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Centre for Research on International Education

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*Towards sustainable internationalisation of higher education

This article engages with the question: what does the internationalisation ofhigher education in times of globalisation sustain and what should it sustain? We first consider, through literature on globalisation and Stier’s (Glob Soc Educ 2(1):1–28, 2004) work, limitations of currently prevalent perspectives on internationalisation in economic terms. We then offer a brief review of how sustainability is understood in higher education and articulate our own notion of educational sustainability. We flesh it out in reference to data reflecting ideas and activities constitutive of daily practices of internationalisation in one faculty of education. We contend that our sustainability frame of reference can expand opportunities to think critically about internationalisation and, more importantly, offers opportunities to see internationalisation in its complexity, and to re-think and reorder practices that are not in alignment with educational goals and values.

bibliographic entry

Ilieva, R., Beck. K.& Waterstone, B. (2014). Towards sustainable internationalisation of  higher education. Higher Education, DOI 10.1007/s10734-014-9749-6.

*Curriculum Discourses Within a TESOL Program for International Students: Affording Possibilities for Academic and Professional Identities

The research discussed here investigates the curriculum discourses circulating in a TESOL Masters Program for international students at a Canadian university. It focuses on issues around academic and professional identity constructions and language, viewed through dialogical (Bakhtinian) and ecological perspectives. The authors are two teacher educators in the program. We situate our work within the field of curriculum studies that engages in crossborder and cross-disciplinary conversations and see ourselves as implicated in larger structures, discourses, and ideologies, including the trend towards a market orientation of higher education, the conditions of globalization, and neo-colonial contexts of history, culture, and power. As we investigate the curriculum discourses in the program in this article, we interrogate our own practices as educators in it in an attempt to denaturalize and historicize the discourses available in the program and in current conditions of internationalization of higher education (Stier, 2004) in order to align TESOL programming with ethical practice.

bibliographic entry

Beck, K., Ilieva, R., Pullman, A., & Zhang, Z. (2013). New work, old power: inequities within the labor of internationalization. On the Horizon, 21(2), 84-95.

*New work, old power: inequities within the labor of internationalization

The aim in this paper is to extend Dorothy Smith’s conceptual understanding of work to consider the emerging labor of ‘‘knowmads’’ within internationalization of higher education. Through original research on everyday experiences of internationalization, the authors seek to illuminate the ways individuals develop skills and competencies in relation to these new forms of work in order to address the reproduction of inequities. The authors make a connection between internationalization of higher education and knowmadic labor based on the premise that cross-border education is often pursued in order to develop knowmadic attributes.

*Do you know your language?

This study focuses on how teachers of minority ancestries construct and represent their family language identities. Drawing on poststructural (Hall, 1996; Norton, 2000), postcolonial (Ang, 1994; Luke & Luke, 2000) and sociocultural (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998) theory on culture, identity, and language we explore the complex nature of the linguistic identities of 25 teachers of Chinese and 20 teachers of Punjabi ancestries.We consider the different ways in which respondents of these ancestries represented their identities in minority languages in various sociocultural settings and the implications of these representations for employment. Accounting for this diversity should contribute to reconstructing authoritative discourses (Bakhtin, 1981) regarding employment of racial minorities in public education and thus to making mainstream institutions more equitable and inclusive.

bibliographic entry

Beynon, J., Ilieva, R., Dichupa, M., Hirji, S. (2003). “Do you know your language?”: How teachers of Punjabi and Chinese ancestries construct their family languages in their personal and professional lives. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 2 (1), 1-27.

Globalization/s: Reproduction and resistance

bibliographic entry

Beck, K. (2012). Gbloaization/s: Reproduction and resistance in the internationalization of higher education. Canadian Journal of Education, 35(3), pp.133-148.

*I hate the ESL idea!

This case study of an undergraduate student in a Canadian university analyzes her resistance/acceptance of practices and possibilities for participation in academic discourses. Analyzing her responses to feedback on her writing, this study shows the strategies she engages for negotiating her multiple and contradictory identifications as she learns to write.

bibliographic entry

Waterstone, B. (2008b). “I hate the ESL idea!”: A case study in identity and academic literacy. TESL Canada Journal, 26(1), 52-68.

Locating Gold Mountain: Cultural capital and the internationalization of teacher education

This co-authored article reflects an initial grappling with questions around the internationalization of higher education and how it is tied to questions of language, identity, and cultural capital for non-native English language speakers preparing to be teachers of English. Possibilities for the student teachers’ integration within a “Centre” educational setting in ways that align internationalization to ethical practice are discussed through the employment of critical and postcolonial theorizing.

bibliographic entry

Beck, K., Ilieva, R., Scholefield, A., Waterstone, B. (2007). Locating Gold Mountain: Cultural capital and the internationalization of teacher education. Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, 3. Available online at http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/jaaacs/vol3.cfm  

*Non-native English Speaking Teachers’ Negotiations of Program Discourses in their Construction of Professional Identities within a TESOL Program

This article adds to work in applied linguistics that explores critically the impact of TESOL programs on international students in them by contributing a sociocultural Bakhtinian analysis of professional identity constructions of non-native English speaking teachers. It also presents implications of this research for teacher education programs in North American universities. 

bibliographic entry

Ilieva, R. (2010). Non-native English Speaking Teachers’ Negotiations of Program Discourses in their Construction of Professional Identities within a TESOL Program. Canadian Modern Language Review.66 (3), 343-369.

*Re-credentialling experiences of immigrant teachers: Negotiating institutional structures, professional identities and pedagogy

Teachers immigrating to Canada with credentials from non-Canadian jurisdictions are regarded as desirable immigrant professionals because of their high levels of education and yet, nevertheless, are required to redo some or all of their professional training. This research examines sociocultural notions of voice, agency, authorship and identity in considering how a group of 28 teachers with diverse professional and personal backgrounds, and with initial teaching credentials from outside Canada, perceive and respond to the institutional/structural constraints imposed by mainstream ‘gate-keeping’ institutions. Analysis of data from interviews and questionnaire indicates that teachers initially credentialed outside of Canada potentially have much to add to the education of students in Canadian schools. However, to achieve this potential it is necessary that these educators’ encounters with Canadian educational institutions engage rather than silence their voices. (PDF version available)

bibliographic entry

Beynon, J., Ilieva, R. Dichupa, M. (2004). Re-credentialling experiences of immigrant teachers: Negotiating institutional structures, professional identities and pedagogy. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 10 (4), 429-444.