A Discourse Analysis of University Internationalization Planning Documents

Universities’ commitments to internationalization have intensified over the past twenty years. However, most research that looks critically at internationalization in higher education is conducted outside of the U.S. In order to address this gap, Foucault’s framework of biopower and governmentality were applied to a discourse analysis of the ways in which Big Ten universities’ internationalization planning documents allow for both the reproduction as well as the challenging of neoliberal economic rationalities that permeate university internationalization efforts, and higher education more generally. Various discourses that shape the conduct of universities and university subjects were identified. However, the hegemony of neoliberal governmentality within internationalization efforts identified in the documents suggests that efforts to resist the dominance of economic rationality require pointed political economic critique. Further, critical engagement with the position of higher education within the blurred, shifting binaries of public and private, and local and global, would enable envisioning new subjectivities and transnational obligations that both eschew neoliberal economic imperatives and challenge the reproduction of the alterity produced by these imperatives.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

EDU Policy and Leadership

Grantor dc:publisher

The Ohio State University

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• Stein, Sharon

Contributors dc:contributor

• Suspitsyna, Tatiana

• Higher Education
• neoliberal governmentality
• neoliberalism
• internationalization
• Foucault
• discourse analysis

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1365764144

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:osu1365764144