Internationalization of higher education has received considerable attention in the past two decades. The particular dimension of curriculum change remains, however, an important blind spot, especially in large-scale cross-national research designs. Drawing on the most comprehensive data set on public and private HE organizations available, the World Higher Education Database, covering N=16,282 HEOs from 191 countries.

The work looks at two analytical categories of curriculum internationalization. A first category is interested in the content, i.e. the study programs, degrees and themes linked with internationalization in HE curricula worldwide. The second category tests for the prevalence of internationalized curricula across countries, sectors (public, private non-profit, private for-profit), cohorts (1960s, 1990s and 2000s) and specific types of HE organizations (business schools vs regular universities).

Early results indicate that internationalization is a strikingly widespread phenomenon across various study programs, degrees and disciplinary groups. Surprisingly, it also becomes clear that internationalization has grown to a similar degree across countries, sectors, cohorts and types of HE organizations.

We seek to embed these findings in relevant literature and propose strategies for further research.  

Drawing on the most comprehensive data set on public and private HE organizations available, the World Higher Education Database, covering N=16,282 HEOs from 191 countries, we employ several statistical methods (e.g. regression analysis) to test a wide range of hypothesis.

Early results indicate that internationalization is a strikingly widespread phenomenon across various study programs, degrees and disciplinary groups. Surprisingly, it also becomes clear that internationalization has grown to a similar degree across countries, sectors, cohorts and types of HE organizations.

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