Internationalization Motivations and Strategies of Israeli Educational Administration Programs

Abstract

Internationalization became a mainstreamed goal of almost every higher education institution, and institutions are expected to proactively implement this process. Although as an academic discipline, education is considered to be one of the most contextrelated and locally oriented ones, it had not avoided pressures to internationalize. Within the flurry of research on internationalization, a paucity of information exists on the perceptions of academic leadership regarding internationalization within academic educational administration programs, which are preparing future schools' leadership, who may in turn act as catalysts or inhibitors of internationalization at schools. This study aims to fill this gap with a comprehensive, in-depth, interview-based analysis of the views and opinions of educational administration program directors within diverse contextual settings in the Israeli higher education system, including the large research universities and colleges in the Jewish and Palestinian-Arab sectors, with both secular and religious inclinations. We identified three major discrete themes in the perceptions of educational administrative directors regarding internationalization: (a) the program's purpose, (b) internationalization's relations with the institutions' goals, and (c) internationalization's meaning. This study sheds light on the motivations for and obstacles facing internationalization from the underresearched perspective of educational administration degree program directors operating within the complex tension of the global-local nexus in education systems.Keywords globalization and international higher education, internationalization of the curriculum, strategic institutional management of internationalization, national and transnational

The implementation of internationalisation in Israeli teacher training colleges

“…We focus on teaching-oriented institutions which, albeit diverse, all belong to the same category of colleges in second-tier higher education institutions and which we have found in previous research to be investing efforts to re-position themselves as first-tier institutions in the constantly changing environment of Israeli higher education . Here, we continue this line of research by analysing students' perceptions of internationalisation in those colleges (Yemini, Holzmann, Fadilla, Natur, & Stavans, 2014) and faculties' views of the process (Yemini & Giladi, 2015).…”

International mobility and cultural perceptions among senior teacher educators in Israel: ‘I have learned to suspend judgment’

“…This is reflected not only in encouraging staff members to produce international research, but also in internal management, in decisions about recruiting a diverse staff with an emphasis on multiculturalism, in the process of absorbing students from different sectors and regions. This trend is especially evident in secular colleges (which naturally espouse the values of democracy, openness, pluralism, and equality), but there are also sparks in the 'ultra-" (religious-Jewish and Arab) academic colleges, which, up until a decade ago, maintained their identity as a convenient institution for students from the relevant groups and provided them with the best preparation available for teaching in these religious sectors (Yemini and Giladi 2015).…”

The content of higher education internationalization policy: stakeholders’ insight of internationalization of higher education

“…First, the need to improve the quality, qualifications, and competencies of international human resources so that they can strengthen the pillars of the country's competitiveness [2,4]. Second, the need to create intellectual diversity as the implication of a pluralistic era in which individuals must be able to accept and adapt to face the world with different cultural backgrounds, customs, religion, and beliefs [4][5][6]. Third, internationalization can motivate individuals to compete [7].…”