What do we talk about when we talk about internationalisation: Academics’ attitudes towards higher education internationalisation in an Eastern European university

Abstract

The role of academics is crucial to ensure successful and sustainable internationalisation of higher education. Internationalisation is a term that is widely used in higher education institutions but is rarely questioned or analysed in depth in a specific context. Few studies investigate how academics understand internationalisation, and how this in turn affects their motivation regarding internationalisation activities. This paper investigates how academic staff members conceptualise internationalisation. Stier’s (2006) ideologies of internationalisation are employed as a heuristic device to explore academic’s conceptualisations of internationalisation in a Lithuanian university. Results of a qualitative study of multiple focus groups with 27 academics showed that the majority conceptualise internationalisation as a means to achieve a specific goal which reveal an instrumentalist view. Internationalisation was often conflated with good quality of education and vice versa but the impact internationalisation has on students and the society at large was described vaguely and incidentally.

Keywords

• internationalisation
• conceptualisation
• higher education
• central and eastern europe
• academic staff