Critical reflections on internationalising at home (IaH) in business education: A phenomenological case-enquiry into the positioning and experiences of staff in the context of international higher education (IHE) in the UK and France

Abstract

Internationalisation is associated widely with quality of education and sustainability for all. However, it does not engage the majority of stakeholders whether students or staff, prompting experts to identify a gap between rhetoric and reality. This thesis investigates internationalisation in Business Education at universities in the UK and France, according to staff reported perceptions in relation to Internationalisation at Home (IaH), and strategies in European contexts. It positions within both IaH and Global Englishes -or Lingua Franca- fields of enquiry, drawing on a ‘trans’, multilingual, and complexity turn in sociolinguistics to assist characterisation and interpretation of data. Using semi-structured interviews and secondary data collection in the field with a critical discursive comparative case study approach, this enquiry yields insights into ideological forces (exemplified by ‘neoliberalism’ or ‘monolingualism’), and various elements that emerge in the relationships between language and curriculum. The methodology brings a transdisciplinary agenda to improve understanding and awareness of the experiences of teachers/researchers with an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) as a method. IPA elicits categories of description and an outcome structure. Findings show specific resistance(s) and disciplinary tension(s), at times a “ridicule” (in France) or uncomfortable place of English, especially as Medium-of-Instruction (EMI) for teachers/researchers readiness and willingness, even if EMI is an acknowledged global driver for international education. They reveal no uniform engagement with the idea of Global Citizenship and participants report difficulty in contextualising ‘glocal’ perspectives. This carries ideological risk of exclusiveness. There is a lack of nurturing intentional and actively reflected place for local and foreign languages, in addition to elite-languages (such as English and French), for cognition, performativity and diversity in the use of language as tool of communication, be it English-as-a-Lingua Franca (ELF) or French as-a-Lingua Franca (FLF), following the same line, a reflection about CLIL-isation (Contents-Language Integrated-Learning) as not only cost-saving, but translanguaging solutions for L1/L2/L3 use pedagogically. An alternative way reveals itself through explicit international, linguacultural, Global Englishes’ perspectives, including Lingua Francas, in pedagogy alongside a committed strategy of “international engagement” at a French university (i.e Term as a variation from “global engagement”) and reflective staff professional development towards conscious transformative internationalisation.

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ORCID for Elise Agnes Rose-Marie Nichols: orcid.org/0000-0002-9729-1830

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