Diversity and multilingual challenges in academic settings

ABSTRACT

Higher Education is caught between internationalization on the one hand and the quest for local support by fostering local practices on the other. The clash between uniformity-standardization and localization-specialization manifests itself in every university trying to adopt internationalization strategies. How can universities manage this tension? Is diversity considered beneficial or a barrier to the internationalization process? The aim of this paper is to explore under what conditions a multilingual academic and scientific program helps to create an inclusive environment in academic settings to cope with international mobility and language diversity. The paper will discuss concepts of multilingual education upon which universities can draw. An analysis of multilingual policies will shed light on the ways they shape and create favorable conditions for the construction and transmission of knowledge in an internationalized academic context. The results drawn from the experts’ perspectives on language policy and from the analysis of plurilingual practices in the process of knowledge construction, where hybridity is associated with multimodality, point towards a balance to be found between the use of an English lingua academica and the plurilingual academic and scientific cultures.

KEYWORDS:

• Language diversity management and measures
• multilingual program
• plurilingual practices in higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Instructions du Conseil fédéral concernant la promotion du plurilinguisme dans l’administration fédérale, 2003. / Office fédéral du personnel, Guide pour la promotion du plurilinguisme, Département fédéral des finances, Mai 2009. /Promotion du plurilinguisme dans l’administration fédérale de 2008 à 2011, rapport d’évaluation au Conseil fédéral, Office fédéral du personnel, Département fédéral des finances, 2010.

2 www.snf.ch/SiteCollectionDocuments/…/dos_sprachenpolitik_snf_e.pdf; http://www.snf.ch/en/theSNSF/research-policies/language-policy/Pages/default.aspx; http://ww.snf.ch/en/theSNSF/research-policies/Pages/default.aspx (Retrieved in January, 2016).

3 Discourse of the social actors about their practices, about their ‘shared’ or ‘personal’ opinions on what is written in official documents.

4 More precisely, the interventions of the actors in the field are situated at three levels: Common project development, taking into account their needs; semi-directive interviews, giving them a voice; and returning to their grounds with the results (knowledge transfer activities).

5 The interviews were conducted in English, and the citations in this chapter are in their original version.

6 The main questions addressed in the interviews were to identify how these specialists define diversity and diversity management, what their philosophy on managing diversity is, how they help companies to manage their diverse workforce, what their areas of specification are and how they measure the impact of their recommendations and training. (See Yanaprasart, 2016b)

7 http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Benefits_Challenges.pdf (retrieved in January 2016).

8 “Diversity of experience, age, physical ability, religion, race, ethnicity, gender” (2010:3).

9 http://www.iau-aiu.net/content/iau-global-surveys (retrieved in January 2016).

10 http://www.unil.ch/egalite/fr/home/menuinst/promotion-de-legalite.html (retrieved in January 2016).

11 http://www.unil.ch/diversite/en/home/menuinst/diversite-a-lunil.html (retrieved in January 2016)

12 What are the challenges and opportunities with increasingly diverse student and faculty populations?; How can we increase awareness and sensitivity to the differences we each bring to the classroom?; How can these differences be obstacles in the learning process?; How do we turn them into opportunities? (http://www.unil.ch/diversite/en/home/menuinst/ateliers-diversite.html (retrieved in January 2016)).

13 Accroître ses compétences en recherche et en enseignement grâce à la collaboration; avec des partenaires étrangers. (2) Accroître la renommée internationale de l’UNIL afin d’attirer des talents à tous les niveaux; (3) Faciliter l’accès des étudiants de l’UNIL aux programmes d’études de hautes écoles étrangères et renforcer la valeur de ses diplômes en dehors de Suisse; (4) Développer les compétences internationales de ses étudiants; (5) Participer activement aux développements internationaux de l’enseignement et de la recherche (Université de Lausanne 2009, 1) Universite de Lausanne (2009). Strategie internationale de l’Universite de Lausanne. Online: http://www.unil.ch/international/page81065.html.

14 Exposé du Colloque à huis clos « Langues et images de la science » du Conseil des Académies scientifiques suisses » le 28 février 2003 à Thoune.

15 In this paper, we follow the Council of Europe's terminology, which distinguishes between individual plurilingualism and social and institutional multilingualism (Council of Europe [2001] 2011).