This paper presents partial findings from an ongoing research project examining the place of international academic engagement in the careers of French education researchers. The project is conducted by members of the International Commission of the French Educational Research Association (AECSE), itself a member of the European Educational Research Association (EERA). It originated from a shared observation and a recurrent question within this research group: why are French researchers in educational sciences consistently under-represented at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER)?

This question is empirically grounded in participation data from recent ECER conferences, which reveal a persistent gap between French participation and overall attendance: 32 French participants at ECER 2025 in Belgrade (out of 2,498); 19 at ECER 2024 in Nicosia (out of 2,282); 43 at ECER 2023 in Glasgow (out of 3,309); 22 at ECER 2022 in Yerevan and ECER Plus (out of 1,876); and 54 at ECER 2021 in Geneva (online, out of 2,383). These figures raise questions about the structural and institutional conditions shaping international engagement among French education researchers, particularly within a European research space increasingly characterized by competition, mobility, performance indicators, and international collaboration.

The central research question guiding this paper is therefore: How do national academic career structures, disciplinary norms, and assessment mechanisms shape the international academic engagement of French researchers in educational sciences? Rather than approaching internationalization as a self-evident or homogeneous process, this study conceptualizes international academic engagement as a situated, differentiated, and career-dependent practice, embedded in specific institutional, temporal, and disciplinary configurations.

More specifically, the paper examines how international activities - such as participation in European conferences, international publications, research collaborations, and mobility programs - are variously encouraged, constrained, or unevenly valued across different stages of academic careers. These practices are analyzed in relation to national assessment frameworks, notably the role of the Conseil National des Universités (CNU), the national body responsible for qualification, promotion, and career advancement of lecturers (maîtres de conférences) and full professors (professeurs des universités). The CNU defines discipline-specific academic norms, including the use of journal lists that play a decisive role in career progression. While internationalization is increasingly promoted in policy discourse, its concrete recognition in evaluation procedures remains uneven and often implicit, particularly at early career stages.

This institutional analysis is situated within broader European and global debates on the transformation of education research. Recent calls to revitalize European educational research in times of global change (Sivesind & Ydesen, 2025) highlight how international engagement is increasingly shaped by competitive funding regimes, governance by numbers, and transnational policy agendas (Musselin, 2018). Research on policy brokerage and global governance (Steiner-Khamsi, Martens, & Ydesen, 2024) further shows how indicators such as publication metrics, international rankings, and participation in European programs redefine academic excellence while producing new hierarchies between disciplines and national research communities. In this context, educational sciences occupy an ambivalent position: expected to demonstrate international visibility, yet evaluated through national disciplinary norms that may not fully recognise European or global forms of engagement (Albero & Barthes, 2020).

Anchored in the thematic field “Internationalisation in Higher Education” of EERA Network 22, this paper adopts a sociological and institutional approach to internationalization. It conceptualizes international academic engagement both as a socially differentiated practice, shaped by national career regimes, disciplinary cultures, generational dynamics, and transnational research spaces and as a process unfolding across multiple career temporalities – doctoral training, early career stabilization, and senior leadership – each associated with distinct expectations, opportunities, and constraints. By focusing on educational sciences in France, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how internationalization processes operate unevenly across disciplines and national contexts within Europe.

The study adopts a mixed-methods design combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to capture both structural trends and interpretative insights regarding international academic engagement. The quantitative component is based on a large-scale online survey conducted between November and December 2023. The survey yielded 283 exploitable responses from academics working in educational sciences and training studies. The questionnaire comprised more than 50 questions organized into 6 sections:
(a) sociological characteristics (academic status, gender, country of professional activity);
(b) post-secondary education and academic trajectories, including international mobility during or after the Ph.D.;
(c) foreign language practices and competencies (reading, speaking, writing, participation in conferences and scientific activities, and language learning);
(d) the international dimension of research (forms and needs of international collaboration, conditions under which collaborations emerged, participation in mobility programs);
(e) funding of international research projects (applications to European or international programs, institutional support mechanisms);
(f) communication and publication practices in international conferences and journals. This survey allows for a differentiated analysis according to career stage, status (lecturer, i.e. maître de conférences vs. full professor, i.e. professeur des universités), and generational cohort, shedding light on inequalities in access to and engagement with international academic spaces. The qualitative component consists of 7 semi-structured interviews conducted with senior French academics in educational sciences who have served as presidents or vice-presidents of the relevant CNU section. These interviews aim to contextualize the quantitative findings by exploring institutional norms, evaluation criteria, and implicit expectations regarding internationalization. The exploratory interview guide focuses on career assessment practices, the role of international activities in promotion decisions, perceived disciplinary specificities, and changes over time. All interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. This thematic analysis made it possible to identify recurring categories and tensions, which were then used to refine and interpret the quantitative results, ensuring a robust triangulation of data.

This research provides a nuanced picture of the internationalization of French educational sciences and its career-related implications. First, the findings highlight how the French university system and its national assessment mechanisms shape differentiated forms of international engagement. While international activities are increasingly encouraged, their recognition remains uneven and more strongly valued for professors than for lecturers, particularly in promotion to higher ranks. Second, the results suggest that French education researchers do engage internationally, though often within Francophone or regionally structured networks, which tend to be less visible in dominant European indicators such as English-language publications or ECER participation. This challenges deficit-based narratives portraying the discipline as weakly internationalized (Albero & Barthes, 2020; Rinaudot & Baron, 2012; Robert, 2023). Third, a clear generational effect emerges: younger researchers display stronger engagement with English-language practices and international conferences, reflecting broader transformations in doctoral training and academic socialization. However, these efforts often collide with institutional constraints and limited support structures. Finally, the study underlines the central role of learned societies and professional associations in facilitating international networking, particularly for researchers operating outside large European-funded projects. These organizations function as key intermediaries between national academic spaces and international research arenas. Overall, the paper contributes to European debates on the internationalization of higher education by demonstrating how national career regimes, disciplinary cultures, and generational change jointly shape academic internationalization. It calls for more context-sensitive and inclusive approaches to assess international commitment in education research across Europe.

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