Globalisation, Internationalization and the English Language in Greek Higher Education

Author(s):

Areti Vogopoulou(presenting / submitting)Antigone Sarakinioti(presenting)Anna Tsatsaroni

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

23 SES 05 B, Globalisation, Europeanisation and Higher Education Reforms

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

11:00-12:30

Room:

418.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Xavier Rambla

Contribution

Responses of Higher Education to globalization have been versions of internationalization, taking different forms in different institutions (Knight, 2004). Higher Education institutions (HEIs) in Europe, working towards the construction and consolidation of the European Higher Education Area, are expected to promote an international dimension in their practices and to increase effective academic staff and student mobility. These are deemed to be essential constituents of their European outlook. The challenges of internationalization and mobility bring up the issue of linguistic competency, as this is closely linked to both processes (Altbach , 2004). The language issue, however, is rarely addressed directly and the English language appears to be widely adopted, stabilized as the “contact language” (Brumfit, 2001) of the academia (Coleman, 2006).

Within Greek HEIs, a recently introduced reform law (Law 4009/2011) and the actions taken for its implementation have increased the importance of mobility and internationalization. Amidst a severe economic crisis, HEIs are expected, if not forced, to introduce reforms in line with a neo-liberal understanding of their mission and practices of performativity. As knowledge institutions they are assumed to operate successfully in a highly competitive global environment (Robertson & Dale, 2008; Seddon & Levin, 2013). Pressures for change were mainly exerted by the development of the national quality assurance and accreditation system. The Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency (H.Q.A.), an independent and specialised agent supervised by the Ministry of Education, coordinated internal and external evaluations of the HEIs. The first cycle of evaluations was finally completed in 2014. The documents produced, accessible from the H.Q.A. and the institutions’ websites, provide representations of the institutions’ standings based on criteria derived from global standards for productivity, competitiveness and accountability.

In this context, the English language appears to be crucial in two respects. First, as an issue related to the language of communication between the evaluation committees, constituted by experts from abroad, and the departments of Higher Education. It is worth noting that the external evaluation reports were written in English. Second, language and its role in teaching, research and publications, as well as in staff and student mobility, was highlighted as an issue of concern.

In this paper, we argue that the discourse articulated by the processes of evaluation and quality assurance mediates the global discourse on higher education with reference to language-related issues that are brought into focus through internationalization and mobility practices. Evaluative criteria constitute the regulative dimension exerting control over processes of knowledge recontextualisation and pedagogic communication, as internationalization, mobility and language use are transformed from hitherto marginal issues into practices that are subjected to performance measurement. Language related knowledge is thus redefined and boundaries are redrawn around legitimate pedagogic practices, teaching methods and academic identities- for students and teaching staff (Bernstein, 2000, Sarakinioti et al., 2011). It is in such spaces, where meaning making becomes a complex process, that power and control relations are reproduced, challenged or changed (Singh et al, 2013). Moreover, internationalization and mobility, signifiers of a European/international identity, are being transformed into sites of concern and regulation for HEIs, changing what constitutes legitimate foreign language knowledge and use. Drawing on Foucault-inspired literature on governmental practices in education (Ball, 2013) and Bernstein’s (1990, 2000) theory of pedagogic discourse, this study aims to comprehend global regulative processes and the ‘pedagogising’ dynamics that come into play in specific local institutional sites.

Method

This paper draws on an on-going research study aiming to trace the responses of Greek HEIs to the globalizing forces driving reforms and change. The study focuses on internationalization and mobility pressures and their links to language policy, as they play out in every day teaching, research and administration practices of the academics and the institutions. The study is oriented by research questions around the following issues: the spread of English in the departments of HEIs; the strategies that departments, academics and other personnel developed to manage the demands and potentialities of this new regime; the identification of practical barriers and opportunities for academics of different disciplines; the relationships between English and Greek with reference to the advancement of knowledge in specific fields; and the role of all of these for individual and collective identities. Two sets of data will be used in this presentation. First, documents consisting of the internal and external evaluation reports of Higher Education departments, produced and made public through the quality assurance programme of HQA. Second, semi-structured interviews with key policy-actors at institutional level. The research sample comprises of Universities and Technological Educational Institutions (TEIs), two distinct sectors within the Greek Higher Education system. In particular, data is derived from selected departments from three Greek Universities and three TEIs. These institutions are representative of the Greek Higher Education sector. There is a high-ranked, reputable university and TEI; a well-established university and TEI and a more recently established university and TEI positioned lower in the hierarchy of Greek HEIs. Furthermore, the departments from each institution chosen for this study differ in terms of their tradition, history, status etc., features that give them their specific identity. From a theoretical and methodological perspective, the internal and external evaluation reports are the official representations of the dominant discourse on higher education in Greece. Using theoretical resources, as in the preceding section, they are analysed in conjunction with the discourse produced by key policy-makers at the institutional level. The analysis traces articulations between knowledge, internationalization, mobility and the norms and values which constitute competent language users in an academic context.

Expected Outcomes

This study helps to further our understanding of the current developments in Greek Higher Education with reference to internationalization, mobility and the linguistic challenge linked to these processes. It explores from a critical perspective the processes that in this specific context motivate the adoption of English, a phenomenon which has become widespread in HE internationally (Wachter, 2008; Jenkins, 2014) and so it concerns HEIs in Europe and beyond. Aligned with the existing international literature on new forms of governance (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010; Lawn & Grek, 2012) and the role of knowledge in these (Bernstein, 2000, Ozga, 2009, Seddon & Levin, 2013), our analysis reveals how performance technologies regulate knowledge recontextualisation processes in H.E., re-drawing boundaries and creating new spaces for negotiating meanings. Values and norms change as to what constitutes legitimate foreign language knowledge and respective practices and identities. This is exemplified in the talk of the interviewees who strive to make sense of the processes of globalization where internationalization and therefore linguistic communication become central in measuring academic activity and evaluating outcomes of institutions and academics. Academic professional development, quality of higher education, accessibility to and dissemination of knowledge in relation to English as the language of instruction, international exchanges and publishing prospects emerge in the academics’ discourse as vital to their professional activity and existence. Thus, language competency is brought into focus, discussed and evaluated within pedagogical practices that re-orient identity construction. Academics admit that they experience «pressures» in relation to the English language stemming from its «globalised» use and «globalising» capacities which as they point out, creates conditions for asymmetries. Overall, English becomes a matter of identity in the academics’ struggle to navigate between global-cosmopolitan and local/national spaces.

References

Altbach, P.G. (2004). Globalisation and the University: Myths and realities in an unequal world. Tertiary Education and Management, 10:3-25. Ball, S.J. (2013). Foucault, Power and Education. New York and London:Routledge. Bernstein, B. (1990). The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse. London:Routledge Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity. Theory, research, critique. Revised edition. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Brumfit, C. (2001). Individual Freedom in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coleman, J.A. (2006). English-medium teaching in European Higher Education. Language Teaching, 39 (1) 1-14. Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a Lingua Franca in the International University. The politics of academic English language polic. Oxford:Routledge. HQA (2014). External and Internal evaluation reports. http://www. hqaa.gr/en/exteval.php and htpp://www.hqaa.gr/en/inteval.php Knight, J. (2004). Internationalization remodeled: Definition, approaches, and rationales. Journal of Studies in International Education, 8 (1): 5-31. Law 4009/2011 Structure, function, quality assurance in studies and internationalization of institutions of higher education. Government Gazette, 195, vol. A’, 06.09.2011 Lawn, M. & Grek, S. (2012). Europeanizing Education: governing a new policy space. Oxford Symposium. Ozga, J. (2009). Governing education through data in England: from regulation to self-evaluation. Journal of Education Policy, 24 (2), 149-162. Rizvi, F. & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalising Education Policy. London/New York: Routledge. Robertson S. & Dale, R. (2008). Researching Education in a Globalising Era. In J. Resnik (ed.), The Production of Educational Knowledge in the Global Era (pp. 19-32). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Sarakinioti, A., Tsatsaroni, A. & Stamelos, G. (2011). Changing knowledge in Higher Education. In G. Ivinson, B. Davies & J. Fitz (Eds.), Knowledge and Identity: Concepts and application in Bernstein's sociology (pp. 69-89). London: Routledge. Seddon, T. & Levin, J. (eds) (2013) World Yearbook of Education. Educators, Professionalism and Politics: Global Transitions, National Spaces and Professional Projects, London: Routledge. Singh, P.,Thomas, S. & Harris, J. (2013). Recontextualising policy discourses: a Bernsteinian perspective on policy interpretation, translation, enactment. Journal of Education Policy, 28 (4): 465-480. Wachter, B. (2008) Teaching in English on the rise in European higher education, International Higher Education, 52, 3-24.

Author Information

Areti Vogopoulou (presenting / submitting)

Technological Education Institution of Peloponnese

Food Technology

Kalamata

Antigone Sarakinioti (presenting)

University of the Peloponnese, Department of Social and Education Policy, Greece

Anna Tsatsaroni