The internationalisation of Norwegian academia: From a market-based logic towards sustainability?
Doctoral thesis
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3147069Utgivelsesdato
2024Metadata
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This thesis is about the internationalisation of Norwegian academia, which has long been an important policy concept in Norway, although we still have very little knowledge about what it actually means (Flobakk-Sitter & Hybertsen, 2021). The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) is used as the empirical site of the study. The thesis explores the dynamics of internationalisation between national policies, organisational priorities at NTNU and everyday life experiences of university staff. This exploration is based on a feminist approach towards internationalisation, where I have been particularly interested in studying the dynamics between internationalisation, gender equality and international diversity. The theoretical framework is based on Joan Acker’s feminist approaches to organisations, focusing on eliciting gendered, racialised and classed power dynamics in the workplace.
The methodology has been a situational analysis, which means that internationalisation itself is studied as the key unit of analysis. I base the analysis on data material from documents, as well as qualitative research interviews. To perform the situational analysis, I have also drawn upon sensitising concepts from Dorothy Smith’s Institutional Ethnography, primarily her tools for analysing textual discourses, power, and work-knowledges within institutions, as well as Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis.
The thesis includes four research articles: one critical discourse analysis of NTNU’s internationalisation policies, one based on qualitative research interviews with university administrators who are performing work connected to internationalisation, one that unpacks some of the ways in which these administrators frame key issues regarding international diversity, and one article that is co-authored with my supervisor Siri Øyslebø Sørensen, which explores tensions between the use of English and Norwegian. All research articles focus on NTNU as the empirical site.
One key finding from the thesis is that, since the late 1990s, there has been a strong political will from actors both inside and outside of academia to work towards internationalisation. During this time, ‘internationalisation’ has been discursively tied to a market-based logic of investments, strategic cooperation, how to adapt to global competition and take advantage of resources in the global knowledge market, and a quantitative focus on diversity and researcher excellence. In the introductory essay, I analyse some of the ways in which this strategic conceptualisation shapes academic work-cultures; including researcher ideals, work-conditions for university administrators, international diversity resulting in differences in work-cultures, and the increased use of English, which manifests in rising tensions concerning the Norwegian language. These issues are analysed through a framework of feminist theories of power.
The goal of the thesis has not been to answer the questions of whether internationalisation is good or bad, or whether it has gone too far or not far enough for Norwegian academia, but rather to explore how internationalisation is both conceptualised through policies and in discourses, and how people in a Norwegian university setting experience it. I have aimed to dispel some of the dichotomies that are drawn up when these topics are discussed, and to empirically explore some of the gender and diversity dynamics. One conclusion drawn is that internationalisation as a concept is not inherently problematic- but I am critical to the way that it has been discursively tied a language of market-based logics.
In the conclusion, I launch an alternative approach: sustainable internationalisation. A potential turning away from internationalisation should not necessarily be replaced by a turn towards a sense of nationalism; rather, sustainable internationalisation would mean anchoring internationalisation strategies in local contexts, as there are large differences between research environments and units, including local challenges, inequalities and power dynamics. We should also ask what Norway, NTNU and other universities want to gain from internationalisation and what some of the consequences are for people working, giving space for both positive and negative experiences. The focus could also shift from quantitatively counting the numbers of female academics and international researchers as the measures for ‘gender and diversity’ and rather focus on how to foster good work-environments in the meeting with global competition and the pressures of a work-life that expects people to work smarter and more efficiently in changing conditions. By doing this, universities might aim towards balancing the demands of Norwegian society, the global knowledge market and their responsibilities towards equality and inclusion.
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Paper 1: Flikke, Julie Katrine. Internasjonalisering av norsk akademia: Kjønnslikestilling som blindflekk. Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning 2022 ;Volum 46.(3/4) s. 137-149. Published by Universitetsforlaget. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 License. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.18261/tfk.46.3.3Paper 2: Flikke, Julie Katrine. Invisible, and not enough: University administration’s perspectives on their role in internationalization. This paper is submitted for publication and is therefore not included.
Paper 3: Flikke, Julie Katrine. Identifying What is Missing: International Diversity and Inclusion in Norwegian Academia. Nordic Journal of Social Research 2024 ;Volum 15.(1) s. 1-13. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 License. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.18261/njsr.15.1.3
Paper 4: Flikke, Julie Katrine; Sørensen, Siri Øyslebø. Language practices in the tension between scholarly prestige and institutional power: a study of negotiations between English and Norwegian at a university in Norway. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (JMMD) 2024. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2024.2332606