Internationalization of the academy: rhetoric, recent trends, and prospects

Abstract

To what extent has globalization of knowledge and the world’s economy over the past decade reshaped the academic profession into a more internationalized one? This chapter compares the responses of faculty in ten nations to similar items on an international survey in 1992 and 2007 as well analyzing differences in the 2007 responses of faculty at different career stages. The results suggest that, with a few exceptions, national faculties are no more likely to recruit foreign-born academics than in the past, while the proportion of foreign-educated academics has grown slightly. Moreover, there is little evidence of a sharp upswing in international research collaboration or co-publication or in the internationalization of teaching. While the percentage of national faculties engaged internationally has not changed substantially between 1992 and 2007, the tremendous growth in the size of national academic professions means that much larger numbers of academics across the world are not engaged internationally in their professional work.