Maturity and Interculturality: Chinese students' experiences in UK higher education

Increasing global competition for students has witnessed an ever more rapid internationalisation of higher education. In the case of the UK, there has been a major influx of Chinese students to British universities since the launch of the British Government's long-term worldwide educational campaign in 1999. Drawing upon evidence from an extensive review of the literature on the internationalisation of higher education, this article will explore variations in Chinese students' intercultural adaptation to the British higher education environment. Discussion of their experiences will be based upon a synthesis of findings of three studies, led by the author, investigating the pedagogical, sociocultural and psychological challenges that they have encountered when studying in British universities.
Evidence from these studies suggests that despite various challenges and struggles, most students have managed to survive the demands of the learning and the living environment and to adapt and develop. Analysis of their learning experiences suggests that this learning process spans a developmental continuum involving the students in overcoming emotional tensions arising from changes in their cognition, their sense of identity and sociocultural values. A holistic and developmental perspective is thus required to understand changes in students' perceptions and values as part of their wider adaptation to the academic conventions of their host countries. The findings will make an original contribution to understandings of the impact of the internationalisation of higher education on individuals' learning, change and development.     

Qualitative inequality: experiences of women in Ethiopian higher education

This article examines the lived experiences of women in Ethiopian higher education (HE) as a counterpoint to understandings of gender equity informed only by data on admission, progression and completions rates. Drawing on a critical qualitative inquiry approach, we analyse and interpret data drawn from focus group discussions with female students and academic women in two public universities in Ethiopia. Individual accounts and shared experiences of women in HE revealed that despite affirmative action policies that slightly benefit females at entry point, gender inequality persists in qualitative forms. Prejudice against women and sexual violence are highlighted as key expressions of qualitative gender inequalities in the two universities. It is argued that HE institutions in Ethiopia are male-dominated, hierarchical and hostile to women. Furthermore, taken-for-granted gender assumptions and beliefs at institutional, social relational and individual levels operate to make women conform to structures of disadvantage and in effect sustain the repressive gender relations.     

The transition experiences of direct entrants from overseas higher education partners into UK universities

This two-year study was conducted to explore the experience of international direct-entry students making the transition from overseas higher education partners to a UK University. Using mainly qualitative data from forum discussion, focus-group interviews and face-to-face interviews with students and staff, we document how international direct-entry students cope with academic and social anxieties during their transition. The findings reveal that there are some similarities, such as language issues, which are experienced by most international students. However, this study has highlighted a distinguishing factor for direct-entry students which relates to the use of intra-networks to overcome their social anxieties. The exploratory analysis also indicates that international students entering directly into an academic programme at a later study stage face a steep learning curve and require additional support to adapt quickly to a UK educational system.     

英国高等教育国际化政策研究

高等教育国际化是当代高等教育发展的主流特征之一.通过研究英国高等教育国际化政策的具体内容和特点,对我国的高等教育国际化发展提供一些启示.     

Internationalisation of higher education: European experiences

‘Internationalisation’ is generally defined as increasing cross-border activities amidst persistence of borders, while ‘globalisation’ refers to similar activities concurrent to an erosion of borders. Study mobility is viewed as the most visible component in this framework in Europe with ERASMUS as the largest scheme of temporary mobility. ERASMUS was a trigger for a qualitative leap of internationalisation strategies and policies since the 1990s: towards cooperation and mobility on equal terms, and towards systematic and strategic internationalisation. The ‘Bologna Process’ aimed to make higher education more attractive to students from other parts of the world and to facilitate intra-European mobility; however, many other activities are needed to stimulate mobility, and the Bologna Process pursues many other objectives. It remains to be seen whether supra-national and national policies and institutional strategies will continue to opt for wide-ranging cooperation based on mutual trust or whether the ‘competition paradigm’ will determine the scene.     

The cost structure of higher education in further education colleges in England

This paper examines the cost of the increased provision of higher education courses within further education colleges in England. We believe this to be the first attempt to fit a cost function specifically to the further education sector. Cost functions for a sample of 96 colleges over a 2-year period, from 2000 to 2002, are fitted using a panel data methodology as well as stochastic frontier analysis. We compare and contrast our findings with a sample of 959 US colleges. Our findings indicate that most further education colleges are able to benefit from economies of scale. Results from both methodologies suggest the presence of product-specific economies of scale, substantial ray economies of scale and indicate that higher education classroom-based courses, such as business studies, as well as vocational courses display substantial economies of scope.     

Leaders and managers: Essential skills required within higher education

As the leaders of today's higher educational institutions create and enhance their vision to meet the needs of the changing student population into the twenty-first century, the skills and attributes required are also changing. This article provides an overview of those skills and attributes viewed as valuable in this changing environment, such as encouraging reflective backtalk and the ability to see the long view; the roles (e.g., figurehead, leader, and liaison) and relationships (both internal and external to the institution) in which the leaders are engaged; governance and organizational structures of colleges and universities (particularly in the United States); the culture, values, and vision of these institutions; and strategic planning and financial management processes required. It is imperative that the leaders and managers of our higher educational institutions embrace all their roles, share responsibility with formal and informal leaders from faculty and staff groups, and recognize and embrace change.     

Bridging further education and higher education in the formation of spiritual directors

This article examines those aspects of curriculum relating to programmes that have developed across the further and higher education divide. It analyses one particular spiritual direction formation programme that has transitioned from a vocational training programme in the further education mode to a post-graduate academic programme in a higher education context. In identifying the core elements of this formation programme, it suggests several complementary educational approaches that resonate with the formation approach within academic contexts and examines whether these approaches adequately address the breadth of learning styles and relational aspects of learning that contribute to effective pedagogical approaches. The article recommends further research to assess the relevance of curriculum design to guidelines and standards demanded of both the further and higher education sectors.     

The massification of higher education in the UK: Aspects of service quality

This article explores several aspects of service quality for the provision of higher education. Alongside the trend of the massification of higher education over the past two decades, higher education institutions are required to review quality across a range of outputs, besides teaching and learning. The study was undertaken within the undergraduate placement programme of a UK higher education institution and investigated aspects of service quality through students’ surveys conducted over a five-year period and staff questionnaires and interviews. The findings of the study point out that, amongst other factors, the increase in student numbers implies a deterioration of higher education service quality. Based on the findings, several areas that can potentially improve the quality of higher education services in modern universities are identified.     

Barriers to higher education: commonalities and contrasts in the experiences of Hindu and Muslim young women in urban Bengaluru

Gender inequalities in educational attainment have attracted considerable attention and this article aims to contribute to our understanding of young women’s access to higher education. The article is based on our in-depth interviews with 26 Hindu and Muslim young women attending colleges in urban Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), south India, and explores the barriers they confronted in fulfilling their aspirations. We highlight the similarities amongst the young women, as well as the distinctive experiences of the Hindu and Muslim interviewees. Financial constraints, lack of safety for women in public space, and gender bias, gossip and social control within the family and the local community affected Hindu and Muslim interviewees in substantially similar ways. For the Muslim interviewees, however, gender disadvantage was compounded by their minority status. This both underlines the importance of incorporating communal politics into our analysis and undermines popular discourses that stereotype Muslims in India as averse to girls’ and young women’s education.     

Higher education experiences of elite student-para-athletes in the UK

This article presents the narrative accounts of six elite student-para-athletes attending higher education full time in the UK. Whilst literature concerning the student-athlete population in the UK is growing, there is no research at present that brings to the fore the voices of student-athletes who represent their country in Paralympic sports. In addition, research concerning the experiences of higher education students with disabilities in the UK is heavily concerned with the experience of learning as opposed to the more nuanced experiences of ‘being’ a university student. Accounts concerning the lived experience of higher education were gathered via semi-structured interviews and analysed through a process of interpretative phenomenological analysis producing an intricate, intimate and personal theme for each participant. Analysed and presented as individual case studies, the research demonstrates the uniqueness of experience despite the existence of common and shared life environments. The accounts explore three life-worlds – university, elite sport and disability – and expose the difference in meaning-making by each participant to the identities of ‘athlete’, ‘student’ and ‘disabled’, specifically within the context of higher education. The accounts are presented as three themes that illuminate the contrast in experience: (1) university as a normative and positive experience; (2) university as a disappointing and hindering experience; and (3) university as an experience of personal salvation and purpose. Findings are mapped to the social-relational model of disability to better understand the relationship between individual perception, impairment and environment.     

Neo-liberalism and the state of higher education in the UK

This article reports findings from a research project on the impact of neo-liberalism on university life in the UK. Unusually, data collection includes interviews with senior management such as heads of departments and senior professors, as well as with lecturers and union representatives. Interviewees reported that the nature of institutional and individual pressures has changed and intensified over the last 30 years, resulting generally in negative experiences for staff and students; yet grounds exist for rejecting a purely deterministic thesis on the impact of neo-liberalism on higher education. Certain aspects of university work were described in positive terms and individual senior managers seemed able at times to mediate external pressures. Creative strategies of resistance were evident which provided some relief from an otherwise gloomy scenario.     

Rethinking the internationalisation agenda in UK higher education

Internationalisation of higher education (HE) affords an opportunity to engage in critical reflection on practices across the sector and to pursue a programme of widespread reform based on outcomes of practitioner dialogue and debate. This opportunity is, however, being largely shunned thanks to the prominence of a marketisation discourse that has claimed the internationalisation agenda as its own, redefining it narrowly in commercially expedient terms. Adopting a broadly Foucauldian perspective on discourse, this article offers a critique of HE internationalisation in the UK. It begins with an analysis of the global trade in HE courses on international markets, arguing that it is inappropriate to treat curricula as though they were merely commodities reducible solely to exchange value. Having questioned the marketisation discourse, the article proceeds to expose the inadequacies of a piecemeal 'infusion approach' to curriculum internationalisation. Simply flavouring curricula with 'international' or 'global' elements fails to address more fundamental issues of the educational process posed by multicultural recruitment and teaching. The critique is founded on a questioning of the cross-cultural validity of purchaser/provider models in general and the student-as-customer metaphor in particular. A 'learning as eating' conception of education finds its apogee in Ritzer's McDonaldised university, with its programmatic reduction of HE, casualisation of teaching labour and 'product' standardisation. The article ends with a polemical call for a reclamation of the internationalisation agenda on the part of practitioners who are interested in creating culturally inclusive, fair and genuinely educational forms of multicultural HE teaching and assessment.     

The use and abuse of performance indicators in UK higher education

In the UK, interest in measuring the performance of higher education institutions has developed as part of an increasing performance culture in the public sector. This paper looks at development of national systems of indicators in both the University and former Polytechnic section in the light of this trend. The pressures leading up to the development of each system are examined together with an outline of the indicators chosen and forthcoming critical reaction. The use of performance indicators to compare institutional performance is explored. Regression methods that have been developed to try to enable meaningful comparison of indicators to be made between different insititutional types and environments are critically examined. A number of case studies of the use of performance indicators in both the University and former Polytechnic sector are presented. In each case the benefit and drawbacks of the application are commented on. The paper concludes by recommending a change from the league table approach to one based on adopting indicators for each institution which are consistent with its mission. The role of peer review in complementing the use of performance indicators is covered.     

Key educational experiences and self-discovery in higher education

This study investigates key educational experiences in higher education. Key experiences are short and intense instructional episodes that students remember to have had a decisive effect on their lives. Data comes from a sample of 3045 key educational experiences, focusing on the 11.6% that relate to higher education. The paper uses a qualitative analysis to describe different features of key experiences in higher education. The results suggest that key experiences involve a process of self-discovery where students find features about themselves they knew nothing of previously. They also help to characterize three main contexts for self-discovery in higher education. First, key experiences take place in academically challenging circumstances that get students to embark on identity adventures. Second, challenging circumstances also provided ripe ground for sage advice that professors provided their students with. These words of wisdom became leitmotifs for students’ lives henceforth. Finally, the results indicate the importance of second chance opportunities for self-discovery and identity rehabilitation in higher education.