basis of the critique of methodological
We use the study
Conceptual narratives on internationalisation bring in discursive elements such as competition and cooperation driven by political, cultural, academic/educational, and economic arguments. As such, internationalisation, while exhibiting its explanatory potential, is also part of instrumental stances of strategizing internationalisation. This instrumental stance reflects a tactical use of internationalisation as a tool in the pursuit of nation-states’ and higher education institutions’ interests in guaranteeing their power and influence within the European landscape (
The study shows the prevalence of national concerns reflecting the influence of the competition discourse between higher education systems and institutions. Brexit as a context of uncertainty prompted specific internationalisation strategies as, for instance “both the UK and Ireland have intensified their efforts to recruit international students in new and emerging markets (…)” making “discernible global aspirations and a willingness to strengthen existing partnerships and collaborations with countries outside the EU. China, in particular, was mentioned repeatedly across several case studies (the UK, the Netherlands), with Germany frequently mentioned as well” (
In line with this, the study underlined that, for instance in Hungary, the inequalities between higher education systems and national contexts also make visible the divide between market vs. public orientations. This raises questions regarding the internationalisation discourse of cooperation “in relation to the nature of European integration and cross-European cooperation in higher education. Discussions around Brexit helped bring these issues to the fore. These differences and unequal relationships also affect the ability of certain countries to strategize around Brexit” (
[UK and Denmark] usually work together with the Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Germany, Austria and Ireland. Now they are looking more broadly - to Portugal for some policy areas and to Poland for others. The Nordic countries’ alliance will not change - it is always very strong - we have the same issues and have been talking to each other about Brexit (
As
only certain courses of strategic action are available to actors and only some of these are likely to realise their intentions. Social, political and economic contexts are densely structured and highly contoured. As such they present an unevenly distributed configuration of opportunity and constraint to actors. Thus, while they may well facilitate the ability of resource- and capital-rich actors to further their strategic interests, they are equally likely to present significant obstacles to the realisation of the strategic intentions of those not similarly endowed (
In this sense, the economic, cultural, political, and academic rationales are not empirical categories to explain internationalisation; rather, they are analytical approaches that simultaneously legitimate and prioritise internationalisation decisions and actions forms over others. The Brexit
manifestations of anti-EU feelings and renationalisation in various other EU countries, [it] was detrimental to the image of Europe and posed a threat to the European project at large. In particular in countries where nationalist, anti-EU movements had gained ground (e.g., Denmark, Netherlands), this led interviewees to consider whether the UK securing a “good deal” would be beneficial or instead encourage other countries to leave, with the risk of dismantling the EU. In this sense, broader political considerations and concerns for the European project became intertwined with practical, sector-specific hopes and concerns (
The EU’s challenge to the nation-state sovereignty rebounds on nationalism as both a political argument and a central factor in shaping (inter)nationalisation strategies of nation-states and higher education institutions. This is why a critique of national
Perceptions on managerial consequences, including “quiet opportunism” in the German case, mainly convene the discursive elements of the competition discourse. From the managerial approach, interviewees keep an eye on the balance between gains and losses for the national system and institutions, highlighting the potential gains that countries might have from Brexit. With this regard, the analysis in two very different systems shows surprisingly similar results in the sense that competition is a strong, and, to a certain extent, the central discourse (
The key issue is to understand whether competition in higher education is to be explained under the changing nature of the global economy and its political structures and processes - or is it the competition discourse that explains national internationalization strategies?
As noted in the study
Given that most influential higher education systems drive the decision-making processes according to the research agenda, it is clear that international relations in the field of higher education respond to external factors that are reflected in the area under consideration. The perceptions of academics in the field of engineering are closely linked to companies, large aeronautical manufacturers, or the automotive industry, and highlighted that the UK, Germany and France drive decision-making processes at the European level. This makes Portuguese international research and innovation activities dependent on research funding allowing for the use of leading equipment and facilities of those countries. Interestingly enough, the same interviewee underlined that “England is greatly benefiting from our training and graduates…, who are now members of academic staff, and therefore being hired and making their careers in the United Kingdom” (8_HEI A) (
Under these conditions, a pragmatic stance towards cooperation/competition reflects that, in spite of very different national framing conditions, academics have embraced the lens of a competition discourse since they accept that European higher education systems and institutions have to compete under the political grammar of coordination of higher education.
Dale’s approach is key to understanding why these external factors are not explicit in the explanation of internationalisation of higher education. The analysis of how these factors impinge on the dynamics of internationalisation needs to be addressed and brought to centre stage shifting from the
The question to bring forward is then to what extent national/institutional priorities with regard to internationalisation explain by themselves the internationalisation of higher education institutions, or rather if they are what is to be explained under the rescaling of the national state. To put it succinctly, internationalisation policies are what is to be explained rather than the explanation of political drivers towards internationalisation.
The extent to which national/institutional internationalisation priorities are explained under the rescaling of the national-states to the detriment of the need to respond to the challenges brought forward by the competition/cooperation discourses between states, national higher education systems, and institutions is what remains to be seen. The prevalence of competition and cooperation discourses in explaining internationalisation strategies do not allow for understanding what is changing in the nature of global economy, and national and institutional positioning with regard to teaching and research.
By focusing on the Brexit