The internationalised university as discourse: institutional self‐presentations, rhetoric and benchmarking in a global market

Abstract

In the last half century higher education has had to respond to a rapidly accentuated process of globalisation. Consequently, universities worldwide are more concerned with internationalisation than before. Stier identifies three intrinsic internationalisation ideologies (idealism, instrumentalism and educationalism) in higher education. Drawing from these ideologies and using discourse analysis, written documentation on internationalisation from 31 universities in 12 countries has been analysed to explore the self‐presentations that universities project of themselves in discursive space. Focal questions were: (1) what types of rhetorical devices are used in university’s self‐presentations and (2) what are the ideological consequences of this use? Five idealtypical self‐presentations were discussed. One conclusion drawn is that universities must harmonize politically controversial dichotomies, which produces consensus narratives. Yet there are potential tensions between these dichotomies. On the language level these tensions are resolved by harmonising different ideals.

Keywords:

• higher education
• internationalisation
• ideology
• discourse
• rhetoric

Notes

1. To assist the reader, however, brief information on these institutions’ size, location, legal status or academic profile is provided in the text. Enrollment numbers are approximate and from 2008.