Internationalization or globalization of higher education

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:

Studies about globalization and internationalization demonstrate different attitudes in explaining these concepts. Since there is no consensus among Iranian specialists about these concepts, the purpose of this study is to explain the concepts of internationalization and globalization in Iran.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

This study is a systematic review done in the first half of 2016. To explain the concept of globalization and internationalization, articles in Scientific Information D atabase, Magiran database, and Google Scholar were searched with the keywords such as globalization, scientific exchange, international cooperation, curriculum exchange, student exchange, faculty exchange, multinational cooperation, transnational cooperation, and collaborative research. Articles, used in this study, were in Persian and were devoted to internationalization and globalization between 2001 and 2016. The criterion of discarding the articles was duplicity.

RESULTS:

As many as 180 Persian articles were found on this topic. After discarding repetitive articles, 64 remained. Among those, 39 articles mentioned the differences between globalization and internationalization. Definitions of globalization were categorized in four categories, including globalization, globalizing, globalization of higher education, and globalizing of higher education. Definitions about internationalization were categorized in five categories such as internationalization, internationalization of higher education, internationalization of the curriculum, internationalization of curriculum studies, and internationalization of curriculum profession.

CONCLUSION:

The spectrum of the globalization of higher education moves from dissonance and multipolarization to unification and single polarization of the world. One end of the spectrum, which is unification and single polarization of the world, is interpreted as globalization. The other side of the spectrum, which is dissonance and multipolarization, is interpreted as globalizing. The definition of internalization is the same as that of globalizing. In other words, it is possible to say that internalization is similar to globalizing but different from globalization.

Introduction

During these two decades, higher education has undergone an increasing pressure for rapid social, technical, economic, and political changes due to the internal and external postindustrial environment.[1] Gumport and Sporn state that the environmental pressure is so dynamic that it leads to basic changes and evolution in universities.[2] Two factors of evolution in higher education systems are globalization and internationalization.[3] Kubow and Crawford cite the antiquity of globalization to thousands of years before human's history and they mention that the antiquity of globalization is as old as human civilization. Marcus Aurelius writes, “I’m a Roman citizen but I’m like a global citizen about 2000 years ago.”[4] Globalization is a challenging word that possesses a large spectrum of positive and negative ideas and opinions about its definition. A review of the literature shows how studies about globalization and its dimension demonstrate different attitudes in explaining this concept.[5] In the recent years, internationalization was one of the most important discussions in academia. Various definitions exist about internationalization. In management, internationalization means the development of operational processes of business including strategy, structure, and resources in international environments.[6] However, in higher education, different definitions exist about internationalization. Each of them pays attention to one or some of the sides.[7] The term “internationalization,” which often focuses on the international dimensions of higher education and postsecondary education, is interpreted and used by different stakeholders in different ways in different countries.[8] The use and focus on definitions and studies that exist abroad, usually in Western countries with economic and political domination over many countries that try to apply this rule to other countries, cannot be of a great help in internationalizing the university in a country like Iran, which has a Muslim-dominated civilization with historical, national identity. Perhaps, the definition of internationalization was brought up by a foreign culture, which has set political and dominative goals and has put the errant path in front of the Iranian researchers.[9] Finally, in the modernization era, the Iranian-Islamic cultural identity is often neglected to achieve scientific communication and develop easy accessibility to scientific resources, and even economic and political goals. For example, according to numerous research papers, the globalization era, considered to be the age of communication and the dissemination of goods, has made it possible for the Western countries and superpowers to spread the Western culture and influence on the minds of youths.[9] Iranian experts have no reference to these concepts in their talks. Therefore, this study aims to explore the concept of the globalization and internationalization of higher education in Iran.

Materials and Methods

This systematic review was conducted in the first half of 2016. In this study, articles, including keywords such as internationalization, curriculum exchange, student exchange, faculty exchange, multinational cooperation, transnational cooperation, and cooperative research, were researched on databases such as SID, Magiran, and Google Scholar, to clarify the definition of internationalization and globalization. Manual search for use of articles, presented in conferences, was also carried out. The inclusion criteria include the period of publication, the language of articles, and appropriateness to the aim of the study. The articles in Persian, referring to internationalization and globalization published between 2001 and 2016, were also included in the study. The exclusion criterion was duplication. The determination levels of articles were laid as meta-analysis and systematic review articles in level 1, empirical articles in level 2, quasi-experimental articles in level 3, descriptive and analytical articles (comparative studies, correlation studies, and case studies) in level 4, and committee report or opinions or experiences of experts in level 5. The quality of articles was categorized, based on the suitability of introduction, methods, results, and discussions, into three categories – good quality, medium quality, and poor quality. A 21-point score was calculated with the attribution of one point each for appropriate introduction, express gap, express purpose of study, express design of study, describing the study population, samples, appropriate sampling method, the right tools, validity expression, reliability expression, appropriate methods of collecting data, appropriate methods of analysis, expression of moral considerations, expression of inclusion criteria, expression of exclusion criteria, expression of demographic findings, provision of suitable results for aim, accordance to the presented significant findings in the discussion, comparison of the results with other studies in the discussion, expression of suggestions, and expression of limitations. According to this scoring system, articles were distributed into three categories. Articles that scored <7 were of poor quality, articles scoring from 8 to 14 were tagged as medium quality, and the articles that scored 15–21 were of good quality.

Results

Following the methods, as many as 180 papers were found in Persian. Only 64 articles remained after the removal of duplicate articles. Out of these, only 39 articles included discussions on the definition of globalization, internationalization, and the differences between these two concepts. The specifications of these articles are shown in Table 1.[9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46] The statistical precision, effect size, and appropriateness to aim in total articles were not presented. Hence, these indices were not compiled in Table 1.

Table 1.

Articles entered into review

As Table 1 shows, in these 19 articles, the design of the study is indeterminate, and so are the levels of these articles. This table also shows that these 19 articles have level four or five. In terms of quality, 27 articles fall into the poor quality bracket, and 6 each are of medium and good quality.

All definitions of globalization and internationalization are presented in Tables 2 and 3. The definition of globalization is expressed in Table 2 and of internationalization in Table 3.

Table 2.

Definitions of globalization and globalizing

Table 3.

Definition that presented about internationalization

From Table 2, it can be observed that definitions about globalization are categorized in four categories including globalization, globalizing, globalization of higher education, and globalizing of higher education. As you can see in Table 3, internationalization has been defined in five categories – internationalization, internationalization of higher education, internationalization of the curriculum, internationalization of curriculum studies, and internationalization of curriculum profession.

Discussion

The aim of this study was to explore concepts including globalization and internationalization of higher education in Iran. The results of the study showed that 39 articles pay attention to globalization, internationalization, and their differences. As many as 31 definitions of globalization and 55 definitions of internationalization were found in these articles. The results of this study were placed in nine definition categories including globalizing, globalization, globalization of higher education, globalizing of higher education, internationalization, internationalization of higher education, internationalization of the curriculum, internationalization of curriculum studies, and internationalization of curriculum profession.

According to the definitions of globalization, globalization has four dimensions: economic, political, cultural, and scientific. There are two approaches to globalization. The first approach is named globalization. Globalization is already a project designed by the hegemonic system, through which it expands and deepens its economic, political, and cultural domination in other countries. This approach is about domination, colonialism, and the spread of the West. The first approach, with a commercial view, believes that, at a fundamental level, globalization is primarily a one-way economic and cultural communication, in which a dominant economy shapes the economy and culture of others according to its own. This approach tends to use globalization of higher education to become like McDonald (acceptance of American values). Based on the facts available, it is believed that the globalization of higher education is affected by the process of being McDonald. In the context of this definition of globalization, internationalization is a creative and deliberate action for copying the assumptions and dominant patterns. Governments, researchers, and educational institutions have a more independent role in knowledge production; they must reproduce and adapt their products to their own needs.

The second approach is named as globalizing. Globalizing is a result of new world developments such as the expansion of communication networks, the growth of technology in all aspects, and a more collaborative world. This approach is based on the ideas of humanist, emancipatory, international, and how human collective consciousness is formed. Globalizing is the result of the evolution of human social life and strengthening interactions among societies and cultures. In this framework, globalizing is a trend that creates interaction and interdependence among facts, opinions, and concepts. It is a way to increase interdependence.

Hence, the continuum of globalization can be considered from dissonance and multipolarization to unification and single polarization of the world. One end of the spectrum, which is the unification and single polarization of the world, is interpreted as globalization. And the other spectrum, which is dissonance and multipolarization of the world, is interpreted as globalizing.

According to the definition about internationalization, it can be stated that internationalization is a process based on economic, cultural, scientific, and political transactions that are based on consensus among nations and in which, interactions take place among nations. This definition of internationalization is same as globalizing (globalizing is the second approach to globalization). Hence, it can be said that internationalization is globalizing but it is different from globalization. Therefore, if it is considered as a continuum for globalization, one end of the spectrum is globalization and another side is internationalization.

According to the definitions about internationalization of higher education, it can be paraphrased that internationalization of higher education is mutual exchanges, and a consensus-based, preplanned process, in three axillary, including teaching, research, and services in universities, colleges, and higher education institutions, whereas the internationalization of the curriculum means the distribution of the academic curriculum and its products beyond national borders and the development of international knowledge, skills, and values in the existing programs of institutes for training and international education. Internationalization of curriculum studies means the use of all the available capacity around the world to promote the curriculum discipline as a multicultural discipline that flows in different cultures and social backgrounds theoretically and practically. Internationalization of curriculum profession is the education of professionals who have the potential for work and consulting activities in multi- and cross-cultural environments. They have the required knowledge, skills, and values to do the work and activities of the curriculum in different cultural environments.

Articles used in this study mostly have an unknown level or a low level. The quality of most of the articles was inappropriate. Furthermore, it is necessary to examine the subject of an article with the appropriate methodological design. In general, according to the results, most definitions stated about these terms are not written by Iranian writers, but rather most are stated by foreign authors. For example, Sylanh's and Naderi's definitions of internationalization of higher education are the same as Knight's definition. Since this study examines the Persian literature in this field, an examination of these concepts is required from the perspective of the Latin literature in future studies.

Conclusion

The higher education globalization spectrum moves from dissonance and multipolarization to unification and single polarization of the world. One end of the spectrum, which is the unification and single polarization of the world, is interpreted as globalization. The other side of the spectrum, that is dissonance and multipolarization, is interpreted as globalizing. Internationalization of higher education is the mutual exchanges, and the consensus-based, preplanned process, in three axillary, including teaching, research, and services in universities, colleges, and higher education institutions. The definition of internalization is the same as the definition of globalizing. In other words, it is possible to say that internalization is globalizing but it is different from globalization.

Financial support and sponsorship

This article is extracted from a research project number 395564. We thank the deputy of education of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and Vice chancellor for research of Isfahan University of medical science for supporting this project.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.