The internationalisation of a university as local practices: A case study

Abstract

This article presents a case study of the internationalisation of an Engineering School at a leading Swedish University. The case study is an attempt to sketch out a more qualitative analytical approach to the study of internationalisation, focusing on the interplay between agency and structure and policy and practice as constructed by actors on the ‘meso’ and ‘micro’ levels of the organisation. We aim to provide a contribution to existing empirical studies that have usually focused on the national and institutional level of policy setting and implementation without adequately taking the perspective of local actors or local organisational cultures into account. The results of the case study show that internationalisation is materialised in many forms within the School, sometimes as a policy or a set of practices derived from the agency of specific actors (administrators or academic leaders), but equally as specific, varied local educational practices and cultural meanings construed within various micro cultures of academics working directly through their own global-local networks.