Internationalizing the University

Internationalizing the University is written by Yvonne Turner and Sue Robson. It is quite a boring book. There are 183 pages in total with more than 40 pages of bibliography. They stated many facts which , I can guess, most of them can be derived from theories of education sociology. It does not mean the book valueless but at least we can derive it.

Any person take action based on its own belief or value. In the collective sense, individual belief or value becomes culture. That means students from different countries have different culture background, expectation of studying experience, learning process and communication style. It is also applied to teachers and institutions. That means culture and value system is embedded in pedagogy, curriculum and the education system.

There are 2 obvious issues. One is the conflict between students and teachers and also the institution. Another one is the conflict among students. These conflicts appear in the form of teaching strategy, resource allocation and something like that.

The appropriate approach of resolution is communication and balance of power of different stakeholders. Communication encourages understanding, declare the policy and culture of instituion and helps to shape students' expectation. It could help students to exchange ideas and cultures by creating enough courses and activities in different culture context.

On the other hand, internationalization is a process which is drived by internal factors and external factors. We can expect that symbolic internationalization is shallow one and transformative internationalization is a deep one. The level of internationalization can be reflected from strategy and budgeting.


Internationalizing the University
Hardcover: 183 pages
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. (10 Mar 2008)
Language English
ISBN-13: 978-0826497833