Internationalization in Canadian Higher Education Institutions: Ontario (original) (raw)
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Performing Internationalization of Higher Education in Canadian National Policy
Canadian Journal of Higher Education
Internationalization processes are at the fore of university strategic plans on a global scale. However, the work of internationalization is being performed through the connections between many actors at different policy levels. Our purpose here is to ask, what is happening with internationalization of higher education at the Canadian national policy level? To do so, we suggest that we must look at policies at the national level not as individual entities but rather as these policies exist in relation to each other. We examine three recent policy statements from different organizations at the national level in Canada: a federal governmental agency, a pan-Canadian provincial organization and a national educational association. Our approach involved mapping the actors, knowledges and spaces that are discursively produced through these texts and engaging a relational approach to policy analysis that questions what comes to be assembled as these policies co-exist in the national landsca...
This case study about one university’s internationalization initiative, known as North Goes South, provides a nuanced and finely grained understanding of what internationalization looks like in practice. The study was guided by a desire to probe the perceived impact of a Canadian–East African internationalization initiative on students, faculty, and Tanzanian community members. The article begins with a brief review of the literature on internationalization and higher education in Canada. The rationale for using a case-study methodology is presented, along with the background and context of the case. Following an outline of the research methods, the study results are reviewed to show the complex and contradictory ways in which this internationalization initiative played out in one higher education setting, pointing to the gap between official discourses of internationalization and on-the-ground realities.
Journal of Studies in International Education, 1997
The 1990s mark an important phase in the evolution of the internationalization of higher education. One distinguidshing feature is the different priorities the various stakeholder groups ring to the international dimension of higher education. This article reports on a recent Canadian survey which explored the differences and similarities in views and expectations among those stakeholder groups having a central interest in the internationalization of the higher education system. These groups come from three sectors: government, academia, and the private sector Of particular interest and significance are the different rationales that each sector attributes to why we should be internationalizing higher education. A number of overarching issues emerged as important themes to consider, including: • International education standards • Preparation of globally knowledgeable and interculturally competent graduates •Recruiting and supporting international student' • Teaching of foreign l...
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In 2014, the Canadian federal government announced its first-ever international education strategy. Referencing Cerna’s ( 2014 ) typology of interactions between national policies and university strategies, this paper examines the implications of this changed national policy context on institutional level internationalization strategies, particularly on international students’ recruitment and retention. We specifically examine how university strategies acknowledge governmental policies; what organizational changes they make in response to government policy and what opportunities and challenges university staff identify in meeting policy objectives. The paper presents results from a scan of universities’ websites and a survey administered to university staff from a representative sample of Ontario’s universities. It concludes that the government-institutional policies’ synergies are far more complex than Cerna’s ( 2014 ) typology suggests, reinforcing the need for newer models examining multi-level and multi-actor contexts within which both higher education and governments operate and develop international policies.
Internationalization at Canadian Universities: Where are we Now?
Brock Education Journal, 2007
Internationalization is powerfully impacting the missions, planning documents, and learning environments of Canadian universities. Internationalization within Canadian universities is viewed from a local as well as global context. Accounts of the composition of domestic students studying abroad and international students studying in Canada, and the implications of these statistics, are related. Emphasis is given to a discussion of the contribution that economic factors play in internationalization decisions. Economic factors have undeniably shaped the face of internationalization at Canadian universities. Complexities of the relationship between global context and educational goals are outlined and educators are challenged to responsibly interpret and implement university changes resulting from internationalization while prioritizing the learning needs of students.
Internationalizing Canada's Universities: a matter of policy coordination
In March, 2006, York University (Toronto, Ontario) hosted a conference on “Internationalizing Canada’s Universities: Practices, Challenges and Opportunities”. The conference provided a unique forum for a national discussion of internationalization in Canadian higher education and involved representatives from governments, institutions, and a range of interest groups. Our objective in this article is to provide an overview of the core themes that emerged during the York conference.
International Education as Policy: A Discourse Coalition Framework Analysis of the Construction, Context, and Empowerment of Ontarios International Education Storylines, 2019
This study aims to examine the international education (IE) policy-making context in Ontario for the period from 2005 to mid-2017 while also taking into account the announcement of the new policy document Ontario’s International Postsecondary Education Strategy 2018: Educating Global Citizens. It sets out to answer three research questions: (a) How is international education constructed as a policy discourse in the postsecondary sector in Ontario? (b) Who are the policy actors who are contributing to the postsecondary international education policy-making process in Ontario? and (c) What role do they play in influencing IE policy and empowering and silencing different discourses? To answer these research questions, this study adopts Maarten Hajer’s Discourse Coalition Framework (DCF) and steps of doing argumentative discursive analysis (2006). Data sources included IE stories in the three highest-circulation newspapers in Ontario (415 articles); 23 interviews with policy actors, and 195 policy documents. Whereas policy studies employing DCF have typically identified oppositional storylines, the findings of this study reveal one dominant storyline: Internationalize. All discourses agree, to varying degrees, that IE is desirable and beneficial to the postsecondary education sector and Ontario. However, within the overarching Internationalize storyline, three storylines emerge: (a) Internationalize, it is good for the economy (Economy); (b) Internationalize, yet manage its risks (Risks); (c) Internationalize, it is Canada’s gateway to the world (Gateway). The Economy storyline achieves hegemony as it succeeds in imposing its logic and ways of deliberation on the IE policy landscape (structuration) and is translated into institutional practices and policies (institutionalization). The study also reveals a shifting terrain in the IE policy landscape with the emergence of a new Regulate IE storyline, which has succeeded in introducing regulation and accountability discourses and reframing the hegemonic Economy storyline. By moving away from the state and focusing on storylines, this study reveals the fragmentation of the IE policy landscape and exposes actors from diverse scales, levels, disciplines, and contexts; all of whom contribute to the construction of IE and its related policies. One of the main findings of this study is the role of the media in building the IE narrative and mobilizing storylines. This research contributes to our understanding of the economic aspect of internationalization, which goes beyond discourses of neo-liberalism, and argues against the traditional binary categorizations of socio-cultural and educational versus economic internationalization. On a theoretical level, the study outlines the strengths of DCF and unsettles its conceptualization of collective and individual discursive agencies.
This major research paper uses Knight’s framework (1999, 2004) to define the internationalization process occurring in Quebec general and vocational colleges (i.e. cegeps ). The data collected from 39 cegeps (81% of the population) show that internationalization is primarily motivated by academic and socio-cultural rationales and is realized through an activity-based approach. It means that cegeps develop specific and compartmentalized international activities which aim to promote tolerance and intercultural sensitivity in their students and to raise the academic level by promoting learning in other contexts, teaching new competencies and facilitating the learning of a new language. The analysis of the organizational and programmatic strategies also demonstrates that internationalization is more present, more diversified and more decentralized nowadays than it was in 2000 and 2005. In addition, this process fits in a broader political framework, in which the Quebec government adopts strategy- and program-based approaches to promote the recognition of Quebec internationally. Finally, comparisons with Canadian and American community colleges show that the institution’s context and environment has an influence on the rationales and the strategies supporting internationalization; Canadian community colleges seeming to be primarily motivated by economic and socio-cultural rationales and American community colleges seeming to evolve in a context concerned with political and economic rationales.