Beyond internationalisation and isomorphism – the construction of a global higher education regime

ABSTRACT

National higher education systems are undergoing profound changes, discussed in many but unrelated studies as outcomes of internationalisation dynamics and institutional isomorphism pressures. We propose to link these studies by emphasising the influence of both internationalisation and isomorphism on the formation of a global educational regime. Through a broad range of indicators, we describe the growth of the discursive, normative, and regulatory dimensions of such a global higher education regime. We find evidence of the following developments: (1) a rapidly growing network of international organisations focused on conferences, initiatives, and programmes supporting a global higher education agenda; (2) a striking increase in the number of international and national accreditation agencies, their mutual cross-national recognition as well as the number of universities that are nationally and internationally accredited; and lastly, (3) parallel increases in regional qualification frameworks and in the implementation of national qualification frameworks. These developments create integration pressures manifest in the mutual recognition of higher education degrees, for which a new generation of regional conventions has emerged worldwide in the past two decades. We discuss these processes and their implications for understanding ‘national’ higher education as well as the threats and limits to the burgeoning higher education regime.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• internationalisation
• isomorphism
• integration
• regime
• quality assurance and accreditation
• qualification frameworks
• recognition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mike Zapp is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Education and Society at the University of Luxembourg. Current work includes cross-national studies on higher education expansion and change and the role of science in global governance.

Francisco O. Ramirez is Professor of Education and Sociology (by courtesy) at Stanford University. Curren work includes comparative studies of university organisation in the era of ‘world class’ rankings and cross-national research on citizenship and human rights emphases in school textbooks. Ramirez is the Director of the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizations Research at Stanford.

Notes

1 Own calculation based on UNESCO 2017.

2 Own calculation based on data from Cross-Border Education Research Team (2017).

3 ICC events can be filtered by keywords and contain information on date, theme, sponsors, and participants. Our dataset contains ongoing and international initiatives as described by ICC entries and as indicated by the presence of a website, board, mission and explicit member structure.

4 Current conventions do not grant the right to automatic recognition of degrees based on the wholesale recognition of systemic equivalence. This automatism is only found in multilateral treaties (e.g. between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg).