What's Behind the Canada Brand? Seeking Ethical Internationalization of Higher Education

• In Event: 51.021 - Internationalization, Immigration, and Refugee Student Integration: Canadian Experiences and Perspectives

Abstract

Higher education faces new challenges in a world more globally connected than before and yet more fractured and unequal. While developments in higher education in North America appear to provoke innovation and creativity in how universities are responding to global change, unintended consequences are apparent. Naidoo (2010) for example, challenges the so-called neutrality of the knowledge society, arguing that a knowledge economy that is closely tied to competition is highly problematic. Amidst critiques of the neoliberal orientation of the internationalization of higher education are calls for ethical and principled practices (ACDE, 2014; Stein et. al, 2016). This paper will explore the complex process of internationalization through a Canadian case study that seeks to understand the educational relations and practices of an internationalizing university, through the experiences of students and faculty. The paper will first critique the recent Canadian international education strategy (FATDC, 2014) to identify how an economic agenda dominates the official discourse on internationalization in Canada. An alternative position crafted by the Canadian Deans of Education Accord on the Internationalization of Education (ACDE, 2014) will be presented. Selected qualitative data from surveys and interviews with students and faculty will be used to illustrate how those engaged in the learning and teaching process of internationalization reflect on and describe ethical internationalization.

Author

• Kumari Beck, Simon Fraser University