Social Science Matters: Internationalization
International education in the Netherlands is under pressure. There is pressure on the student housing market, and there is a greater desire among right-wing parties to keep our education and students within the borders and to make studies Dutch-language. In these social matters we look at what international education and students bring us. And what the pitfalls are.
How does English-language education work for students whose native language is not English? An international classroom, with different languages, backgrounds and cultures, how does that work? And will we get more global cooperation and knowledge exchange through international studies? What are the consequences if we start doing everything in Dutch again?
Internationalization adds value to various courses
- Igor Boog, Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology
We understand and share the concerns about problems with the increase in the number of (international) students, in particular with regard to problems with accommodation, the problem that some study programmes cannot cope with a large increase and the fact that some study programmes are not waiting for large groups of international students.
However, these problems should not be solved by limiting the number of international students in general. After all, there are programmes where internationalisation is of great value. For the labour market, but also in terms of content and didactics. The programme Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CAOS) is a good example.
Our (CAOS) students learn to understand and investigate how people interpret the world and how people behave. To this end, it is essential that students learn to recognise that different (groups of) people interpret the world in different ways. In this respect, it is not enough for students to learn that aspects of their own worldview are not necessarily shared by others: they must also learn to question their own worldview. And it goes without saying: the more diverse the group of students is, the better students can be enabled to develop these skills.
At the same time as developing these skills, our students also develop other insights essential to our discipline. For instance, our students learn that the idea of 'cultures' as relatively fixed, static and place-bound (an idea that was unfortunately brought into the world partly by cultural anthropologists), is an outdated idea that unfortunately still causes quite a few misunderstandings. 'Culture' is dynamic and is constantly being created, maintained and changed by people together. Studying with an international group of students can be very helpful in developing this understanding.
And finally, the labour market. Organisations increasingly demand employees who are able to work in groups of people from different (cultural) backgrounds, interpreting context and the perspectives of others. This is exactly what our students learn, as these are essential skills for any anthropologist. And it is of great added value that our students develop these skills in a study environment that reflects the diverse and complex world in which they will also have to find their way after their studies.
Exclusively Dutch?
- Ruthie Pliskin & Gert-Jan Lelieveld, Education and Child Studies
The proposed policy changes to limit English-language teaching in Dutch universities have not yet been finalized, and are not expected to go into full effect for at least five years. Nonetheless, their effects can already be felt across Dutch academic institutions, with internal discussion centering on the financial impacts of the changes and what they mean for international students. Virtually absent from the discussion are international staff, despite the potential far-reaching consequences for this group. And this group is worried. Official university communication has yet to address the impacts for international staff, but the ongoing discussions generate feelings of stress, uncertainty, insecurity about their future at the university, and even feelings of exclusion.
This means that, for this group, the impacts are already very present. Otherness is always a potential predictor of social exclusion, and in fact international staff may already face language-related challenges to joining committees and boards, meaning they are often excluded from decision-making. Research shows that such lack of voice and representation exacerbates feelings of social exclusion, which in turn threaten people’s fundamental needs of belongingness, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. Moreover, when decision-making is fundamentally related to international staff’s future—as in the case of internationalization—the felt exclusion is augmented by anxieties that the group’s needs are not properly being considered. To restore a sense of inclusion and voice for international staff, the discussion needs to change: Not only should the ramifications for this group be actively considered and communicated, but this groups needs to be actively represented at all level of policy, which include decision making as well as communication.
For now, all this group can turn to are rumors, and such rumors can be ominous. An apt illustration came last week, when a tweet about the proposed policy spread like wildfire. The tweet stated that faculty members—even tenured ones—could be fired under the new regulations for not meeting new language requirements. Is this the case? Better, more inclusive decision making and communication would allow staff from all background to know the answer, and prepare accordingly.
Social Science Matters– a soapbox for social scientists
Social Science Matters is an online variant on London’s famous Speakers’ Corner – a platform for the researchers in the various disciplines in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences to react to the news. This soapbox gives the social scientists of the faculty the opportunity to voice their opinions on current affairs from the point of view of their own areas of expertise.