111 the internationalization of the academic profession: changes and realities futao huang 黄福涛...

111

The Internationalization of the Academic Profession: changes and realities

The Internationalization of the Academic Profession: changes and realities

Futao HUANG 黄福涛Hiroshima University, [email protected]

AC21 International Forum 2010October 18-20, 2010

Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityRegal International East Asia Hotel

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Outline

• Changes in the internationalization of the academic profession: a historical perspective

• Realities concerning the internationalization of

the academic profession: a comparative perspective

• Comments and conclusions

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Terminology

• The definition of the academic profession in a broad sense refers to all persons who teach or conduct research, or produce publications based on scholarly research at higher education institutions or research institutes inside or outside colleges or universities. In a narrower sense, the academic profession is defined as faculty members, including professors, associate professors, lectures or assistant professors who are mainly involved with teaching and research activities in higher education institutions.

• This presentation places an emphasis on discussion of the academic profession in this narrow sense.

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Changes in the internationalization of the academic profession

Period Context Drivers Aims Forms Dimension

I 13th-18th

the uniformChristendom of Europeand the Americas,through to the age ofindustrialization, and ofemergence of modernnation-states

relious &academic

expansion ofChristianity andthe spread ofmedieval culture

personalmobility

from Europe toNorth America

II 19th-1946

the scientificrevolution, theemergence of modernnation-states,colonization of Africa,America, Asia,etc, andthe breakout of twoworld wars.

academic,cultyural &political

building upnationalacademic orhigher educationsystems

personalmobility withinternationalizaedcurriculumand teachingabroad, etc.

beyond regions& continents

III 1947-1991 the cold warpolitical &ideological

facilitatingeconomicdevelopment andbuilding up anational modernacademic system

emergenceof variousnew attempts

more at asupra-nationallevel, in anideological andpolitical sense.

IV since 1991 increasingly diverseand more complicatedworld

economic&academic

building upinternational &global academicstandards,emphasizingregional & globalcolloborations

threedistingushedaspects.

at aninstituional,regional, andglobal levels

555

Outline





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International survey on CAP and analysis focus

• This section focuses two major facets of the internationalization of the academic profession as they relate to seventeen countries by using sets of variables from the surveys conducted for the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) study in each country in 2007.

• The core questionnaire in the CAP were drawn from the First International Survey of the Academic Profession in 1992-93, but many new and revised questions concerning the internationalization of the academic profession were developed.

• Each national survey has been slightly modified by each country-based team to account for regional differences nomenclature and other aspects that would affect local comprehension.

• However, the target group was set as the faculty working in the bachelor degree-awarding institutions or equivalent institutions. In addition, each national survey was asked to get back at least 800 valid responses.

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Country Valid respondents

Argentina 825

Australia 1,381

Brazil 1,066

Canada 1,152

China 3,612

Finland 1,403

Germany 1,241

Hong Kong 811

Italy 1,701

Japan 1,408

Korea 910

Malaysia 1,226

Mexico 1,832

Norway 1,011

Portugal 731

UK 1,227

US 1,146

Total 22,683

Country Male Female

Japan 91.0% 9.0%

Korea 81.3% 18.7%

Germany 71.4% 28.6%

Hong Kong 67.3% 32.7%

Italy 66.8% 33.2%

Mexico 64.5% 35.5%

China 62.9% 37.1%

Norway 62.2% 37.8%

Canada 59.1% 40.9%

US 58.1% 41.9%

Portugal 54.9% 45.1%

Brazil 51.7% 48.3%

Malaysia 51.7% 48.3%

UK 50.7% 49.3%

Finland 49.8% 50.2%

Australia 49.7% 50.3%

Argentina 41.4% 58.6%

Total 61.8% 38.2%

Country Average age

US 51.8

Japan 51.7

Italy 49.6

Mexico 48.2

Canada 47.4

Australia 47.1

Norway 47.0

Argentina 47.0

Hong Kong 46.4

UK 46.3

Korea 46.1

Germany 45.3

Brazil 44.3

Portugal 43.4

Finland 43.3

Malaysia 39.5

China 38.8

Total 45.5

The property of respondents

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Respondents from the seventeen countries are divided into three groups in order of percentages of their mean scores: -the top five: the most internationalized group of countries;

-the middle seven: the medium internationalized group of countries, and

-the bottom five: least internationalized group of countries. In this section, only the responses from the most and the least internationalized groups will be discussed.

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Teaching activities (1)

Australia 4.16

Canada 4.08

Hong Kong 3.92

Malaysia 3.90

Korea 3.86

Norwey 3.86

UK 3.83

USA 3.83

Finland 3.72

China 3.71

Japan 3.71

Mexico 3.69

Germany 3.69

Argentina 3.51

Portugal 3.50

Italy 3.47

Brasil 3.46

Total 3.76Scale of answe 5=Strongly agreeto 1= Strongly disagree

Table 1. In your courses, youemphasize internationalperspectives or contents

First, respondents from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Korea constitute the top five group. Notably, except for Korea, both Australia and Canada are Commonwealth countries, and Hong Kong and Malaysia are former British colonies. The first two are English-speaking countries and in the second pair, the English language is considered to be the most popular academic language or one of the official languages. In contrast, the responses from Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Argentina, and Germany indicated that they least emphasized international perspectives or contents in their courses, and so could be categorized as the least internationalized group.

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UK 4.00

Australia 3.83

Canada 3.83

Hong Kong 3.73

Malaysia 3.60

Korea 3.52

Norwey 3.50

USA 3.44

Finland 3.42

China 3.33

Japan 2.96

Mexico 2.62

Germany 2.50

Argentina 2.42

Portugal 2.30

Italy 2.21

Brazil 2.11

Total 3.12Scale of answe 5=Strongly agreeto 1= Strongly disagree

Table 2. Since you startedteaching, the number ofinternational students hasincreased


Second, the UK, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Malaysia belong to the top group. Again, the bottom group is represented by the responses from faculty from the same five countries identified in response to the statement on internationalized courses.

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Third, only 22% of the faculty in Malaysia and 42% of the faculty in Hong Kong responded that they used their mother tongues as teaching languages. It seems that in both cases, especially in Hong Kong, a relatively large number of faculty members prefer to adopt the English language in their teaching activities.

In contrast, the bottom five group includes Japan, Portugal, Argentina, China and Brazil. Clearly, none of their mother tongues is the English language, neither are any of them former British colonies or colonies of any other English-speaking countries. They can be assumed to be least internationalized in this regard.

Table 3. Teaching language

Firstlanguage/mother

tongueOther

Malaysia 22% 78%

Hong Kong 42% 58%

Norway 74% 27%

South Africa 76% 25%

Finland 79% 21%

Korea 81% 19%

Canada 82% 18%

Man Value 85% 16%

United Kingdom 85% 15%

United States 86% 14%

Australia 88% 12%

Germany 89% 11%

Italy 93% 8%

Mexico 93% 7%

Brazil 94% 6%

China 96% 4%

Argentina 97% 3%

Portugal 97% 3%

Japan 100% 0%

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Research activities (1)

First, Table 4 reveals that faculty from Portugal, Italy, China, Norway, and Australia could be considered as the top group of five countries placing most emphasis on the most international scope or orientation in their research activities.

In contrast, faculty from Brazil, Korea, Mexico, US, and Argentina are ranked as the bottom group, offering the least incorporation of international perspectives or orientation in their research activities.

Portugal 4.14Italy 4.03China 3.86Norwey 3.84Australia 3.77Hong Kong 3.71UK 3.71Finland 3.52Canada 3.44Malaysia 3.38Germany 3.33Japan 3.19Argentina 3.17USA 2.94Mexico 2.92Korea 2.86Brazil 2.40Total 3.48

Scale of answe 5=Strongly agreeto 1= Strongly disagree

Table 4. Emphasize oninternational scope or orientation

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Research activities (2)

Second, except for the English-speaking countries, it seems that the faculty from China, Japan, Mexico, Argentina, and Korea might belong to the bottom group because the larger percentage of them utilized their first languages as research languages,

In a contrast, among the non English-speaking countries, the faculty from Norway, Italy, Finland, Portugal, and Germany might be ranked as the top group.

Tbale 5. Research language

Firstlanguage/moth

er tongueOther

Malaysia 15% 85%

Norway 29% 71%

Italy 32% 68%

Hong Kong 33% 67%

Finland 39% 61%

Portugal 42% 58%

Germany 50% 51%

Brazil 55% 45%

Korea 56% 44%

Total 63% 37%

South Africa 64% 36%

Argentina 70% 30%

Canada 70% 30%

Mexico 74% 27%

United Kingdom 82% 18%

United States 85% 15%

Japan 87% 13%

Australia 87% 13%

China 94% 6%

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Research activities (3)Table 6. Which percentage of your publications in the last three years were

published in alanguage differentfrom the language ofinstruction at yourcurrent institution

co-authored withcolleagues located inother (foreign)countries

published in a foreigncountry

Norway 74.9% 21.5% 58.5%Italy 57.6% 14.7% 46.3%Germang 52.4% 16.2% 37.5%Portugal 52.0% 46.5% 21.2%Finland 51.9% 15.2% 45.9%Japan 46.2% 10.0% 25.9%Korea 34.8% 6.2% 25.6%Argentina 26.7% 8.7% 29.6%China 25.8% 1.1% 11.6%Mexico 25.1% 7.5% 26.3%Brazil 21.1% 4.0% 14.2%Canada 19.0% 12.7% 31.9%Malaysia 17.1% 7.6% 21.2%Hong Kong 11.7% 15.7% 69.9%UK 2.7% 12.2% 21.5%US 2.4% 5.0% 7.0%Australia 1.1% 12.7% 31.0%Total 21.1% 11.4% 30.4%

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Outline





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Historically, the international perspective of the academic profession has been affected by complicated factors at national, regional and global levels. Its aims are not only limited to academic purposes, but also cater to political, cultural, managerial and commercial needs.

In order to achieve all these aims, the forms of internationalization have become diversified. For example, they have gone beyond the simple mobility of faculty across borders or regions in the medieval era, and have come to include a wide variety of activities, such as developing internationalized curricula, implementing the use of the English language in teaching and research activities in non-English-speaking countries in particular, providing trans-national higher education services, which are often accompanied with commercial activities, establishing international organisations and networking, as well as building up quality assurance systems at a global level.

In a major sense, an international perspective has been integrated into almost every dimension of academic activities.

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In terms of the quantitative analysis of the CAP study, the majority of the respondents from the English-speaking countries, especially the UK, Commonwealth countries such as Australia and Canada as well as the former British colonies like Hong Kong and Malaysia, indicate that they have incorporated both international contents in their teaching and experienced an increase in numbers of international student since they started their teaching. They provide a sharp contrast to the respondents from countries in Latin America and Europe, typically represented by Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Argentina, and Germany.

Many factors could be attributed to the striking differences between the two groups. To illustrate, historically speaking, the higher education systems, including academic systems, in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Malaysia are significantly affected by the UK model.

More importantly, there exist considerable similarities among these countries in the strategy and practice adopted in internationalization of higher education in the most recent years.

Additionally, it is noteworthy that in relation to the teaching language used in the seventeen countries, except for Hong Kong and Malaysia, more than 74% of the faculty indicated that they only used their mother tongues. That is to say, a huge majority of faculty from non-English-speaking countries insist on utilizing their mother tongues in their teaching activities.

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On the other hand, the survey results for research activities show that a majority of faculty from Portugal, Italy, China, Norway, and Australia indicate that their primary research is international in scope or orientation. Of particular note for the items relating to publications is the high number of respondents from Norway, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Italy and Hong Kong who confirmed that they have achieved a great deal in these aspects.

Furthermore, more than half of the faculty from Norway, Italy, Hong Kong, Finland, and Portugal confirmed that they used other language(s) instead of their first languages as research languages.

Interestingly, in the group of English-speaking countries, in contrast to faculty in the UK, Australia, and Canada, a much smaller proportion of faculty in the US indicated that they have played an active role in internationalizing their teaching or research activities. While in non-English-speaking countries, it seems that a larger proportion of faculty from Norway and Finland attached importance to an international dimension in their teaching activities than those from China, Japan, Brazil and Argentina in particular.

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Teaching

Research

Top group

Bottom group

Types of top groups and bottom groups in terms of some teaching & research activities

The UK, the Commonwealth

countries, and the former British colonies

Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Argentina, and

Germany

Norway, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Finland, and

Hong Kong

China, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina in

particular

202020

Thank you!

111 the internationalization of the academic profession: changes and realities futao huang 黄福涛...

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