Internationalised While Provincialised? A Case Study of South China Normal University

Abstract

Globalisation and internationalisation are both taken as salient features of our times in significant modern and post-modern social theories. Their impacts on the university are substantial. This study examines how Chinese universities are responding to these phenomena, using South China Normal University as an example. By presenting an analysis of China's internationalisation of higher education through an in-depth case study in an international context, the article captures some of the university's experience in its cultural complexity and social contexts. It sheds light on the general current state of internationalisation in the mainstream of China's higher education, and underscores the idea that changes attributed to globalisation are modified and fashioned by the particular circumstances and choices of local institutions. The study reveals how local circumstances offset and/or resist the global, and how difficult it can be to manage the global within the local in a new, changed context.