Entrenched disadvantage and the internationalization of education: A review of the Science without Border Program in Brazil

Abstract

Brazil has focused on internationalization of the higher education sector, in response to trends across the globe. The main program for promoting internationalization was the Science without Borders program. The paper analyses Brazilian international mobility from a regional perspective, particularly reviewing how inequality affected access to fellowships. The Northeast Region, which historically records higher poverty indicators than the South and Southeast regions, showed average growth statistically equal to the Southeast Region. By comparing access to scholarships and fellowships between the two largest regions of Brazil, this paper sought to analyze any structural change between the Southeast region and the Northeast. The Science without Borders (Ciência sem Fronteira, in Portuguese) program has achieved considerable results. In the first four years of the program, completed student exchange programs increased by 1,620% (i.e., 2011-2014). Despite this, the structure of unequal regional access remained. Using the hypothesis test methodology T for means with different variances, it was possible to evaluate at a significance level of 95%. The two largest regions in Brazil maintained the unequal profile of access to the program. The conclusion is that the growth in the offer of scholarships for internationalization between 2010 and 2019 has not changed the unequal regional profile of access to public education services in Brazil.

Science teaching in BRICS: A systematic review of pedagogical approaches and challenges

“…While national assessments show strong improvement in science scores since 2005, performance remains unequal across regions and socioeconomic strata. Science without borders program has achieved considerable results, but the structure of unequal regional access to scholarships and fellowships remains unchanged (Barbosa et al, 2022). Teachers face systemic challenges like lacking infrastructure, inadequate teacher training (Ribas Rodrigues & dos Santos, 2019) and minimal practical application of scientific concepts (Ferreira et al, 2013).…”

The Internationalization of brazilian postgraduate programs : a strategic approach

“…In Brazil, internationalization is primarily financed by federal funding agencies (McManus et al, 2020;McManus and Neves, 2021a). Research in this area is focussed on language policies (Finardi, 2019;Guimarães, Finardi and Casotti, 2019) or, in more recent years, the Brazilian Scientific Mobility or Science without Borders (SwB) program (Barbosa, Adefila and Garcia, 2022). This latter program lasted from 2011 to 2016 and was based in the Home Secretary's office (directly linked to the country's president) and aimed to send 101.000 students (mainly undergraduates) and higher education lecturers abroad.…”