Taking a critical stance toward internationalization ideologies in higher education: idealism, instrumentalism and educationalism

Abstract

This article suggests that difficulties in the implementation of internationalization policies in higher education can be explained by the fact that universities are guided by divergent understandings of the term ‘internationalization’ as well as by diverging or even contradictory ideologies. This text, therefore, critically singles out and investigates three internationalization ideologies, referred to as idealism, instrumentalism and educationalism with a special emphasis on their explicit as well as implicit visions, foci, goals and strategies.