This paper examines the approach Brazil has taken to promote the internationalization of higher education over the last decade. Three key areas are identified: human resources development, institution building, and international partnerships. Our analyses of initiatives in these areas demonstrate that Brazil does not follow global trends such as the creation of world-class universities or the pursuit of “excellence initiatives” to help universities reach higher positions in global rankings. Instead, recent strategies for international collaboration in higher education follow variegated domestic goals that encompass the logics of foreign policy and the internal priorities of federal research and education agencies. The nature and limitations of these strategies are discussed.
This study conceptualizes the internationalization of higher education as a legacy-bound response driven by geopolitical, cultural and economic dependencies. It examines the Russian case, and considers how Russian academics deal with complex sets of dependencies and rivalries, while sorting European, Asian and Soviet drivers in university positioning and partnership-building. The paper re-evaluates the path dependence perspective in the higher education literature by arguing that, notwithstanding the constructs and conveniences they are predisposed to select, academics have a choice to either comply with, or defy the governmental and institutional legacies imposed on them. The prevalence of one choice over the other, as well as an inconsistency of choices, shapes a complicated trajectory that can be referred to as “hybrid” development. This paper illustrates the progression of “hybrid” development by reflecting on the Russian legacy of imperial ambitions affecting the fragility of the global architecture of knowledge, policy development, cooperation and rule of law.
International cooperation and collaborations played an important role in the economic and educational development of several countries. In the 1950s and 1960s external aid was an important modality to establish cooperation between countries, especially between developing and developed countries. Cross-border activities in higher education used to take place mostly through cooperation projects and academic exchange programmes. The political returns to aid declined during the post-cold war period. Therefore, incentives to extend aid declined and markets and trade became more accepted modes of cooperation and collaboration in all sectors including education. International collaborations of today are very often motivated by economic incentives and are mediated through markets. The franchising and twinning arrangements, establishment of branch campuses, and promotion of cross-border student mobility are examples of market-based collaborative efforts in higher education. This paper discusses Indian cooperation and collaborations with foreign institutions focusing also on such efforts among the BRICS countries. It argues that the collaboration efforts among the BRICS countries may be more influenced by government-to-government efforts than mediated by markets. The paper shows that the BRICS countries at present are more engaged in cooperation and collaborations in higher education with developed countries. Collaborations among the BRICS countries are rather limited and are still at the nascent stages. Therefore, government initiatives and public action are needed at this stage to promote cooperation and expand collaboration in higher education among BRICS countries.
Scholarly relations between developed and developing countries have long been characterized by imbalances and asymmetries. The “centers” in the North give direction, provide models, produce research and function as the pinnacles of the academic system while institutions in developing countries copy their development from the “centers.” Recently, the academic world is becoming more multi-polarized, forcing a reconsideration of traditional concepts and theories. China is a good example. One effective approach has been to actively engage with the international community. This article reviews international networking at five C9 League universities. It finds that Chinese universities benefit from global engagement, with an imbalance between their engagement with developed and developing countries. As Chinese power rises, such an imbalance appears increasingly inappropriate.
The evolution of South African universities continues to be shaped by both apartheid and more recent post-apartheid policies. Yet the South African university system is mainly an elite, low participation and high attrition system, offering a medium quality education. Moreover, there is uneven attention to the opportunities that internationalization might bring to South Africa. The paper explores South Africa’s position in a global, African and regional perspective, and looks at post-apartheid trends in the internationalization of higher education. Finally, it provides an analysis, looking forward, of the essential conditions for more beneficial internationalization. This will include addressing “brain drain” and “brain gain,” global dialogue and mutual learning, and collaborative partnerships, marked by a common commitment to sound academic values, scientific integrity, ethics and social responsibility.
This study investigates 1.5 generation1 Asian immigrant children’s (n = 264) early literacy achievement patterns, treating them as a heterogeneous group. Specifically, the within-group variances in reading achievement from kindergarten to third grade are examined, drawing on four waves of data from the ECLS-K class of 1998–1999. Our analysis shows that ethnicity plays a role in shaping the children’s initial reading readiness and later growth, but the effects of languages spoken at home are not significant. Our analysis also demonstrates a persistent achievement gap between low- and high-socioeconomic status (SES) Asian groups. However, gender difference in terms of children’s reading development is not found to be significant. There is also no interaction between SES and the other factors such as gender, ethnicity and language backgrounds.
In this paper, I use an autoethnographical approach, coupled with existing research literature on Chinese learners and learning, to reflect upon my own experiences as a junior high school student in order to explore how Chinese students perceive their learning, and how they establish and justify their own sense of self-regulation in learning. It is found there is a hybrid of nuanced cultural meanings underneath the self-regulated learning experiences in the Chinese context.