Special issue on university internationalisation – towards transformative change in higher education. Internationalising doctoral research: developing theoretical perspectives on practice

Abstract

The current internationalisation agenda in UK higher education (HE) is still seen as most relevant to those university departments involved in international student recruitment and support. This approach has been influenced by the dominant 'deficit' discourses from earlier decades, which emphasise the need for international students to 'catch up on' English language and academic skills. By contrast, we argue that a more critical and holistic approach towards internationalisation can have implications for all staff and students in the university, and in all areas of activity, including curriculum development, assessment and research. Through examples from recent research conducted with doctoral students, we draw on conceptual approaches from the fields of academic literacies and intercultural communication to develop a lens for exploring educational research and teaching practices from an internationalisation perspective. We discuss some of the issues that arose in relation to the unfamiliar academic literacy and communicative practices that international students encountered in the UK institution. These included: negotiating different procedures and approaches when conducting research as a UK university-based researcher as compared to their 'home' institution; developing understanding of the supervisory relationship and feedback, and the challenges of reading and writing across cultures. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of these research findings for developing a 'transformative' approach to internationalisation of HE.

Researching multilingually: New theoretical and methodological directions

“…However, Shklarov confirms that such situated ethical understandings may not conform to established institutional practices which can, in turn, complicate the research process. In this context, Magyar and Robinson‐Pant (: 674) point out that “surprisingly little attention was paid to the effects of imposing ‘standard’ ethics procedures and academic writing conventions on research that is to be conducted and read in a different cultural context”. The extent to which these practices are scrutinised and/or made overt is even more questionable.…”

“…A third domain emphasises reflexivity as essential to the research process (e.g. Temple and Edwards 2002;Giampapa and Lamoureux 2011;Magyar and Robinson-Pant 2011). As researchers make informed decisions about their research, they are invited to critically reflect on the process and deeply analyse their conceptual and methodological stances.…”

“…Internationalisation of education has created a growing interest, for example, among doctoral researchers and their supervisors (Robinson‐Pant ; Magyar and Robinson‐Pant ; Rizvi ). Drawing on their research with international doctoral researchers in the United Kingdom, Magyar and Robinson‐Pant () argue that reading and writing across languages can pose challenges for researchers. Many of the participants in their research reported a sense of disempowerment by standardised procedures and established practices for ‘academic writing’ within predominantly mono‐lingual academic contexts.…”

‘I am Italian in the world’: a mobile student’s story of language learning andideological becoming

“…However, although language is the vehicle for intercultural communication, a substantial proportion of this research reflects a prevailing deficit discourse of language in English-medium HE contexts, in which multilingual and non-native English-speaking international students are viewed as problematic or deficient (Magyar & Robinson-Pant, 2011;Preece & Martin, 2009). This discourse is rooted within a technicist and assimilationist assumption that language problems can be easily repaired by English for Academic Purposes teachers and university language centres, who can help students to master the forms of the language so they can participate fully in their (chiefly academic) university lives (Turner, 2011).…”

53 Ways to Enhance Researcher Development

“…This is especially so in an Although what was described above pertains to the British context, the changing demands on academic researchers elsewhere due to a combination of factors (including innovation, student demand, and labour market considerations) are widely recognised and experienced, especially by the researchers themselves. The increased strategic focus on internationalisation arguably also plays a prominent role (Magyar & Robinson-Pant, 2011). Against this backdrop, these altered research contexts have 3 created both new opportunities and distinctive challenges for all stakeholders involved.…”