The use of international scholarship programmes is part of a long-standing approach to human capital development in many developing and middle-income countries that finance studies at universities abroad and locally. Yet, many scholarship alumni struggle to thrive in their home country and encounter numerous difficulties in their transition to the job market. This paper examines the employment experiences
This article theorizes the functional relationship between the human components (i.e., scholars) and non-human components (i.e., structural configurations) of academic domains. It is organized around the following question: in what ways have scholars formed and been formed by the structural configurations of their academic domain? The article uses as a case study the academic domain of education and technology to examine this question. Its authorship approach is innovative, with a worldwide collection of academics (99 authors) collaborating to address the proposed question based on their reflections on daily social and academic practices. This collaboration followed a three-round process of contributions via email. Analysis of these scholars’ reflective accounts was carried out, and a theoretical proposition was established from this analysis. The proposition is of a mutual (yet not necessarily balanced) power (and therefore political) relationship between the human and non-human constituents of an academic realm, with the two shaping one another. One implication of this proposition is that these non-human elements exist as political ‘actors’, just like their human counterparts, having ‘agency’ – which they exercise over humans. This turns academic domains into political (functional or dysfunctional) ‘battlefields’ wherein both humans and non-humans engage in political activities and actions that form the identity of the academic domain. For more information about the authorship approach, please see Al Lily AEA (2015) A crowd-authoring project on the scholarship of educational technology. Information Development. doi: 10.1177/0266666915622044.
The purpose of this paper is to build and test a framework of four factors stakeholders in postgraduate higher education institutions in Kazakhstan perceive as supporting or hindering language development in English‐medium programs. Data in this mixed‐methods study were collected through student surveys and interviews with students, faculty and administration from six universities across Kazakhstan. Factor analysis confirmed the value of structural, pedagogical, sociolinguistic, and cultural factors for language development. Quantitative and qualitative data demonstrated that respondents highly valued structural factors such as academic mobility abroad and having an opportunity to interact with international faculty. However, they were less satisfied with national and university policies on the implementation of EMI. Additional structural factors including: a significant lack of pedagogical trainings, lack of collaboration with EFL instructors for curriculum development, and low overall English language proficiency of faculty and students, led to pedagogical challenges in classrooms. These challenges were somewhat mitigated by translanguaging practices. The sociolinguistic factors scale demonstrated that out of three languages, Russian was the most prevalent on campuses, which, according to qualitative data, creates pressure to maintain English. Finally, the cultural factors data revealed that students were highly motivated for their ideal self, whereas institutions strived to be research‐oriented and included in the international ranking lists. Based on these findings, it is recommended that curricula be adjusted to include spaces for multilingual practices, and that faculty be provided support in teaching in English through professional development courses.
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